Belief in God Boils Down to a Gut Feeling
Posted on January 15, 2023
| 3 minutes
| 479 words
| Mittie Cheatwood
For many people, believing in God comes down to a gut feeling that a benevolent deity is out there. A study now finds that gut feelings may be very important in determining who goes to church every Sunday and who avoids the pews.
People who are generally more intuitive in the way they think and make decisions are more likely to believe in God than those who ruminate over their choices, the researchers found.
[Read More]Deadly Pressure: Why These Two Men's Muscles 'Blew Up' From the Inside
Posted on January 15, 2023
| 5 minutes
| 913 words
| Mittie Cheatwood
The medical condition known as acute compartment syndrome (ACS) doesn't sound especially dramatic, but its consequences can be gruesome and potentially lethal; it causes swift and extreme muscle swelling that can require slicing through the skin and muscle wall to relieve the pressure.
The condition is usually associated with a highly traumatic injury, but for two people in Japan, doctors traced ACS to an unlikely source — bites from a venomous snake, according to a new report of the two cases.
[Read More]Ecstasy Leads to Rare Aneurysm in College Student
Posted on January 15, 2023
| 4 minutes
| 712 words
| Trudie Dory
A college student who took Ecstasy was fortunate to survive a ruptured aneurysm in an artery near his spinal cord, but his case is a reminder of the dangers of using this street drug.
Florida neurologists diagnosed the young man with a posterior spinal arterial (PSA) aneurysm, which is a weakening of the blood vessel wall in a spinal cord artery. This case is the first time an aneurysm of any spinal vessel has been linked to recreational drug use, and it's only the 13th PSA aneurysm case reported in the medical literature, the doctors said.
[Read More]Gargantuan 'Bubbles' of Radio Energy Spotted at the Center of Our Galaxy. How'd They Get There?
Posted on January 15, 2023
| 4 minutes
| 707 words
| Patria Henriques
A few million years ago, the center of the Milky Way experienced a bout of bad gas.
Suddenly, some unknown quantity of matter and electromagnetic energy swirling near our galaxy's central black hole erupted in a gargantuan explosion. Electrons moving at nearly the speed of light tore into nearby clouds of dust and gas, causing them to balloon into two enormous, nearly identical bubbles of invisible energy. They're still there today, each one towering some 25,000 light-years high (about a quarter of the width of the Milky Way itself), but you won't see them unless you have an eye for the most energetic radiation in the universe.
[Read More]Giant Camels Roamed the Arctic 3.5 Million Years Ago
Posted on January 15, 2023
| 2 minutes
| 422 words
| Trudie Dory
Camels are the poster animals for the desert, but researchers now have evidence that these shaggy beasts once lived in the Canadian High Arctic.
The fossil remains of a 3.5-million-year-old camel were found on Ellesmere Island in Canada's northernmost territory, Nunavut. The camel was about 30 percent bigger than modern camels and was identified using a technique called collagen fingerprinting. The finding, detailed today (March 5) in the journal Nature Communications, suggests that modern camels stemmed from giant relatives that lived in a forested Arctic that was somewhat warmer than today.
[Read More]How Evolving Traits Helped Humans Survive Unstable World
Posted on January 15, 2023
| 5 minutes
| 1059 words
| Fernande Dalal
Three different human species may have walked the Earth at the dawn of the human lineage, dividing up their environment in slightly different ways, and the ancestors of modern humans may have survived because oftraits such as large brains that helped them adapt to unstable, shifting landscapes, researchers say.
Moreover, the defining features of the human lineage may not have evolved together gradually at once, but piecemeal in stages over millions of years, scientists added.
[Read More]Nearly 30 Years After Chernobyl Disaster, Wildlife Returns to the Area
Posted on January 15, 2023
| 3 minutes
| 617 words
| Patria Henriques
Almost 30 years after a horrific accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant released massive amounts of radiation and became one of the world's worst nuclear catastrophes, the long-abandoned site has some new inhabitants: New research finds that many native wildlife species are once again finding refuge in the human-free Chernobyl Exclusion Zone in Ukraine.
Scientists found that the numbers of moose, roe deer, red deer and wild boar living in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone — a roughly 1,000-square-mile (2,600 square kilometers) designated area of contamination around the disaster site — are similar to the animals' population numbers in nearby uncontaminated nature reserves.
[Read More]New AI 'Ramanujan Machine' uncovers hidden patterns in numbers
Posted on January 15, 2023
| 5 minutes
| 884 words
| Fernande Dalal
A new artificially intelligent "mathematician" known as the Ramanujan Machine can potentially reveal hidden relationships between numbers.
The "machine" consists of algorithms that seek out conjectures, or mathematical conclusions that are likely true but have not been proved. