Science

a colorful image of a human embryo at Day 11 under a microscope

Model human embryo, created from stem cells, survives past two weeks

A model human embryo capable of developing past day 14 could revolutionize our understanding of human development.

How years of fighting every wildfire helped fuel the Western megafires of today

The current approach to fire management poses unnecessarily high stakes for forests. Here’s why fighting every fire does more harm than good.

Paul Hessburg and Keala Hagmann and Susan J. Prichard

rows of black rock with the gloved hands of a scientist in the background

Planet Earth

Record-breaking amount of Earth’s mantle drilled out of ocean floor

Scientists aboard the JOIDES Resolution have retrieved “a staggering” amount of mantle rock from below the ocean floor.

Kristin Houser

Clean Energy

Open-sourcing the blueprints for a nuclear power plant

The Energy Impact Center has open-sourced nuclear power plant blueprints in an attempt to encourage the adoption of eco-friendly nuclear energy.

Kristin Houser

Genetics

Should we turn chickens into dinosaurs?

5:38

These scientists are studying chickens to learn more about dinosaur DNA, and their findings could help us better understand our own genetic code.

Agriculture

"Doomsday" seed vault now contains over 1 million samples

Norway's Svalbard Global Seed Vault, also known as the “Doomsday” Vault, now contains more than one million varieties of seeds from across the globe.

Kristin Houser

Series| Biohackers

The cyborg artist who hears color

6:13

Neil Harbisson was born colorblind. Now he has an antenna implant in his skill to hear color and create beautiful works of art.

Series| Biohackers

I got a chip implanted in a biohacking garage

7:05

Hacker surgeons like Jeffrey Tibbetts implant everything from compasses to wireless routers. Freethink’s own Chase Pipkin decided to try it out.

Series| Guardians of the Apocalypse

Geoengineering: Our last defense against climate change

5:26

Reflecting the sun’s rays is a proposed last-ditch effort to mitigate the effects of global warming. This Harvard research team is trying to better understand the potential risks in order to save the planet.

Neuroscience

Stimulating monkeys’ brains snaps them out of unconsciousness

Researchers found that they could induce a state of consciousness in an unconscious monkey by electrically stimulating a specific part of the animal’s brain.

Kristin Houser

Series| Guardians of the Apocalypse

Will we ever predict earthquakes?

8:25

In 2010, an earthquake killed 222,570 people in Haiti, injuring 300,000 and displacing over a million. In an attempt to discover how to predict earthquakes, these researchers are using machine learning to analyze the acoustic data from tectonic plates.

Series| Guardians of the Apocalypse

Could the human race survive a supervolcano?

4:51

The eruption of Mount Tambora pushed humanity to the brink of extinction. Today, active supervolcanoes still have the power to nullify our future. What can we do to prepare?

Series| The Edge

Top athletes are shocking their brains with tDCS

6:27

Why are professional athletes using brain-zapping headsets? This tDCS device creates a state of hyper-learning, which could help improve their performance.

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