Beware 'Star Wars' Spoilers: Enjoyment Suffers When Plot Revealed
Posted on February 1, 2023
| 5 minutes
| 865 words
| Patria Henriques
The much-anticipated film "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" opens in U.S. theaters Friday (Dec. 18), and if you're not already waiting in line to see the very first screenings, you might be worried about spoilers ruining the experience.
And now you've got science to support your fears. A recent study found that spoilers — or giving away key plot details — may not ruin an experience entirely, but can reduce suspense and decrease overall enjoyment.
[Read More]Blossoming Body: 8 Odd Changes That Happen During Pregnancy
Posted on February 1, 2023
| 5 minutes
| 895 words
| Arica Deslauriers
Your changing bodyPregnancy is a time of major physical changes, from a swollen belly to swollen feet. Here are eight of the strangest things that happen to the body when you're pregnant.
You grow a whole new organIt’s not just a baby-to-be developing in the womb; pregnant women are also growing a whole new organ. The placenta is the only transient organ in the human body. It starts to form when the fertilized egg, at this point a multicellular blastocyst, implants in the uterine wall about a week after conception.
[Read More]Decapitated and dismembered skeletons reveal lost Iron Age massacre
Posted on February 1, 2023
| 4 minutes
| 708 words
| Arica Deslauriers
A brutal attack on an Iron Age town in northern Spain during the mid-fourth or late third century B.C. left more than a dozen bodies — men, women and children — scattered and smoldering in the streets, as the town burned.
Injuries inflicted upon the people who died were horrific. One person was decapitated, two had severed arms, and the remains of nearly half of the individuals showed signs of mutilation, archaeologists recently discovered.
[Read More]Does the Whole30 Diet Really Work?
Posted on February 1, 2023
| 5 minutes
| 876 words
| Mittie Cheatwood
Editor's Note: This article was updated at 9:50 a.m. E.T. on Jan. 2.
After a month of pumpkin pie, egg nog and sugar cookies, many people's top New Year's resolution is to eat healthier and lose weight. And an extreme form of the Paleo diet known as the Whole30 diet, which prohibits grains, sugar and legumes, may be an increasingly popular choice.
The Whole30 diet asks people to eliminate a host of staple foods for 30 days, after which people can then add certain items back into their diet thoughtfully.
[Read More]How Do Glaciers Carve Valleys? Mystery Solved
Posted on February 1, 2023
| 5 minutes
| 884 words
| Mittie Cheatwood
Since the dawn of time, humans have wondered how mountains and valleys came to be. Now, a new research technique has uncovered the specifics of the million-year process by which glaciers carve valleys in the landscape.
Glacial valleys, such as Yosemite Valley in California and the Fiordland in the Southern Alps of New Zealand, are always U-shaped, and are surrounded on all sides by high mountain ridges. It was known previously that these low-relief areas were drudged out by enormous, slow-moving glaciers .
[Read More]How Earthquakes Make the Ground Go Boom
Posted on February 1, 2023
| 2 minutes
| 382 words
| Mittie Cheatwood
As earthquake waves ripple through the Earth, the crust buckles, rumbles and roars — both audibly and at infrasonic frequencies, below the range of human hearing.
A new study finds the Earth's surface acts like a speaker for low-frequency vibrations, transmitting an earthquake's infrasonic tumult into the air.
"This is really the first successful model for earthquake infrasound. It means that we can predict what we expect to see from earthquakes versus underground explosions, for example,"
[Read More]How NASA is dealing with the 'dent' in Earth's magnetic field
Posted on February 1, 2023
| 4 minutes
| 825 words
| Arica Deslauriers
Earth(opens in new tab) is an enormous magnet, its iron-rich core creating a shield of magnetic field(opens in new tab) that envelopes the planet —— well, almost. A "dent" in this magnetic field known as the South Atlantic Anomaly allows charged particles from the sun to dip closer to the planet in an area over South America and the Southern Atlantic Ocean.
These particles, at the very least, can mess with instruments up in space.
[Read More]Images: Deep-Sea 'Black Smoker' Vents in Action
Posted on February 1, 2023
| 3 minutes
| 585 words
| Fernande Dalal
Hydrothermal vent chimneyThis photo-montage shows a deep-sea hydrothermal vent chimney--one of many that were recently discovered by MBARI researchers in the southern Gulf of California. Some of the recently discovered chimneys were over 65 feet (20 meters tall. The "smoke" emanating from this chimney is actually tiny mineral particles that form when the hydrothermal fluids come in contact with near-freezing seawater.
Out of nowhereThis deep-sea hydrothermal vent chimney was one of many recently discovered by MBARI researchers in the southern Gulf of California.
[Read More]In Photos: The Life of a Giant Panda
Posted on February 1, 2023
| 3 minutes
| 469 words
| Mittie Cheatwood
Tracking a pandaAn adult female panda dubbed Mei Mei sports a tracking collar as she walks through the forests of Wolong Nature Reserve with her cub. She was one of five pandas collared and tracked by Michigan State University researchers.
Here's a look at the cute and fuzzy animals that call the reserve home.
Panda snoozeThe Wolong Nature Reserve in southwestern China is home to about 10 percent of the world’s wild giant pandas, as well as a research center to breed pandas and lay groundwork for successfully reintroducing pandas into the wild.
[Read More]Incredible! Most Well-Preserved Armored Dinosaur Was a 'Spiky Tank'
Posted on February 1, 2023
| 5 minutes
| 1014 words
| Mittie Cheatwood
A spiky, tank-like dinosaur discovered in a Canadian mine is so well-preserved, it looks as if the fossilized creature were frozen in time for 110 million years.
Miners discovered the 18-foot-long (5.5 meters) beast — a nodosaur, a cousin of ankylosaurs, which also had body armor but didn't sport club tails — in 2011 during routine work at the Suncor Millennium Mine in Alberta.
Shawn Funk, a heavy-equipment operator, noticed the fossil because the texture and color looked different than the surrounding rock, according to National Geographic(opens in new tab), which broke the story on Friday (May 12).
[Read More]