This is not the first time that a panda has been caught on film servicing its needs. YouTube user amberthief uploaded a video in 2009 that showed a captive panda with his back to the crowd, really getting into it.

A team of engineers have developed an incredibly thin electric generator, only one atom thick. This study also provided the first experimental evidence that the material is piezoelectric, or capable of producing electricity through pressure. The paper was published in Nature, and the lead author is Wenzhuo Wu of the Georgia Institute of Technology.

The first bionic eyes are giving vision to people who have been blind for decades. While recipients remain legally blind, it can still be transformative for the recipient's lives. Moreover, the technology is expected to improve rapidly.

Scientists at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine could be offering new hope to men with genital abnormalities or injuries in as little as five years, thanks to one of their many tissue engineering endeavors: lab-grown penises

Shockingly detailed design tools ground an otherwise underwhelming package.


"Play. Create. Share" has long been the three-word slogan for the charming, if a bit well-worn, LittleBigPlanet games. For most players it's likely more than a motto, it's an actual schedule of events as well. You play the game to get a feel for what's possible, then mess around with the creation tools, and finally share it with the community in the hope that it's worth the effort.

One man, 40 years of naysayers, and enough floodwater for half of Lake Michigan

EASTERN WASHINGTON—Traveling from the verdant, mossy coastal belt of the Pacific Northwest, one could be forgiven for feeling that the defining characteristic of Eastern Washington is its dryness. It's a land seemingly starved of rain in the shadow of the Cascade Mountains. But the dry landscape known as the “Scablands” actually tells a story about excess—excess of water, water that was torrential and sudden.

In what amounts to a wake up call directed at a British public generally considered apathetic on privacy issues, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has warned that U.K. spy agencies are using digital technology to conduct mass population surveillance without any checks and balances at all — overreaching and encroaching on privacy rights in a way that he characterized as even worse than the U.S. National Security Agency’s inroads into citizens’ rights.

First case of transmission within the US.

CDC Director Thomas Frieden, MD, MPH, confirmed this morning on CBS News’ Face the Nation that a Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital caregiver has contracted Ebola virus disease while caring for Thomas Eric Duncan.

Strong day-night temperature differences on a tidally locked planet.

Since the discovery of the very first exoplanets, it's been clear that there are lots of worlds out there that are markedly different from our solar system: hot Jupiters nearly skimming their host stars' surface, super-Earths, mini-Neptunes.

In high-CO₂ water, offspring don't do much better than their parents.

Apart from strengthening the greenhouse effect, our emissions of carbon dioxide also affect the chemistry of the oceans. When CO₂ dissolves in water, it lowers the pH, which makes it more difficult for organisms to make calcium carbonate shells. The low pH also has some direct physiological effects on other marine organisms like fish. The big question mark for the future is whether these organisms can adapt or evolve to better deal with a higher-CO₂ world. A new study in Nature Climate Change digs into the adaptation part of that question.