Apparently, it’s all in the enzymes… when you cut open an onion, you break the cell walls, which releases a bunch of chemicals into the open and allows enzyme to make what’s essentially the scientific version of tear gas… which led some other scientists to genetically modify an onion to be “tear less.” Who knew?
Read more here.
Just heard of this super cool application of artificial intelligence to ecology!
Apparently, because of overfishing, the predators of the crown-of-stars starfish are decreasing in population size, which is leaving them to grow rampant. They normally eat the polyps on the Great Barrier Reef though, and so now, not only are humans destroying it at a rapid rate, but the crown-of-stars starfish are as well.
As a result, scientists have crafted a robot (COTsbot) that shimmies up and down the coast of the Great Barrier Reef and injects poison into all the crown-of-stars starfish that eat polyps.
Read more here.
Here’s to you and yours and a Happy New Year!
From water-absorbent concrete, to trauma foam, to water on Mars, to solar batteries that can power homes, 2015 was a great year for science. Check out this video here:
On Teaching 