Birth Defect Risk Greater with Assisted Reproduction

 Posted on March 24, 2023  |  3 minutes  |  637 words  |  Trudie Dory

Babies conceived through in vitro fertilization have an increased risk of birth defects, but most of this risk is due to factors related to the parents who seek this technology, and not to the procedure itself, a new study from Australia shows. In the study, 7.2 percent of babies born after IVF had a birth defect, compared with about 6 percent of babies conceived naturally. However, most of the increased risk of birth defects could be explained by parental factors, such as the mother's age, smoking status and conditions during pregnancy. [Read More]

Charles Darwin's stolen 'tree of life' notebooks returned after 20 years

 Posted on March 24, 2023  |  4 minutes  |  676 words  |  Trudie Dory

(opens in new tab)A pair of Charles Darwin's iconic notebooks have been returned to their rightful home more than 20 years after they were mysteriously stolen. The contents of the notebooks include the naturalist's first doodle of the "tree of life," which he sketched out decades before formulating his theory of evolution by natural selection.      The notebooks are part of the Darwin Archive at Cambridge University Library in the U. [Read More]

Frozen Earth in 'Snowpiercer' Is a Grim (and Possible) Future for Our Warming Planet

 Posted on March 24, 2023  |  6 minutes  |  1165 words  |  Patria Henriques

NEW YORK — In the not-so-distant future, humanity's last survivors ride a vast, never-stopping train across a frozen Earth. The fictional world of "Snowpiercer," a new TV series airing on TNT in early 2020, is a grim one. A botched attempt to reverse runaway global warming has left Earth blanketed in ice and snow. Only a few thousand people — some wealthy and privileged and many desperate and wretched — survive, saved by a billionaire's pet project: a beast of a supertrain (named Snowpiercer) that extends for miles, equipped to ride the rails until Earth is habitable again. [Read More]

Hoverboard Daredevil Speeds Over Atlantic Ocean

 Posted on March 24, 2023  |  2 minutes  |  395 words  |  Mittie Cheatwood

In a stunt straight out of a science-fiction film, a real-life, jet-powered hoverboard cruised over the Atlantic Ocean. Franky Zapata, a hoverboard, took to the skies in a promotional video for the watch company Breitling. The Swiss watchmaker announced its partnership with the Flyboard Air project in December with an incredible video that shows Zapata flying on his hoverboard, reported The Telegraph. Zapata flew about 164 feet (50 meters) over the Atlantic Ocean for almost 7 minutes, The Telegraph said. [Read More]

How Is Uranium Enriched?

 Posted on March 24, 2023  |  4 minutes  |  817 words  |  Arica Deslauriers

This story was updated Sept. 5 at 6:20 p.m. EDT. Now that President Donald Trump has pulled the United States out of the nuclear deal with Iran, people across the world are wondering if the Middle Eastern country will invest its energies in building a nuclear weapon. But if Iran's leadership does decide to pursue an atomic bomb, how would researchers get enough uranium, the key ingredient? Uranium enrichment is one of the key steps in building nuclear weapons. [Read More]

Image Gallery: 7 Potent Medicinal Plants

 Posted on March 24, 2023  |  3 minutes  |  571 words  |  Patria Henriques

Wild MedicineIn a living exhibition called "Wild Medicine," 500 herbs with healing properties are on display at the New York Botanical Garden through Sept. 8, 2013. Click through to read about seven of the potent plants featured in the show. Rosy PeriwinkleRosy periwinkle, sometimes called Madagascar periwinkle, has been used in traditional Indian and Chinese medicines to treat a wide range of ailments from diabetes to constipation. But more than four decades ago, scientists isolated the plant's alkaloids vincristine and vinblastine, which are today used in chemotherapy treatments and credited with increasing the survival rate for childhood leukemia. [Read More]

Lowly Worms Get Their Place in the Tree of Life

 Posted on March 24, 2023  |  3 minutes  |  513 words  |  Patria Henriques

They feed and poop from the same hole and look about as simple as they come, but two large groups of marine worms are more closely related to us than are insects and mollusks, a new study shows. The "lowly" worms belong to two large groups called Xenoturbella and Acoelomorphaand are no strangers to uncertainty, as zoologists have long debated how to classify the organisms. The acoelomorphs, for instance, were reclassified in the 1990s as an early branch of evolution and have been considered at the base of the family tree for bilateral organisms (those with a right and left side, which make up most of Earth's animals). [Read More]

Mass Human Sacrifice? Pile of Ancient Skulls Found

 Posted on March 24, 2023  |  3 minutes  |  507 words  |  Trudie Dory

Archaeologists have unearthed a trove of skulls in Mexico that may have once belonged to human sacrifice victims. The skulls, which date between A.D. 600 and 850, may also shatter existing notions about the ancient culture of the area. The find, described in the January issue of the journal Latin American Antiquity, was located in an otherwise empty field that once held a vast lake, but was miles from the nearest major city of the day, said study co-author Christopher Morehart, an archaeologist at Georgia State University. [Read More]

More Babies Are Being Born with Intestines Outside the Body. Is the Condition Linked to Mom's Opioid Use?

 Posted on March 24, 2023  |  3 minutes  |  634 words  |  Trudie Dory

Rates of a serious birth defect are on the rise in the United States, and a new report suggests the condition may be linked to opioid use. The report, published Jan. 17 by researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, looks at cases of gastroschisis, a birth defect in which a baby is born with his or her intestines outside the body, due to a hole in the abdominal wall. [Read More]

Ozone Hole Over Antarctica Shrinks to Record-Small Size

 Posted on March 24, 2023  |  3 minutes  |  461 words  |  Mittie Cheatwood

The ozone hole above Antarctica, where the sun's harmful ultraviolet (UV) rays bust through an otherwise sunscreened stratosphere, has shrunk to its smallest size on record going back to 1982, scientists have found. Typically, at this time of year, the hole in the ozone — a layer made up of molecules containing three oxygen atoms — grows to about 8 million square miles (20 million square kilometers), NASA said. That's bigger than Russia. [Read More]