This fabric can “hear” for you
Hearing loss is something many of us have to accept, with the fine and sensitive tools in our ears inevitably wearing down with age. What if you could remedy this by putting on a shirt that could hear for you? Engineers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and designers from the Rhode Read More...
Biodiversity means respecting animals' agency
Depending on where you live, there can be a great deal of concern about the local animals, wandering into the road or eating your garbage. For conservationists, there’s a concern for the animals themselves. Conservationists and wildlife managers these days are looking for new ways to protect wild Read More...
An extinct rock may’ve made life on Earth possible
By delving into our past, we afford ourselves ways to learn about our present and our future. Planetary scientists from Yale University have delved very deeply into our past and discovered perhaps how life was able to form on our planet. Earth’s uninhabitable period In the first 500 million Read More...
These nanoparticles deliver genetic info to treat diseases
Every day, scientists and medical researchers finetune previous technology and techniques, or they find new applications for existing ones. Recently, a team from Tufts University, with collaboration from Harvard Medical School and the University of Massachusetts, Boston, made a new application for Read More...
Scientists discover an octopus from before the dinosaurs
They are alarmingly intelligent and can solve puzzles. They can change their color to blend into their surroundings and they can squeeze themselves through tiny spaces. Is it any wonder that octopuses, being some of the most adaptable creatures on the planet, may even pre-date the Read More...
Scientists gain ground in the race to reverse aging
So many of us do so much to keep ourselves healthy and live long lives. We exercise, we hydrate, we eat right, and we avoid harmful substances. There are so many things we can do to keep ourselves vital for a long time — there are whole industries aimed just at making us look fit — but time Read More...
Can galaxies exist without dark matter?
The nature of science is learning and revision. Our understanding of existence involves fine-tuning, sometimes completely restructuring our knowledge to comprise new discoveries. Physics, medicine, chemistry, all improve on themselves by revising older ideas, such as it is with dark matter and its Read More...
This bacterium is so big you can see it
To the surprise of the science world, a new bacterium has been discovered that is bigger than a fruit fly! The humongous organism is the largest bacterium ever recorded, coming in at 0.78 inches (2 centimeters) long. Resembling a long skinny string, the team appropriately named the creature Read More...
Your gut biome could be behind your anxiety
Here at The Optimist Daily, we regularly report on new findings about our incredible microbiome. Scientists keep uncovering more and more crucial roles these tiny microorganisms living in our gut play. From memory, to warding off chemotherapy side effects, to preventing brain damage in premature Read More...
First study of dying human brain gives a glimpse into our final moments
For the first time ever, scientists have recorded the activity of a dying brain, and their discoveries have given some legitimacy to the common idea that our whole lives “flash before our eyes” before death. The remarkable thing is that the scientists weren’t planning on measuring the Read More...