What's Causing Your Foggy Brain? Check These 5 Possibilities
Posted on January 29, 2023
| 3 minutes
| 437 words
| Arica Deslauriers
It happens to almost everyone every now and then: a strange memory lapse, impaired concentration, mental fatigue, or a sensation that a cloud has taken over your sharp minds, leaving you with a foggy brain.
Besides lack of sleep and stress, there are five additional reasons why this may happen. Here's a look at them.
Too many open tabs
One possibility is that you are doing this to yourself. If you are one of those multitaskers who always toggle between projects, it's possible your brain might just give up at some point.
[Read More]Cellfina: Is There Finally a Procedure to Banish Cellulite?
Posted on January 28, 2023
| 5 minutes
| 1024 words
| Trudie Dory
For women with the all-too-common lumps and bumps of cellulite, wearing a bathing suit or shorts in public may make them feel self-conscious or embarrassed. The condition, which makes the skin on the rear end and backs of thighs appear bumpy and dimpled, affects more than 85 percent of adult women, according to some estimates.
No one knows why women get cellulite, said Dr. Michael Kaminer, an associate clinical professor of dermatology at the Yale School of Medicineand one of the founders of SkinCare Physicians in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts.
[Read More]DARPA's 'Aerial Dragnet' Will Monitor Drones in Cities
Posted on January 28, 2023
| 2 minutes
| 372 words
| Patria Henriques
While air traffic control systems track, guide and monitor thousands of planes and helicopters every day, one group of sky flyers remains unmonitored: drones.
In recent years, small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), such as commercial quadcopters and hobby drones, have become less expensive and easier to fly — adding traffic to airspace that's already congested. Drones are also more adaptable for terrorist or military purposes, and because they are currently flying unmonitored, U.
[Read More]Diagnosis Zombie: The Science Behind the Undead Apocalypse
Posted on January 28, 2023
| 7 minutes
| 1378 words
| Arica Deslauriers
NEW YORK — When Harvard Medical School professor and psychiatrist Dr. Steven Schlozman sat down here at LiveScience's offices to talk about zombies, he wanted to get one thing out of the way.
"They're not real," Schlozman said. "They don't exist. I'm a practicing physician, and I'm required to tell you when you should be worried — you don't need to worry about zombies."
Schlozman has made a name for himself as "
[Read More]Harvard-led team to search cosmos for extraterrestrial space tech and UFOs
Posted on January 28, 2023
| 4 minutes
| 685 words
| Mittie Cheatwood
(opens in new tab)Are there intelligent extraterrestrial civilizations capable of building technologies that can travel between the stars? An international research project is poised to find out.
The Galileo Project, helmed by a multi-institutional team of scientists led by Avi Loeb, a professor of science in the Department of Astronomy at Harvard University, will seek and investigate evidence that could represent defunct or still-active "extraterrestrial technological civilizations," or ETCs, project representatives said in a statement released on Monday (July 26).
[Read More]Heavy, Not Modest, Drinkers' Babies Have More Birth Defects
Posted on January 28, 2023
| 2 minutes
| 378 words
| Mittie Cheatwood
Babies born to women who drink heavily during their first trimester of pregnancy have an increased risk of birth defects, compared to the babies of mothers who abstained from alcohol, a new study found.
But children born to moms who drink occasionally during pregnancy don't have a higher risk of birth defects than children whose moms abstain, according to the study.
These results fall in line with another recent study, published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, which found that the 5-year-old children of women who drank lightly during their pregnancy no more than one or two drinks a week did not show any evidence of behavioral, emotional or cognitive impairment.
[Read More]How Did Animals' Dazzling Headgear Evolve?
Posted on January 28, 2023
| 3 minutes
| 518 words
| Mittie Cheatwood
A dazzling variety of head ornaments have evolved in animals such as sheep and cows, moose and elk, giraffes and pronghorn antelope. How this family of animals has developed such a wide variety of headgear has long stumped researchers.
"We don't have a good understanding of how living members of these groups grow their antlers," study researcher Edward Davis of the University of Oregon told LiveScience. "Understanding how these things grow and develop, it will help us understand the biological processes that can help people.
[Read More]Oceans' Mysterious Magnetic Field Is Mapped in Stunning Detail from Space
Posted on January 28, 2023
| 3 minutes
| 512 words
| Patria Henriques
Most people are familiar with the powerful magnetic field produced by Earth's molten iron core, but less is known about the field generated by its oceans.
To learn more, the European Space Agency (ESA) directed three identical spacecraft, which the agency launched in 2013 and collectively calls Swarm, to map the mysterious magnetic field emanating from the oceans' tides. [Earth from Above: 101 Stunning Images from Orbit]
The new research, as well as the digital 3D map it helped create, is providing new insight into how the protective, cocoon-like magnetic shield is generated, as well as how it behaves and changes over time.
[Read More]Octopus Foils Predators by Stealing Identities
Posted on January 28, 2023
| 3 minutes
| 476 words
| Fernande Dalal
Instead of blending in with the background, octopuses hide from predators by taking on the shape and color of specific objects in their environment, new research suggests.
"Octopuses are considered to be the master of camouflage. An octopus can change its color, pattern and texture of its skin in an instant," study researcher Noam Josef, of Ben-Gurion University in Israel, told LiveScience.
"By reproducing key features of well-chosen objects, the octopus can produce an effective camouflage that may fool a wide range of potential predators,"
[Read More]Oldest Fossil Evidence for Animals Found
Posted on January 28, 2023
| 4 minutes
| 712 words
| Mittie Cheatwood
The oldest fossilized evidence of animals has been unearthed in Oman and reveals that tiny sea sponges were abundant 635 million years ago, long before most of the planet's other major animal groups evolved, according to a new analysis.
This early life hardly looked like us, but some of the so-called demosponges can be sizable today. Demosponges still make up 90 percent of all sponges on Earth and 100 percent of Earth's largest sponges, including barrel sponges, which can be larger than an old-style phone booth.
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