Labelled pots found in a 2,500-year-old embalming workshop have revealed the plant and animal extracts used to prepare ancient Egyptian mummies — including ingredients originating hundreds and even thousands of kilometres away. Chemical analysis of the pots’ contents has identified complex mixtures of botanical resins and other substances, some of them from plants that grow […]
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Let Teenagers Sleep – Scientific American
Teenagers are some of the most sleep-deprived people in the U.S. On average, teens do not get enough sleep, and more important, they do not get enough quality sleep, researchers say. We could blame cell phones and other light-emitting technologies for keeping kids up at night, but late nights are just part of the equation. […]
Could the Zombie Fungus in TV’s The Last of Us Really Infect People?
In the fictional world of The Last of Us, a fungus has destroyed the world. The new hit TV show highlights Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, an actual “zombie ant” fungus, which compels an infected insect to climb onto a leaf, lay down and wait for spores to sprout from its head and into the wind. The show […]
‘Impossible’ New Ring System Discovered at the Edge of the Solar System
Astronomers have discovered an entirely new ring system within the solar system, and it’s located at such a great distance from its dwarf planet parent that it should be impossible. The ring surrounds Quaoar, which is around half the size of Pluto and located beyond Neptune. It is only the third ring to be found around a […]
Turkey’s Twitter Cutoff Harmed Earthquake Rescue Operations
The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. Twitter was blocked in Turkey on Feb. 8, 2023, according to internet monitoring service NetBlocks. The outage came amid the massive rescue operation and humanitarian crisis in the aftermath of the earthquakes in southern Turkey and northern Syria two […]
Why the Climate Fight Will Fail without India
India is in the midst of the biggest climate experiment the world has ever known. It’s a test that aims to transform a nation marked by deep economic inequality and heavily polluting coal power to one where families drive electric scooters and cool their homes with the sun’s energy. And it could determine whether global […]
How ChatGPT Can Improve Education, Not Threaten it
To read the news, the sanctity of everything from college application essays to graduate school tests to medical licensing exams is imperiled by easy access to advanced artificial intelligence like ChatGPT, the AI chatbot that can produce remarkably clear, long-form answers to complex questions. Educators in particular worry about students turning to ChatGPT to help […]
Start-up Hopes ‘Super’ Poplar Trees Will Suck Up More CO2
Steven Strauss was skeptical when he first heard about a poplar tree bioengineered to suck more carbon dioxide out of the air. The forest biotechnology expert knew that trees are difficult to genetically alter — and that the “tender loving care” of a laboratory is no substitute for the outside world. So when two entrepreneurs […]
A Common Antibiotic Could Prevent Deaths from Childbirth Complications
Childbirth is a vulnerable experience, both emotionally and physically. Giving birth, whether vaginally or through a cesarean section, creates opportunities for bacteria to infect both the parent and newborn, and sometimes these infections can cause the parent’s immune response to spiral out of control. That extreme response to infection, called sepsis, is the third most […]
Scientists Decipher 57 Letters That Mary, Queen of Scots Wrote before Her Beheading
A mysterious sheaf of coded letters tucked away in the National Library of France (BnF) has turned out to be never-before-seen correspondence from Mary, Queen of Scots. Also known as Mary Stuart, the then deposed queen of Scotland, who was a contender for the English throne, wrote these 57 ciphered letters between 1578 and 1584. […]