Our editors found 12 projects related to the 12 Days of Christmas jingle. Ok, some are a stretch, but we hope you enjoy our holiday edition! We have some exciting developments on the horizon. Will you please take a moment to update your dashboard settings so you can really make the most of the new features in the new year? Thank you. Cheers! The SciStarter Team On the 1st Day of Christmas, Trees Please gave to me: A partridge in a pear tree when measuring air quality and tr […]

Women have an average life expectancy that's about 4 years longer than men's – regardless of culture or geography. Even among animal species, females outlive males. Why females have an advantage in the longevity department hadn’t been well understood. In the past, some had assumed it had to do with lifestyle. But scientists say there may be a genetic mechanism underlying this age-old phenomenon. In a new study, researchers found that mice with two X chromosomes lived […]

Protecting an infant from pain may be a matter of instinct. In a new study, researchers show that gently stroking babies during medical procedures, as parents intuitively do, reduces infants’ feelings of pain about as well as applying a topical anesthetic. The discovery suggests touch and tactile stimulation are effective means to mollify pain in newborns and an alternative to using drugs. "Touch seems to have analgesic potential without the risk of side effects,” Rebeccah Slater, […]

A Far-Out Planet An ambitious team of astronomers has discovered the most “far out” object ever observed in our Solar System. The object, a pink dwarf planet called 2018 VG18 and nicknamed “Farout,” lies more than 100 times further from the sun than the Earth is. This discovery, made by Carnegie’s Scott S. Sheppard, the University of Hawaii’s David Tholen and Northern Arizona University’s Chad Trujillo, was formally announced today (Dec. 17) by the […]

This image captures the world’s first lab-grown steak, created by Aleph Farms, an Israeli based startup. It's different than standard vegetarian mock meats that attempt to mimic the flavor and texture of the real thing. Instead, lab-grown meat, or “clean meat,” uses actual animal cells. To grow the meat, Aleph sampled cow fat, blood vessel, muscle and support cells and cultured them in the lab. A three-week process of 3-D tissue formation then brought it all together in a […]