Have you ever noticed that almost every barn you have ever seen is red? There’s a reason for that, and it has to do with the chemistry of dying stars. Seriously.

When Jason Nichols joined GE Global Research in 2011, soon after completing postdoctoral work in organic chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, he anticipated a long career in chemical research. But after four years creating materials and systems to treat industrial wastewater, Nichols moved to the company’s machine-learning lab.

Yellowstone supervolcano was recently hit with over 450 earthquakes, prompting scientists to closely monitor the area. The first of the swarm of earthquakes began on June 12th and continued in the following days, including up to a 4.5M earthquake.

Neural networks are currently being tasked with everything from adding animations to video games to reproducing images taken from MRI scans. Training the AI, which needs to be fed vast amounts of data, can be a slog and even then it may not produce completely accurate results.

Temple University research shows extra-virgin olive oil protects against memory loss, preserves the ability to learn and reduces conditions associated with Alzheimer’s disease.

Your cognitive capacity is significantly reduced when your smartphone is within reach — even if it’s off. That’s the takeaway finding from a new study from the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin.

Scientists have decoded the genome of ancient Egyptians based on the DNA taken from Egyptian mummies. The results support the Biblical narrative that the First Egyptian Dynasty descended from the Biblical Ham, the son of Noah, as described in the Book of Genesis.

Last week, twenty-one prominent scientists issued a sharp critique to one of their own. Mark Jacobson of Stanford said America could easily become 100{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} renewable by mid-century, but refused to acknowledge sound scientific principles in his research and address major errors pointed out by the scientific community.

The headlines sound thrilling. One might say they bait a click.

“ANONYMOUS SAYS NASA HAS EVIDENCE OF ALIEN LIFE. DOES IT?” — Newsweek

Scientists believe a 40-million-ton asteroid set to fly close to Earth in 12 years may end up colliding with our planet on a future pass.

Scientists have found a way to make carbon both very hard and very stretchy by heating it under high pressure. This “compressed glassy carbon”, developed by researchers in China and the US, is also lightweight and could potentially be made in very large quantities.

The carcass of a young humpback whale washed ashore Friday morning in Jamestown, Rhode Island, causing experts to think that a nearby offshore wind turbine may be to blame.

British researchers have found frequent sexual activity among older adults leads to “higher cognitive function” including stronger memory and language skills, AAP reports.

A brand new peer reviewed study says the number of days per year with killer heat in the US is going to skyrocket.

Study shows deadly heat waves are becoming more frequent – Chicago Tribune

This image displays a galaxy known as ESO 486-21 (with several other background galaxies and foreground stars visible in the field as well).

(h/t Gregg) Each year, Earth Day is accompanied by predictions of doom.

Let’s take a look at past predictions to determine just how much confidence we can have in today’s environmentalists’ predictions. (Video after the jump)