Sky-High Doses: Taking Large Amounts of Vitamin D Is on the Rise

 Posted on January 16, 2023  |  3 minutes  |  517 words  |  Trudie Dory

The number of people taking sky-high doses of vitamin D has increased dramatically in recent years, a new study finds. Between 1999 and 2014, the percentage of U.S. adults taking 1,000 International Units (IU) or more of vitamin D increased by more than 60 times, from 0.3 percent of adults in 1999-2000 to 18.2 percent in 2013-2014, the researchers found. For adults up to age 70, the recommended dietary allowance is 600 IU a day; for adults over 70, it is 800 IU daily. [Read More]

The Secret to Hummingbirds' Amazing Energy

 Posted on January 16, 2023  |  2 minutes  |  331 words  |  Fernande Dalal

VIRGINIA BEACH, VA—Unlike humans who must fuel up hours before intense exercise, hummingbirds can refuel in mid-flight, according to a new study. Within several minutes of lapping up sweet nectar, the rufous hummingbird [image] uses the just-ingested sugars to fuel more flying and hovering so it can consume more nectar, a new study finds. The fast-paced feeding isn't for kicks. Hummingbirds have the highest energy expenditure of any warm-blooded animal, with a heart rate of up to 500 beat-per-minute, blindingly fast wing beats and sustained hovering. [Read More]

The World's Largest Organism Is Dying

 Posted on January 16, 2023  |  5 minutes  |  879 words  |  Arica Deslauriers

It's death by a thousand nibbles. Pando, the world's largest living organism — and possibly its oldest — is being destroyed by the voracious appetite of mule deer. Also known as the trembling giant, Pando is a colony of quaking aspen that spans 106 acres (43 hectares) of south-central Utah. Because of an explosion of deer in the area, new sprouts from Pando are eaten before they have a chance to mature, and the venerable organism is at risk of dying out altogether. [Read More]

Truly Spooky: How Ghostly Quantum Particles Fly Through Barriers Almost Instantly

 Posted on January 16, 2023  |  4 minutes  |  670 words  |  Arica Deslauriers

At the subatomic level, particles can fly through seemingly impassable barriers like ghosts. For decades, physicists have wondered just how long this so-called quantum tunneling takes. Now, after a three-year investigation, an international team of theoretical physicists has an answer. They measured a tunneling electron from a hydrogen atom and found that its passage was practically instantaneous, according to a new study. [18 Times Quantum Particles Blew Our Minds] [Read More]

What Causes Eye Flashes and Floaters?

 Posted on January 16, 2023  |  1 minutes  |  172 words  |  Patria Henriques

Undulating like strands of kelp drifting on a minuscule ocean, "eye  floaters" can be annoying. Sooner or later 70 percent or so of us will endure eye floaters or their pesky cousins, eye flashes. Although a variety of medical conditions can cause floaters and  flashes, the most common culprits are iffy connections between the back of the eye and the vitreous, the eye's Jell-O-like core. Sometimes — especially as we age and our vitreous thins — little  patches of the wobbly thing can pull free from the back of the eye. [Read More]

Why Beauty Is Both Personal and Universal

 Posted on January 16, 2023  |  2 minutes  |  386 words  |  Patria Henriques

As they say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, however, the experience of being moved by art seems universal. A new neurological study offers some insight into this aesthetic paradox. The results indicate that connecting deeply to a work of art activates the same part of everyone's brain. However, part of the brain activated by such strong aesthetic appeal is associated with personal reflection, the researchers found. A team of researchers from New York University showed study subjects 109 images of works of art from a variety of cultures, historical periods, styles and depicting a variety of subjects. [Read More]

Adorable ancient sea cows once swam through now-bone dry Egyptian desert

 Posted on January 15, 2023  |  4 minutes  |  644 words  |  Trudie Dory

About 40 million years ago, a gentle marine giant glided through the water in what is now a bone-dry desert in Egypt, according to new research. The study suggests that during the late Eocene, about 40 million to 35 million years ago, Egypt's Eastern Desert was home to the ancient relatives of manatees (also endearingly called sea cows) and dugongs. This isn't the first fossil of an ancient Sirenia — the order that includes manatees, dugongs and their extinct relatives, like the Steller's sea cow — discovered in Egypt, but it is the only known fossil Sirenia in these particular rock units dating back to the Eocene, known as the Beni Suef Formation. [Read More]

Amazon Wildfires Are Horrifying, But They're Not Destroying Earth's Oxygen Supply

 Posted on January 15, 2023  |  4 minutes  |  846 words  |  Trudie Dory

Fires in the Amazon rainforest have captured attention worldwide in recent days. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who took office in 2019, pledged in his campaign to reduce environmental protection and increase agricultural development in the Amazon, and he appears to have followed through on that promise. The resurgence of forest clearing in the Amazon, which had decreased more than 80% following a peak in 2004, is alarming for many reasons. Tropical forests harbor many species of plants and animals found nowhere else. [Read More]

Ancient Inscription Points to Lost Temple of Unknown God in Yemen

 Posted on January 15, 2023  |  3 minutes  |  603 words  |  Arica Deslauriers

A 2,000-year-old bronze tablet from Yemen, has engraved writing that mentions a lost temple dedicated to a god named "Athtar Ḥarmān," a deity whom scholars have never heard of before. Written in the Sabaic language, in a text known as Sabaean, the bronze inscription reads: "Ilīmataʿ and Khabīʾat, the two servants of Khawliyān offered to Athtar Ḥarmān, the owner of Bana, with a tablet of bronze, their sons and those he will add, for their salvation" [Read More]

Behind Bullying: Why Kids Are So Cruel

 Posted on January 15, 2023  |  5 minutes  |  908 words  |  Patria Henriques

According to reports by fellow students, the last few months of 15-year-old Phoebe Prince's life were filled with unrelenting torment. Classmates at the Irish immigrant's Massachusetts high school called Prince a "whore" and an "Irish slut," students said. They defaced her school photo with obscene drawings, sent her threatening text messages and whispered — or shouted — insults in school hallways. On Jan. 14, witnesses say, she was taunted by a group of classmates in the library and hit with a can of Red Bull thrown from a moving car. [Read More]