General Knowledge

A genetic disorder, in layman’s terms, is a serious medical condition triggered by irregularities in the genome (gene) which can either be hereditary (inherited from parents) or caused by new alterations to the DNA. They can be divided into two broad classes; single-gene and multiple gene disorder. In a single-gene disorder, also known as monogenic, only ...

Leonardo da Vinci may have had an eye disorder called intermittent exotropia.  It occurs irregularly and somewhat controllable.  This may have given Leonardo an unprecedented ability to capture things on the flat canvas.  Many famous artists have been identified as having some sort of eye disorder(s) on the basis of the evidence found in their self-portraits ...

The Chinese space administration (CNSA) is neither the oldest nor the biggest space agency in the world but it’s about to achieve a feat that has been accomplished only by few in the past; establishing a fully functional global navigation satellite system or GNSS. A GNSS is simply a satellite navigation system that provides various geospatial ...

A new theoretical model explains how did water come to Earth.  Water on Earth may not have solely came from asteroid matter.  Nearly 2% of Earth’s water originated from the solar nebula.  The origin of water is a longstanding enigma. Uncovering this mystery is key to accessing the Earth’s progressive history and its modern structure. It ...

New study links paternal age to birth risks.  The risk is directly proportional to the age of the father: the older he is, the higher the risk. Babies born to fathers older than 35 are at a greater risk of adverse birth outcomes like seizures and low weight.  In the United States, the age at which ...

Researchers found a new family of fish that resided in the ocean at the same time as the dinosaurs.  They had sharp and pointed teeth like piranhas, which they used to chew off flesh from other fishes.  Paleontologists continuously seek for information about numerous aspects of organisms that lived millions of years ago: their origin ...

In the next three decades, the air conditioning units will increase by almost 400% worldwide. This will contribute to hundreds of billions of tons of carbon dioxide emissions by 2050.  By 2100, the use of air conditioners alone will increase the average temperature of Earth by 0.5°C. In developing countries, Air Conditioners (ACs) indicate a ...

Uranium is known to humanity since at least 79 AD when it was used in the ceramic industry (natural oxide form) in several parts of Europe. The chemical element was formally discovered only in 1789, when Martin Heinrich Klaproth, a German chemist stumbled upon a strange, unknown substance (oxide of uranium) during an experiment. Klaproth is ...

Between 1991 and 2016, Earth’s ocean absorbed 150 times more heat energy than the energy produced by humans as electricity annually.  Oceans took up nearly 13 zettajoules of heat energy every year. Earth has more than 332,519,000 cubic miles of water, as per the U.S Geological Survey. About 97% of this volume can be found in ...

In 2017 alone, Bitcoin emitted 69 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. If Bitcoin continues to grow at the same rate as other technologies, it could produce enough carbon dioxide emissions to push global warming above 2°C within 30 years.  In recent years, cryptocurrencies have emerged as a novel means of completing online transactions. At present, there ...

A poet tries to represent the laws of a topological quantum computer through poetry.  The poem translates the quantum physics in both its visual structure and word choices. Poetry is a nuanced form in which language is used for its aesthetic qualities instead of semantic and notional content. The language is used in a way ...

Social network analysis tools facilitate qualitative or quantitative analysis of social network by describing network’s feature either via visual or numerical representation. It generally uses network or graph theory to examine social structures. The main components are nodes (people) and the edges that connect them. Some of them performs predictive analysis too. Below, we have ...