If you thought your remote control monster truck was badass, check out the SnoMote. The new remote control snowmobile was funded by NASA to help scientists in polar regions collect climate data without forcing them onto cracking ice sheets. The bots, designed to work as a team, can be programmed to monitor a target area; a fleet of bots is outfitted with sensors and cameras to navigate terrain autonomously, all the while taking temperature and barometric readings.

[ Read Full Story ]

A new study by the University of Alberta suggests that a massive undersea volcano eruption 93 million years ago was the source of much of the world’s oil.

Researchers Steven Turgeon and Robert Creaser were alerted to the prehistoric blast when they found specific levels of osmium isotopes (indicators of volcanic activity in sea water) in black shale rocks off the coast of South America and in the mountains of central Italy.

[ Read Full Story ]

For the 1.3 million people who suffer renal failure each year, kidney dialysis is a major undertaking. The lengthy out-patient process requires near-daily trips to the doctor’s office to be hooked up for hours to a massive machine; making it difficult to hold a job or have a normal social life. But Victor Gura of UCLA’s Geffen School of medicine has patented and tested the holy grail of nephrology: a portable, wearable dialysis machine.

[ Read Full Story ]

Detecting art forgeries is an inexact science—even some certified masterpieces have a cloud of doubt over their authenticity. But in recent years James Z. Wang and his colleague Jia Li have been putting Van Gogh under the microscope to create a database they hope will eventually thwart art fakers and revolutionize the detection of forgeries. Using 23 high-resolution gray scale images known to be by Van Gogh, the Penn State team broke the images down into 2.5 x 2.5 inch squares, analyzing “wavelet” based texture features and the geometric characteristics of the master’s brushstrokes.

[ Read Full Story ]

Men once greatly outnumbered women in collegiate athletics—Title IX brought equality. Men currently outnumber women in science—could Title IX have the same effect?

[ Read Full Story ]

Birth control may have revolutionized women’s lives, but it’s still a nuisance to take. The pill is 98 percent effective only if you (or your lady friend) takes it every day, at exactly the same time. Complete this task correctly, and the estrogen could give you nausea, headaches and moodiness. Thankfully, researchers at the University of Montreal and Louis Pasteur University may have found a more pleasant alternative.

[ Read Full Story ]

Catching cancer before it metastasizes, or spreads throughout the body, is one way to increase your chances of survival. Now scientists may have found a way to help even when cancer is already on the move, by using magnets to lasso cancer cells and drag them out of the body. Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have shown that magnetic nanoparticles—tiny shards of magnetic metal, less than a hundred thousandths of an inch in diameter—can be attached to cancer cells, which can then be manipulated and moved with another magnet.

[ Read Full Story ]

Nautical engineers have long dreamed of a craft that could race across wave tops like a speedboat and seconds later dive beneath them like a submarine. But crossing the two breeds presents a catch-22: Subs need heft to sink, but speedboats need to be lightweight to go fast. With an investment of nearly $2 million and years of research, former auto-shop owner Reynolds Marion of Lake City, Florida, has finally hit on a solution, a machine he’s dubbed the Hyper-Submersible Powerboat. When complete, it will reach speeds of up to 45 mph and dive down to 1,200 feet.

[ Read Full Story ]

Swimming around in their tank, these autonomous robotic jellyfish move alone or in a swarm and communicate with their brethren to avoid underwater collisions. Developed by German industrial-automation company Festo as an attention-grabbing experiment in cooperative robotics, each AquaJelly uses eight bendable “tentacles” to propel itself forward.

[ Read Full Story ]

In the strange, subatomic world of quantum mechanics, even complete nothingness exerts a force. According to a principle known as the Casimir Effect, two plates separated by an incredibly small space will experience a force pushing them together. While the Casimir effect isn’t powerful enough to affect daily life, it has complicated efforts to build effective nanotechnology.

[ Read Full Story ]

For seismologists, the dream of a perfect earthquake forecasting system may be a step closer. In a letter published last week in the journal Nature, scientists announced they've discovered a way to read changes in rocks that could be used to predict dangerous quakes as much as ten and a half hours in advance.

[ Read Full Story ]

The history of sports is really the history of drugs in sports. From Roman gladiators hopped up on herbal stimulants to distance runners downing brandy-and-strychnine cocktails (a combination that helped American Tom Hicks win the 1904 Olympic marathon), athletes have always found ways to augment their bodies.

[ Read Full Story ]