Science

University of Oxford researchers have become successful in developing new high-efficiency solar cells at lower costs than at what they are currently manufactured. The trick that helped them achieve this is by replacing the lead by tin. lead in solar cells based on lead halide perovskites can be replaced with tin. Called “Perovskite solar cells” by the research team at …

UN chief Ban Ki-moon on Sunday urged “bold” actions by countries around the world to reduce greenhouse emissions and fight global warming. “Many of the solutions we need already exist. Many others are being rapidly developed. But we need to deploy them at a scale that matches the challenge,” said the U.N. chief.

An asteroid the size of a school bus narrowly missed Earth on Saturday, passing closer than the distance between the Earth and the moon, Space.com revealed. The 25-foot-wide asteroid, known as 2014 HL129, came within 186,000 miles of Earth’s surface. That’s about 53,000 miles closer than the average distance between Earth and the moon. If an asteroid of that size …

Scientist said on Wednesday that Mount St. Helens is showing signs of long-term build up and earthquake activity. However, they don’t believe that the southwest Washington state volcano threatens to erupt any time soon.

In the race to colonize Mars, microbes may end up the big winners. So says new research from the International Space Station and which was included in the conclusions of three recent papers that appeared in the journal Astrobiology: “Survival of Rock-Colonizing Organisms After 1.5 Years in Outer Space,” “Resistance of Bacterial Endospores to Outer Space for Planetary Protection Purposes” …

The child’s game rock-paper-scissors is designed for a random outcome in which no player has an advantage over any other. While that might be true based solely on random probability, it ignores the way humans actually play the game, according to a new study published by Cornell University.

Shrimpers fishing in the Gulf of Mexico caught an incredibly rare, almost prehistoric looking shark last week. It’s called a goblin shark and it’s only the second sighting of such a beast in the Gulf.

Butterflies and bees have found an unlikely source of nutrients in the tears of crocodiles lazing on the banks of the Río Puerto Viejo in northeastern Costa Rica. Aquatic ecologist Carlos de la Rosa spotted the phenomenon while passing the crocodiles on a boat travelling along the river. De la Rosa photographed the insects drinking the tears of a spectacled …

A putrid stench has been hanging in the air over the town of Trout River, Nfld, due to a decaying blue whale washed up on their beach, but the situation may become even more horrid as this dead, bloated whale may soon explode! Just from television, movies and the internet, it’s common enough knowledge that dead things start to smell, …

The widely-held idea that Neanderthals were wiped out because they were intellectually inferior is not supported by scientific evidence, say experts. The species — which is closely related to humans and lived between 350,000-40,000 years ago — might instead have disappeared because they interbred with humans, Paola Villa and Wil Roebroeks claim in a paper published yesterday.

Washington: Creating Artificial Intelligence (AI) would be the greatest moment in histroy for mankind but unfortunately it also can be its last, Dr Stephen Hawking was quoted as saying in a report in The Independent. Discussing Jonny Depp’s latest film Transcendence, which delves into a world where computers can surpass the abilities of humans, Dr Hawking said dismissing the film …