Medieval shrine gets stone carving of face wearing a COVID-19 mask

 Posted on February 1, 2023  |  4 minutes  |  686 words  |  Patria Henriques

A historic cathedral in the United Kingdom recently renovated a 14th-century shrine with an update that acknowledges the COVID-19 pandemic: a carved mask covering a stone face. St. Albans Cathedral in Hertfordshire, England, is Britain's oldest site of continuous Christian worship. Construction began in the late 11th century on the burial location of the Christian martyr Alban, Britain's first saint, and was completed in 1115, according to the St. Albans website. [Read More]

Mysterious 'Fairy Circles' in African Desert Get New Explanation

 Posted on February 1, 2023  |  5 minutes  |  1047 words  |  Arica Deslauriers

The bizarre circular patches of bare land called "fairy circles" in the grasslands of Africa's Namib Desert have defied explanation, with hypotheses ranging from ants to termites to grass-killing gas that seeps out of the soil. But the patches may be the natural result of the subsurface competition for resources among plants, new research suggests. Grasslands in the Namib Desert start off homogenous, but sparse rainfall and nutrient-poor soil spark intense competition between the grasses, according to the new theory. [Read More]

Thin Air Might Increase Depression in Mountain States

 Posted on February 1, 2023  |  4 minutes  |  849 words  |  Arica Deslauriers

The eight intermountain states of the American West, sometimes called the Suicide Belt, have high elevations and the associated thin air. Now, researchers say the low oxygen in these areas is linked with signs of depression, and could potentially even contribute to suicides in some regions. In 2012, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Montana, Idaho, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico all had suicide rates exceeding 18 per 100,000 people, while the national rate was 12. [Read More]

3 Asteroids Are Zipping Past Earth Today

 Posted on January 31, 2023  |  3 minutes  |  458 words  |  Patria Henriques

Three asteroids are expected to hurtle past Earth today (Sept. 9). One will pass as near as 310,000 miles (500,000 kilometers) — closer than any potential asteroid near-miss for the next three months. Asteroid 2019 QZ3 flew by at 6:49 a.m. ET; asteroid 2019 RG2 follows at around 3:13 p.m. ET, and the third, asteroid 2019 QY4, flashes past at 9:10 p.m. ET, the International Business Times reported. QZ3 is the biggest of the trio, with a diameter of 220 feet (67 meters), while RG2 and QY4, respectively measure approximately 66 feet (20 m) and 52 feet (16 m) in length, according to NASA's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS). [Read More]

Can High-Protein Diets Help You Lose Weight?

 Posted on January 31, 2023  |  3 minutes  |  621 words  |  Arica Deslauriers

"The Healthy Geezer" answers questions about health and aging in his weekly column. Question: I've been on a diet high in proteins and low in carbohydrates for several weeks now, and I've lost weight on it. What do you think of this type of diet? Answer: High-protein diets can bring a quick drop in weight because eliminating carbohydrates causes a loss of body fluids. And, high-protein diets cause substances called ketones to be released into the bloodstream. [Read More]

Fusion Leaps Forward: Surpasses Major Break-Even Goal

 Posted on January 31, 2023  |  3 minutes  |  625 words  |  Arica Deslauriers

Scientists have announced a major achievement in the step toward viable fusion energy. A new set of experiments has produced more energy than was contained in the fuel that was put into the system, according to a paper published today (Feb. 12) in the journal Nature. The experiments also show the beginnings of a process that could lead to a self-sustaining reaction, or ignition, Omar Hurricane, the study's lead author, said in a press briefing. [Read More]

Here's What We Know About CRISPR Safety

 Posted on January 31, 2023  |  6 minutes  |  1206 words  |  Arica Deslauriers

A movie just recently released called "Rampage" features Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson using a genetic engineering technology called CRISPR, to transform a gorilla, among other animals, into a flying dragon-monster with gigantic teeth. Though this is science fiction, not to mention impossible, the movie captures the imagination of the public and their recent interest and fascination with CRISPR. CRISPR, which stands for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, was originally part of bacterial defense system that evolved to destroy foreign DNA that entered a bacterium. [Read More]

Is Your Hometown a Top Tornado City?

 Posted on January 31, 2023  |  1 minutes  |  188 words  |  Trudie Dory

Tornadoes can happen anytime, anywhere if conditions are right, but some places are of course more tornado-prone than others. Over at The Weather Channel, their resident tornado expert Greg Forbes has assembled a list of the Top 10 tornado cities in the United States. His ranking is based on the sheer number of tornadoes in a given metro area, though it also takes into account the full area of tornado paths to give a better idea of the amount of land actually being impacted by tornadoes, Forbes said. [Read More]

Leonardo da Vinci didn’t carve the notorious 'Flora' bust, experts find

 Posted on January 31, 2023  |  3 minutes  |  599 words  |  Mittie Cheatwood

A bust in the collection of Berlin's Bode Museum had long been attributed to the Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci, mostly because the woman's features resembled those of faces in da Vinci's paintings. However, there was no evidence directly connecting da Vinci to the sculpture of the goddess Flora — a Roman deity of flowering plants — and its origins have been hotly contested among art experts for over a century.  [Read More]

Mathematics is the Pursuit of Beauty

 Posted on January 31, 2023  |  6 minutes  |  1177 words  |  Mittie Cheatwood

This Behind the Scenes article was provided to LiveScience in partnership with the National Science Foundation. Manjul Bhargava, who has loved mathematics for as long as he can remember, created and solved his first algebra problem at age seven, stacking oranges into a triangular pyramid and trying to figure out how many he would need if he had n oranges on one side. "I still remember the answer," he says. " [Read More]