10 Things You Didn't Know About You

 Posted on March 9, 2023  |  4 minutes  |  780 words  |  Arica Deslauriers

All About YouThe human body is a great, sweaty, fluid-filled machine, moving and mixing chemicals with precision and coordination, making everything from memories to mucus. Here we explore some of the complex, beautiful or just plain gross mysteries of how you function. Your Skin Has Four ColorsAll skin, without coloring, would appear creamy white. Near-surface blood vessels add a blush of red. A yellow pigment also tints the canvas. Lastly, sepia-toned melanin, created in response to ultraviolet rays, appears black in large amounts. [Read More]

5,200 tons of extraterrestrial dust fall on Earth each year

 Posted on March 9, 2023  |  3 minutes  |  435 words  |  Arica Deslauriers

Every year, 5,200 tons of extraterrestrial dust fall to Earth.  This gentle rain of bits of comets and asteroids far outweighs larger meteorites that hit the planet, according to research to be published April 15 in the journal Earth & Planetary Science Letters. Only about 10 tons (9 metric tons) of larger space rocks land on Earth annually.  Despite the large quantities, it's hard to detect space dust or track its annual accumulation in most places due to precipitation that washes dust away. [Read More]

Bones of St. James the Younger, one of the 12 apostles, belong to someone else

 Posted on March 9, 2023  |  3 minutes  |  517 words  |  Trudie Dory

Bone fragments long thought to have come from St. James the Younger, one of the 12 apostles who may have been Jesus' brother, couldn't have come from him, a new study finds. The Santi Apostoli church in Rome has housed fragments of a femur, or thigh bone, for more than 1,500 years, believing they were from St. James. But radiocarbon dating has revealed they must have come from some other, unknown person, according to a study published Jan. [Read More]

Could Climate Change Affect People’s Personalities?

 Posted on March 9, 2023  |  4 minutes  |  766 words  |  Mittie Cheatwood

People's personalities may be shaped by the temperatures of the places in which they grew up, a new study suggests. This could mean that as climate change influences temperatures around the globe, shifts in personality may follow. The idea that someone's personality may be affected by where that person lives is not new: Previous research has suggested that many aspects of human personality vary from one geographical region to another, according to the new study. [Read More]

Forget Moore's Law — Quantum Computers Are Improving According to a Spooky 'Doubly Exponential Rate'

 Posted on March 9, 2023  |  2 minutes  |  408 words  |  Patria Henriques

The era of quantum supremacy is nigh. Quantum computers, which make calculations with entangled particles, or qubits, are poised to overtake their conventional counterparts very, very fast. And it's all captured by a new law of computing, known as Neven's Law, according to a fascinating new article in Quanta Magazine. So, what exactly is Neven's Law? Named after Hartmut Neven, the director of the Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab at Google who first noticed the phenomenon, the law dictates how quickly quantum processors are improving, or getting faster at processing calculations, relative to regular computers. [Read More]

Graveyard of rhinos, horses and giraffes found in ancient, dried-up watering hole

 Posted on March 9, 2023  |  5 minutes  |  885 words  |  Mittie Cheatwood

(opens in new tab)Nine million years ago, a watering hole in what is now Spain became first a refuge, then a last resting place, for droves of desperate giraffes, rhinos, horses and sabertooth cats.  Dozens of animals died of starvation, dehydration and miring in the dwindling watering hole over three separate periods of drought in the late Miocene, according to new research published in the September issue of the journal Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology and available online July 15. [Read More]

Have a Nice Colonoscopy: New Test Eliminates Probing, Laxative

 Posted on March 9, 2023  |  5 minutes  |  943 words  |  Mittie Cheatwood

Colonoscopies could be made a bit more comfortable for people if they involved lying in a CT scanner, rather than being probed with an endoscope, and at the same time didn't require drinking upward of a gallon of laxative fluid beforehand — current requirements that most consider unpleasant. A new type of "virtual colonoscopy" that uses CT scans to construct images of the colon, as well as to virtually "clean" the organ, was just as effective as a standard colonoscopy in finding colon polyps 1 centimeter or larger in size, a new study finds. [Read More]

Lady Gaga's Chronic Pain: What Is Fibromyalgia?

 Posted on March 9, 2023  |  3 minutes  |  607 words  |  Arica Deslauriers

Singer Lady Gaga recently revealed that she has fibromyalgia; the painful condition is often hard to diagnose, and its causes are still unclear. Yesterday, the singer said on Twitter that her upcoming Netflix documentary "Gaga: Five Foot Two" will touch on her struggles with chronic pain. "In our documentary, the #chronicillness #chronicpain I deal w/ is #Fibromyalgia," she wrote on Twitter. "I wish to help raise awareness & connect people who have it. [Read More]

Meet the Robot That Can Turn Your Vehicle Into a Self-Driving Car

 Posted on March 9, 2023  |  3 minutes  |  593 words  |  Fernande Dalal

The future of autonomous vehicles may not be a car at all, but instead a portable robot that can fit inside a handheld suitcase before taking its place in the driver's seat. A new autonomous driving system, called IVO (short for intelligent vehicle operator), uses a handful of cameras, simple motion sensors and a few mechanical devices to depress the brakes and turn the steering wheel. The system compensates for its relatively simple sensors with highly sophisticated computer algorithms, said Oded Yechiel, a graduate student in robotic engineering at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel, who helped develop the car. [Read More]

No More Glare: 'Moth Eye' Smartphone Coating Doesn't Reflect Sunlight

 Posted on March 9, 2023  |  3 minutes  |  584 words  |  Fernande Dalal

Unusual structures on moth eyes that help the insects see at night have inspired a new anti-reflection film for electronic devices. The new technology could help users see their screens even in bright daylight. The film significantly reduces glare as well as the need to duck into the shade to read what's on the screen.  "For most commercial smartphones, the moth-eye film can improve the readability of the screen by 10 times under a clear sky. [Read More]