Is Ozone Good or Bad?
Posted on March 13, 2023
| 1 minutes
| 197 words
| Trudie Dory
Actually, it's both, depending on what altitude you find it at …
Ninety percent of Earth's ozone is found in the stratosphere (the second layer of the Earth's atmosphere, just above the one in which we dwell, the troposphere). This ozone forms the ozone layer, which shields everything on the planet's surface from the sun's harmful ultraviolet rays.
But when ozone forms at the surface (when pollution from cars reacts with UV rays), it is a pollutant itself, and can damage forests, crops and can irritate human lungs.
[Read More]Mysterious second writer of Dead Sea Scroll uncovered by AI
Posted on March 13, 2023
| 6 minutes
| 1097 words
| Arica Deslauriers
A famous Dead Sea Scroll manuscript was written by not just one but two scribes, according to a new study that used artificial intelligence (AI) and statistics to detect subtle differences in handwriting on the ancient document.
The two scribes wrote in such a similar manner that the differences between the two aren't visible to the naked eye, the analysis revealed — a detail that suggests the scribes might have received similar training, perhaps at a school or in a close social setting, the researchers wrote in the study.
[Read More]Only 1 Person Has Been Cured of HIV: New Study Suggests Why
Posted on March 13, 2023
| 4 minutes
| 784 words
| Arica Deslauriers
To this date, only one person is thought to have been cured of HIV — the "Berlin patient" Timothy Ray Brown. But no one is exactly sure which aspect of Brown's treatment may have cured him.
Now a new experiment on monkeys provides more evidence that a rare genetic mutation in the person who donated bone marrow to Brown may have had a central role in his cure.
Brown's HIV was eradicated in 2007 after he underwent a treatment in Germany for his leukemia, a cancer of the white blood cells.
[Read More]Pendant Just Like Anne Frank's Discovered at Nazi Death Camp
Posted on March 13, 2023
| 3 minutes
| 639 words
| Fernande Dalal
Archaeologists have discovered a German Jewish girl's pendant — nearly identical to the one that belonged to Anne Frank — in the ruins of a Nazi death camp in German-occupied Poland.
The discovery has sent researchers looking for more information about the young girl who once owned the medallion and her possible links to the Frank family.
The silver pendant was unearthed at the Sobibór extermination camp, where some 200,000 people were killed between 1942 and 1943.
[Read More]Roofie Reality: Drink Spiking Affects Many College Students
Posted on March 13, 2023
| 4 minutes
| 767 words
| Trudie Dory
About 1 in 13 college students in a new study from three U.S. campuses report having been drugged, or suspect that they were drugged.
Drink spiking, or adding drugs to a person's drink without his or her knowledge or consent, can lead to sexual assault and injuries. However, few studies have looked at how frequently spiking actually occurs.
"These data indicate that drugging is more than simply an urban legend,"
[Read More]Russian Team Reaches Buried Antarctic Lake
Posted on March 13, 2023
| 2 minutes
| 388 words
| Patria Henriques
Russian scientists camped at the coldest place on Earth say they have recovered water samples from Lake Vostok, buried beneath more than 2 miles (3 kilometers) of Antarctic ice.
Cut off as it is from the surface, scientists think that the huge freshwater lake hasn't been touched for more than 14 million years. The chemistry of the isolated water could provide a glimpse into Earth's past and primitive forms of life on Earth.
[Read More]Side-Impact Tectonics Created Colombia's Strange Geology
Posted on March 13, 2023
| 2 minutes
| 390 words
| Arica Deslauriers
A car crash-like collision between tectonic plates offshore of Colombia helps explain the region's unusual geology, a new study finds.
Colombia sits at the complex junction of three small tectonic plates: the Caribbean plate to the north, the Panama plate to the west and the Nazca plate to the southwest. All of them border the northwestern corner of the giant South America plate.
Both the Caribbean plate and the Nazca plates meet South America as subduction zones, sliding down beneath the continent.
[Read More]The Fish That Nearly Sank Isaac Newton's Career
Posted on March 13, 2023
| 2 minutes
| 420 words
| Mittie Cheatwood
An intricate image of a flying fish is one of hundreds of images now searchable online courtesy of the Royal Society, the United Kingdom's national academy of science.
This striking wood engraving appeared in the 1686 text "Historia Piscium" or "The History of Fishes" by John Ray and Francis Willughby. Now mostly forgotten, the book was groundbreaking for its time. Unfortunately, "The History of Fishes" almost prevented another groundbreaking work from being published: Isaac Newton's "
[Read More]The Quantum World May Have a Favorite Flavor, Tantalizing Results Suggest
Posted on March 13, 2023
| 6 minutes
| 1185 words
| Patria Henriques
The world of the teensy-tiny, the quantum realm, could have a favorite flavor.
We're not talking about itty-bitty ice cream cones, of course. The world of particles is split into three camps, called "flavors" (don't ask why). For example, the electrons represent one flavor, and there are two other particles with nearly identical properties, the muon and the tau, that have their own flavors. We've long suspected — but not proven — that all three flavors should be on equal footing.
[Read More]Why We Love Blood-Curdling Screams
Posted on March 13, 2023
| 4 minutes
| 653 words
| Trudie Dory
Of all the sounds humans produce, nothing captures our attention quite like a good scream.
They're a regular feature of horror films, whether it's Marion Crane's infamous shower scream in "Psycho" or Chrissie Watkins' blood-curdling scream at the beginning of "Jaws."
Screams might seem simple, but they can actually convey a complex set of emotions. The arsenal of human screams has been honed over millions of years of evolution, with subtle nuances in volume, timing and inflection that can signal different things.
[Read More]