Cornelius Gurlitt kept everyone out of his dingy apartment, cramped with great works of art, until 2012. Then police searched his home after he was caught trying to bring a large amount of cash into Switzerland. Gurlitt agreed to help government investigators find the owners of the artworks in his collection.

This past May, Gurlitt died in a hospital at the age of 81. Hospital officials recently turned over a suitcase that he had … Read More → "Lost Monet painting found in suitcase after 75 year absence"

Early this year, the International Court of Justice handed down a ruling that brought at least a temporary halt to Japan’s whaling program. Normally, an international court case isn’t science news. In this case, however, the whaling was justified under a clause of the International Convention on the Regulation of Whaling that allowed whales to be killed “for the purposes of scientific research.” And, as detailed in a perspective in this week’s edition of Science, the court decision came down to whether Japan was actually doing any science.</ … Read More → "Whaling ruling helps to clarify what counts as science research"

Unless you live under the tyranny of a bandwidth cap, you probably aren’t spending much time looking at the amount of data passing through your home network on a regular basis. But what if there was a way to visualize it beyond a graph, perhaps even in a way that you could touch? That’s the idea behind EXtrace, a 3D printer that models the traffic from a German internet … Read More → "3D-printed internet traffic looks a lot like your first attempt at pottery"

On September 13th, members of the public will have the opportunity to take home pieces from Hoge’s ensemble of artifacts. Some of the more memorable items on sale include a 1961 French cognac bottle that was consumed and signed by the first man in space and an autographed fragment from the space ship Vostok 1. The canine suit, however, is arguably the highlight of the event. … Read More → "You can own this authentic Soviet space suit for your dog"

Most waterfalls occur in a places where the path of a river crosses a vertical drop in ground level. There is one waterfall, possibly the only one in the world, where the drop is parallel to the course of the river: Moconá Falls, on the Uruguay River that runs along the border of Argentina and Brazil. These falls run sideways, but it’s only a “waterfall” about half of the year! How … Read More → "The sideways waterfall"

Zoos are weird places. You have fake safari next to fake tundra next to fake rainforest—all separated by a glass and concrete and a few feet of space. At the Oregon Zoo, a new energy plan manages to both subvert and perfectly embody the zoo’s artificial ecology: The excess heat from the polar beat habitat will keep Asian elephants warm.
via Read More → "How polar bears will keep the elephants warm at the Oregon Zoo"

Scientists at the University of Edinburgh have grown a fully-functional organ inside a mouse; opening the possibility of one day manufacturing compatible organs for transplant without the need for donors. Using mouse embryo cells, scientists at the MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine created an artificial thymus gland with the same structure and function as an adult organ.
via Gizmag

For the study Conscious Brain-to-Brain Communication in Humans Using Non-Invasive Technology, two participants, one in India and one in France, were able to communicate via a computer-mediated, brain-to-brain message (hyperinteraction, if you want to sound really cool) from 5,000 miles apart. Study coauthor and Professor of Neurology at Harvard Alvaro Pascual-Leone explains that the researchers

“were able to directly and noninvasively transmit a thought from one person to another, without … Read More → "First successful demonstration of brain-to-brain communication in humans"

Set to be unveiled at IFA this week in Berlin, the Mota Smart Ring pairs via Bluetooth with an Android or iOS device to display notifications, such as text messages, incoming calls, calendar events and email, right on your finger. These notifications can be drawn from Facebook and Twitter and delivered in the form of text, audio and tactile alerts, with visual information shown on the ring’s built-in display.

< … Read More → "Mota Smart Ring delivers smartphone alerts to your finger"

Green stuff is going to grow towards the sun. When your at-home plants start edging their way to the window, it’s a good idea to rotate them once-a-week-ish to keep leaves, stems, and tendrils from becoming crazy lopsided. These lovely Voltasol pots are angled at the bottom into a gentle point, making for a quick and easy whirl around to face the rays.

Graphic … Read More → "Topsy turvy flower pot can rotate around to follow the sun"