Amazon rainforest threatens to become savannah

Image by Jose Eduardo Camargo
The destruction of the Amazon rainforest could soon be so advanced that the ecosystem, which is so important for the Earth's climate, will no longer recover from it. The Amazon rainforest could become savannah - with dramatic consequences for the entire world, as researchers led by Christ Boulton of...
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Increasing wildfires due to climate change

Photo by Matt Palmer
Devastating wildfires like the recent ones in Australia and California will increase significantly because of climate...

Artificial snow to preserve glaciers

Image by David Mark
Felix Keller is visibly excited. He doesn't seem to mind the double-digit temperatures at 2100 meters above sea level at...

A green way of coloring denims blue

A new research study led by the University of California, Berkeley engineering Professor John Dueber has shown that indigo...

Planting trees no longer an option to mop up our increasing CO2 emissions

Nations around the globe are stepping up, determined to uphold the 2015 Paris climate agreement of limiting the global...

Revolutionizing clean energy by recycling not-quite-so-rare earths

Steel was the material of progress during the industrial revolution, while the twentieth century was the age of Mylar,...

How interfering with your vision can shatter your recall of the way things look

How do we recall our stored knowledge of the physical properties of objects? Do we "see" things all over again when asked...

Welcome to the neighborhood, Proxima b!

Scientists of the European Southern Observatory (ESO, headquartered right here in Munich!) discovered a planet orbiting...

Welcome to Jupiter!

How did planets form? Where did they get the ingredients for life, like carbon and nitrogen, that we hold so dear on...

Predicting the tipping point of complex systems

While preparing soup, have you ever wondered at what point does a pot of boiling water start evaporating? Now, we know...

Even Chimps Trust Friends

Trust plays an important part in any friendship. We trust that our friends will be there for us in a time of need, even if...

When the sea comes marching in

Take the year 2100- although many of us in our 20s and 30s today may not live that long, yet our own children and...

Computers of the future may have eyes of an insect

Ready for the movies
Hold a pencil in front of you and look at it with one or the other eye closed: it appears to shift a little. That's the...

Religiosity as a predictor of a child's kindness

A recent study on the influence of religion on altruistic behavior among children was conducted by Dr. Jean Decety, at the...

How basic research helped expose VW's dirty secret!

The recent Volkswagen emissions scandal has affected up to 11 million vehicles worldwide.
German auto giant Volkswagen's (VW) recent fall from grace is a result of the same greed that brought down Toyota nearly...

New approach tries to clear the air over fossil fuels

With an ever-increasing energy demand, the use of fossil fuels is steadily on the rise. But so are air pollution and the...

Can we influence the evolution of an idea...

Read part 1 of this series at: http://www.themunicheye.com/news/The-yin-and-yang-of-social-interaction-3211 Can you...

Rise and shine, Philae!

A cartoon depicting that Philae is awake!
After going off the grid for seven months, Rosetta's lander Philae is back. On November 12 2014, it became the first...

Editorial: In the grand scheme of things....

Editorial: For May
The key to leading a happy fulfilling life is to keep it stress-free. However, it's a well-known fact that in this day and...

Coalition politics- Let's do the math

Einstein said it best, "Politics is for the present but an equation is for eternity". Can eternal math equations be used...

Extreme cloud spotting: what's that haze on Mars?

Haze on Mars creates haze in our minds
Have you ever looked at the clouds and spotted something really odd? British stargazer Damian Peach has a story that will...
Image by Pete Linforth

Google reduces the error rate of its quantum computer

Nobody's perfect - this is especially true for Google's quantum computer "Sycamore," which two years ago was able to solve...
Photo by Waldemar Brandt on Unsplash

Mathematical modelling could reduce infection rates

A quick scan of the cell phone display and the long-awaited entrance to a movie theater, a concert, a handball hall, or...

Climate fight looks to CO2 storage

On the roof of the waste incineration plant in Hinwil near Zurich, the air is as low in carbon dioxide as it was before...
Image by Sebastian Ganso

Mystery solved: The origins of flying dinosaurs

Fossils of pterosaurs, the earliest reptiles to evolve powered flight, were unearthed in the 19th Century but their...

Future smart devices might provide you with a feel for virtual textures and shapes

Imagine you are browsing the just-released iPhone that you would like to purchase on your tablet. Normally, what would...

Body clock research wins the 2017 Nobel prize in physiology

On 2nd October 2017, the Nobel Prize in medicine and physiology was awarded to three American scientists Jeffrey C. Hall,...

Seven "Earth-ish" planets herald a new season in the search for alien life

Astronomers found seven approximately Earth-sized, rocky planets about 40 light years (235 trillion miles) from us. They...

Swarms of robots go with the flow to reveal the mysteries of the ocean

About 70% of Earth's surface is covered by oceans. Yet, they remain mysterious: we have more detailed maps of the surface...

Are we there yet- The long journey to Mars

How close are we to the giant leap to Mars? Recently the partial success of the European Space Agency's (ESA) ExoMars...

Nanomachines win Nobel Prize

The 2016 Nobel Prize for Chemistry was awarded last month by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to a trio of European...

