Warning: Your open-plan office can make you ill

Don’t blame other commuters if you catch a cold this winter: blame the people who designed your office. According to a study, workplace layout has a surprising effect on rates of sick leave. After crunching the numbers, the researchers found a 'significant excess risk' of short sick-leave spells in three types of open-plan office
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Usain Bolt's superhuman speed would give him the power of flight on Saturn's moon Titan

We all know Usain Bolt is one of the fastest people on Earth. Now, students have shown his superhuman speeds would actually allow him to fly like a bird on one of Saturn’s moons while wearing a wingsuit. The world-record holding sprinter has reached top speeds of 12.27 meters per second, which would be fast enough for him to take off on Titan while wearing a regular wingsuit. Theoretically, the Olympic athlete would then be able to soar above the planet – without any need for propulsion
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Find Along Chilean Highway Suggests Mass Stranding of Whales Millions of Years Ago

In 2010, workers widening a remote stretch of highway near the northwestern coast of Chile uncovered a trove of fossils, including the skeletons of at least 30 large baleen whales. The fossils—which may be up to 9 million years old—are the first definitive examples of ancient mass strandings of whales, according to a new study

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Google Glass Could Help Track Disease

Google Glass, the tech giant’s experimental eyewear-based computer, may soon give epidemiologists a faster and more reliable way to track infections and other diseases
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Stem cell breakthrough: Japanese scientists discover way to create 'embryonic-like' cells without the ethical dilemma

A new way of creating stem cells that is cheaper, faster and more efficient than before could transform the ability of scientists to develop "personalised medicine" where a patient’s own healthy skin or blood cells can be used to repair damaged tissues, such as heart disease or brain injury.
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Cats' whiskers inspire nanotube sensors

Researchers have created tactile sensors from composite films of carbon nanotubes and silver nanoparticles that are claimed to be similar to whiskers of cats and rats.

These so-called e-whiskers, developed by researchers at Berkeley Lab and the University of California (UC) Berkeley, are said to respond to pressure as slight as a single Pascal. Potential applications include giving robots new abilities to manoeuvre within their surrounding environment
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Earth Won't Die as Soon as Thought

Take a deep breath—Earth is not going to die as soon as scientists believed. Two new modeling studies find that the gradually brightening sun won’t vaporize our planet's water for at least another 1 billion to 1.5 billion years—hundreds of millions of years later than a slightly older model had forecast. The findings won’t change your retirement plans but could imply that habitable, Earth-like alien worlds are more common than scientists thought.

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