161 Billion Gigabytes Created in 2006

A study by technology research firm IDC has estimated that 161 billion gigabytes of digital content were created last year, with 40 exabyte of it being original data. Only 185 exabyte of storage space were available at the same time to store the information.

Americans Putting their Pets on Drugs

More and more Americans are prolonging the lives of their pets through medications, in some cases with the pet taking as many as or more drugs than its owner. One dog owner, Ann Gufford, estimates to have spent some US$ 5,000 over the last two years.

Look, See, Quit: New Images to Shock Smokers

Graphic images on cigarette packets have been found in a recently published international study to be the most effective way to get across to smokers the range and severity of the health risks they face.

Teen beats robot in arm wrestling competition

A group of three students from the Engineering Science and Mechanics Department of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University have developed a robotic arm for their senior design class.

Funny movies boost blood-vessel health

Does laughing make your heart healthier? It may sound funny, but doctors now say they have serious evidence to support the idea. A new study shows that enjoying a joke or two can improve the function of blood vessels.

Finger length predicts physically aggressive personality

Studies have shown that a man's index finger length relative to ring finger length can predict how inclined that man is to be physically aggressive. Women do not show a similar effect.

Women feel more pain than men

Scientists have found that when regarding gender differences in pain, women do report more pain throughout the course of their lifetime when compared to men. They also experience pain in more bodily areas, more often and for longer duration.

What we don’t know

125 questions still unsolved

Happy Birthday, Science! The famous US-journal celebrates its 125th anniversary with a special issue dedicated to 125 great unsolved scientific mysteries of our time. Rather than a comprehensive inventory, this list is a significant sampling of the major questions facing science today.

Snow fleas and their antifreeze protein

A new antifreeze protein discovered in tiny snow fleas (look like dots of pepper sprinkled on the snow) by Queen’s University (Canada) researchers may lengthen the shelf life of human organs for transplantation.

New trigonometry - forget sines, cosines and tangents

Mathematics students have cause to celebrate. A University of New South Wales (Australia) academic, Dr. Norman Wildberger, has rewritten the rules of trigonometry and eliminated sines, cosines and tangents from the mathematic toolkit.

Master of interactive science adventures

Formerly Exhibit Shop Manager and later Assistant Director at San Francisco's Exploratorium, Joe Ansel has led and participated in the invention, design and fabrication of over 125 new interactive science exhibits.

Full view of the far side of the sun

The hidden face of the sun is now fully visible for the first time thanks to a new technique developed at Stanford University, USA. Only half of the sun – the near side – is directly observable.

World’s oldest ship timbers found in Egyptian desert

The oldest remains of seafaring ships in the world have been found in caves at the edge of the Egyptian desert along with cargo boxes that suggest ancient Egyptians sailed nearly 1,000 miles on rough waters to get treasures from a place they called God’s Land or Punt.