Mars welcomes its latest orbiter ExoMars

On 19th October 2016 the European-Russian mission ExoMars arrived at its destination. It delivered the Trace Gas Orbiter,...

Looking through 'Smart' Windows

Have you ever wanted a window that you could control how much light and heat it let in? Thanks to scientists at the...

Turning a new leaf in the search for lower emissions

Carbon dioxide (or CO2) is probably the most notorious atmospheric public enemy. Being a potent greenhouse gas, it...

Bacteria Needed to Save Coral Reef

We increasingly hear about how important bacteria are for our bodies and our health, but scientists are now becoming aware...

Stretching quantum cats could make for better computers

A team of physicists at Yale demonstrated that the inherent quantum weirdness can be harnessed to make quantum computers,...

"Happy little accident" opens new avenues for amazing future batteries

Who wouldn't want a slim phone that stays charged for days and holds its capacity for years? Beyond consumer electronics,...

Networking: Nature or Nurture?

Interview with expert science communicator Alaina Levine who is the author of 'Networking for Nerds'. Could you tell us...

Eating away at efforts to alleviate climate change

A couple of the greatest challenges we face are climate change and how it impacts the way we feed the world's growing...

A 300-year old mystery solved!

Professor Andrew Wiles (pictured above), faculty at the Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford has won the most...
A small track for a rover

A bright window into our past, present and future

Look up at a clear night sky and you won't miss it, shining bright like nothing else---the Moon. Its romantic, unique...

Climate change may not alter Southeast Asian Monsoons

Climate change is a looming threat of the 21st century, and seems to be the talk of the town. One way that the human...
Gravitational waves finally make an appearance

Gravity waves a 'Hello! I am here!'

"Ladies and gentlemen, we have detected gravitational waves. We did it!" This is the historical announcement with which...
Sometimes exercise is just not enough

Why you won't lose weight with exercise alone

If magazines and health clubs are to be believed, the new year should coincide with a whole new you. Many gyms see up to a...
Pulling out the plug

Power for a charger-free world

A team of engineers at the University of Washington devised a system that uses regular WiFi to power small electronics at...
Future traffic jams won't be pollution nightmares

Cooperation catalyzes the evolution of cleaner cars

Cars generate lots of pollution, as the Volkswagen Diesel scandal lately reminded us. From the same two countries...
Artist rendition of a rocky planet orbiting a red dwarf. With the right conditions, perhaps habitable.

A second wind for exoplanets habitability

Earth is the only planet we know that has life, so it's easy to think that any other habitable planet must look like...
A slope with dark streaks caused by water seepage in Valles Marineris, photographed by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Flowing water found on Mars

In a press conference on September 28th, NASA scientists announced that they have solid evidence of liquid water on the...
Integrating smartphone technology within the conventional classroom setting in universities maybe the next paradigm shift, given the ubiquitous nature of smartphones. But how do we implement this?

Converting classrooms into "smart" rooms

Imagine a classroom setting in a university, where students have their heads bent down - not taking notes as you imagine...

Pluto's icy breath, young look and big heart: what we learnt from New Horizons so far

On July 14th, NASA's New Horizons probe completed its nine-year-long journey flying close to Pluto. "This mission has been...

The yin and yang of social interaction

At some point in our lives, all of us have found ourselves in a crowded bus stop or grocery store or a music concert. But...
Eyes: Windows to the soul and your personality

Eyes wide open

Eye contact is the most basic interaction with another person. When people look into each other's eyes, they spontaneously...
How marketing affects consumer's perception of products

Even cheap wine can taste great

"It's cheap wine so it will not taste great." Does this imply that the wine is really tasteless? Or is one so prejudiced...
The device used in the experiments. Heat traveled slower through this tuning fork when subjected to a magnetic field.

Hot and attractive: magnetism can control heat transmission

From power plants to car engines, from houses to laptops, pretty much everything we do and use disperses a lot of energy...

How to train your swarms: multitudes of robots at the tip of your finger

How can a single person command a swarm of five, ten, or even hundreds of small robots to perform a coordinated task? ...
The blue halo around the four colliding galaxies is actually the distorted image of the one far behind them.

Galaxy collisions shed new light on dark matter

Dark matter has been mysterious ever since its discovery. According to Dr Holger Israel, a cosmologist at Durham...

How the brain hears sound- tick-tock, tick-tock!

New research published by Dr. Daniel Bendor, University College London discusses the concept of how our brain captures...
Ganymede in the foreground and Jupiter in the background

Seek and ye shall find (Water on Jupiter's Moon)

An international group of astronomers found an immense ocean buried under the icy surface of Ganymede, the largest of...
Editorial: For March/April

Editorial: From the macro to the micro

Science is an offshoot of human curiosity that knows no bounds. We try and cover stories in Science and Health sections...
Evolution of surgery: Then and Now

Star-shaped grippers could help doctors operate and take biopsies

Remember the shiver down your back when you went to a museum of medicine and saw the surgical instruments? Cutters, saws,...
Scientists estimate a worrisome trend of plastic pollution in the ocean

Here's Why Scientists Tallied Plastic Waste in the Ocean

Lots of plastic ends up in the ocean. Discarded soda bottles and food wrappers blow into the water from the beach....