Mount Etna: Photos of the Largest Active Volcano in Europe

 Posted on February 28, 2023  |  2 minutes  |  325 words  |  Fernande Dalal

Rumble rumbleMount Etna, located on the island of Sicily, is the largest active volcano in Italy. Mount Etna also holds the title as the volcano with the longest record of continuous eruption. Check out these incredible images of Mount Etna and its many fiery eruptions. There she blows!Mount Etna is located near the east coast of the island of Sicily. Residents there are no stranger to the volcano's explosive activity; Mount Etna can rumble to life several times a year. [Read More]

NASA's asteroid-deflecting DART mission just launched on a one-way trip to collide with a space rock

 Posted on February 28, 2023  |  6 minutes  |  1131 words  |  Trudie Dory

NASA just sent a spacecraft on a one-way mission to an asteroid — and once it gets there, it's going out with a bang. At 10:21 p.m. local time on Tuesday (Nov. 23), NASA's asteroid-deflecting Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, carried by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. DART now has a 10-month journey ahead of it until it reaches its destination: the binary asteroid system Didymos. [Read More]

Once-a-Month Birth Control Pill Is in the Works

 Posted on February 28, 2023  |  4 minutes  |  837 words  |  Mittie Cheatwood

"The pill" is a popular form of birth control, but it needs to be taken every day, and even one forgetful moment can increase the chances of becoming pregnant. To combat this problem, a group of researchers has developed a birth control pill that needs to be taken only once a month. The once-a-month birth control pill is embedded into a starfish-like organic device and packed into a capsule that can be swallowed, according to the study, published today (Dec. [Read More]

Shackled skeleton may be first direct evidence of slavery in Roman Britain

 Posted on February 28, 2023  |  4 minutes  |  678 words  |  Trudie Dory

A man who died in Roman Britain more than 1,500 years ago was buried wearing padlocked iron shackles securing his ankles, and his burial "is perhaps the best candidate" for the remains of an enslaved person in England when the land was under Roman control, scientists reported in a new study.  Construction workers discovered the headless skeleton in 2015 in Great Casterton, a village in England's East Midlands region. Archaeologists who recently analyzed the remains suspect that someone buried the man's corpse in shackles to demean him, and perhaps even to indicate that the man was enslaved. [Read More]

Why are so many people dying of COVID-19 in New York City?

 Posted on February 28, 2023  |  9 minutes  |  1784 words  |  Arica Deslauriers

New York is being hit the hardest by the novel coronavirus spreading across the U.S., with more cases and more related deaths per capita than any other state.  As of Monday (April 13), New York's death rate linked to COVID-19 was 513 deaths per million people, compared with California's 17 deaths per million. With more than 70% of the state's related deaths being reported in New York City, it begs the question: Is there something about the city's five boroughs that is boosting transmission and fatalities? [Read More]

Why Powerful Men (Like Arnold) Cheat

 Posted on February 28, 2023  |  4 minutes  |  737 words  |  Trudie Dory

Another day, another political sex scandal. This time, it's former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger acknowledging this week that he fathered a child with a member of his household staff more than a decade ago. And while psychologists and the public alike may not be surprised, we still wonder why he strayed. Experts say power gives men (and women) greater opportunity to stray and the overconfidence to think they'll get away with it. [Read More]

Black Widow Spiders Bring Their Venom to Canada As Planet Warms

 Posted on February 27, 2023  |  3 minutes  |  486 words  |  Arica Deslauriers

Venomous black widow spiders now range farther north than scientists expected, into an area including the most-inhabited parts of Canada. And there's good reason to suggest that warming temperatures are driving the fatal biters north. That's one conclusion of a new study, published online Wednesday (Aug. 8) in the journal PLOS One. The researchers in this study were trying to identify the geographical ranges of animals using citizen science and other spotty data sources. [Read More]

Blizzard of '93: Hundreds Killed, Two Dozen States Impacted

 Posted on February 27, 2023  |  7 minutes  |  1472 words  |  Fernande Dalal

This article was provided by AccuWeather.com. During the first few days of March 1993, meteorologists at AccuWeather stared in awe of weather patterns that seemed to be pointing toward the potential for a monster storm for the eastern third of the nation a week later. Map discussions (gatherings of dozens of meteorologists at multiple shifts) in the following days focused on the potential storm, and the discussions were lively to say the least. [Read More]

Brain Chip to Stimulate Orgasms

 Posted on February 27, 2023  |  2 minutes  |  354 words  |  Mittie Cheatwood

Researchers at Oxford University say a brain implant will one day stimulate pleasure centers for people who have trouble enjoying sex and otherwise experiencing pleasure, according to a UK news report. The sex chip, as it's been dubbed, would stimulate a part of the brain called the orbitofrontal cortex, targeting a joyless condition called anhedonia, according to the Daily Mail newspaper. A device along the same lines has been used already to treat Parkinson's disease, the researchers said, but a workable implant for stimulating orgasms is said to be a decade away because for now the surgery is too crude and intrusive. [Read More]

Energy Drinks Raise Blood Pressure, Study Finds

 Posted on February 27, 2023  |  3 minutes  |  627 words  |  Trudie Dory

Energy drinks might give you some pep — but they might also be priming you for heart problems, a new study finds. Researchers found that energy drinks can raise blood pressure to potentially unhealthy levels. The effect was far more prominent in young adults who did not consume caffeine regularly, according to the study, presented March 14 at an American College of Cardiology meeting in San Diego. In this study, the research team — led by Dr. [Read More]