Photos: Archaeologists Excavate Battlefield from Napoleonic Wars

 Posted on February 19, 2023  |  1 minutes  |  203 words  |  Trudie Dory

Battlefield archaeologyAhead of highway construction, archaeologists in Austria are busy excavating a huge battlefield from the Napoleonic Wars. [Read more about the archaeological dig at the Napoleonic Wars site] Mass casualtiesThe French and Austrian armies lost tens of thousands of soldiers over the course of two days in July 1809 during the Battle of Wagram. Though Napoleon's troops suffered heavy losses, the French army ultimately won the battle. Buried soldiersSince excavations began in 2017, several mass graves have been found at the site. [Read More]

Picnic Time! 230 Polar Bears Feast on Whale Carcass

 Posted on February 19, 2023  |  3 minutes  |  477 words  |  Mittie Cheatwood

Hundreds of hungry polar bears were treated to a whale of a buffet last week when the carnivores descended on a whale carcass on the coast of Russia's Wrangel Island. The incredible sight was photographed by tourists on a boating expedition that was traveling through the Northeast Passage. "We were cruising down the coast and saw a 'herd' or 'convention' of polar bears on/near the beach," on Sept. 19, Rodney Russ, the expedition leader, wrote on his blog. [Read More]

Schizophrenia is 2nd highest risk factor for dying of COVID-19, after age

 Posted on February 19, 2023  |  5 minutes  |  966 words  |  Mittie Cheatwood

Schizophrenia may be one of the highest risk factors for dying from COVID-19, second only to age, according to a new study.  Previous studies had found that people with mental illnesses, particularly depression and schizophrenia — a condition that causes distortions in thinking and perception — had a higher risk of becoming infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. But it was not known whether mental disorders were also associated with a risk of dying from COVID-19. [Read More]

Study Reveals How Creatures Get Spots vs. Stripes

 Posted on February 19, 2023  |  3 minutes  |  587 words  |  Fernande Dalal

The forest can be a blur of color and patterns, from the rosette spots on leopards and stripes adorning tigers to psychedelic butterflies and polka-dotted flies. Exactly how these animals got their funky coats has been a mystery ... until now. New research gets to the bottom of why certain fruit flies (Drosophila guttifera) are decorated with 16 spots on their wings, a finding that could apply to larger animals as well, the researchers say. [Read More]

The More Teens Are Yelled At, the Worse They Behave

 Posted on February 19, 2023  |  3 minutes  |  546 words  |  Patria Henriques

Parents commonly shout, yell or even swear at their teenagers, but such discipline tactics may actually increase their child's risk for behavior problems, a new study suggests. In the study, parent's use of harsh verbal discipline with their children at age 13 was linked with an increased risk of conduct problems and symptoms of depression at ages 13 and 14. The more frequently parents used hash verbal discipline, the more commonly their children experienced these problems, the researchers found. [Read More]

Utah's Great Salt Lake Is Shrinking

 Posted on February 19, 2023  |  3 minutes  |  520 words  |  Trudie Dory

Years of drought and over-irrigation have caused Utah's Great Salt Lake to shrink at an alarming rate, recent satellite photos show. After the Great Lakes, Utah's Great Salt Lake is the largest body of water (by area) in the United States. Back in the middle of the 19th century, when pioneers first arrived in the area, the lake spread across roughly 1,600 square miles (4,100 square kilometers). Now, the lake covers an area of only about 1,050 square miles (2,700 square km), new satellite photos from NASA reveal. [Read More]

Why Good Deeds Can Cause Moral Backsliding

 Posted on February 19, 2023  |  3 minutes  |  547 words  |  Fernande Dalal

Doing a good deed can lead some people to more kind acts while spurring others to backslide. But how people respond depends on their moral outlook, according to a new study. People who believe the ends justify the means are likelier to offset good deeds with bad ones and vice versa. By contrast, those who believe right and wrong are defined by principle, not outcome, tend to be more consistent, even if they're behaving unethically. [Read More]

Why Some Women Wear Too Much Perfume

 Posted on February 19, 2023  |  2 minutes  |  321 words  |  Fernande Dalal

Women who doll up with too much perfume might not know it because they're depressed. That's the conclusion of Dr. Yehuda Shoenfeld, a physician and autoimmune disease researcher at Tel Aviv University in Israel who studies "autoantibodies." This class of chemicals launches attacks against the body's cells, often in patients with autoimmune disease such as lupus. "Our scientific findings suggest that women who are depressed are also losing their sense of smell, and may overcompensate by using more perfume," [Read More]

A Beer a Day Keeps the Cardiologist Away

 Posted on February 18, 2023  |  3 minutes  |  492 words  |  Arica Deslauriers

The benefits of a glass of wine in warding off heart disease have been much discussed, but a new analysis indicates that some of those same benefits may be gleaned from a beer. Researchers analyzed 16 studies involving more than 200,000 participants and found that the heart disease risk for moderate beer drinkers – those who drank about a pint a day – was reduced 31 percent on average. "That's not surprising – they both have alcohol," [Read More]

A Gurgling Mud Pool Is Creeping Across Southern California Like a Geologic Poltergeist

 Posted on February 18, 2023  |  4 minutes  |  704 words  |  Trudie Dory

A mysterious, bubbling mud geyser is on the move in Southern California, flitting dangerously close to railroad tracks, Highway 111 and some very expensive optic cables, like a geologic poltergeist, according to news sources. Even stranger, this puzzling geyser — dubbed the "Slow One" — is in the same neighborhood as the source of the so-called "Big One," the giant earthquake that is expected to shake things up where the North American and Pacific tectonic plates rub together to form the San Andreas Fault. [Read More]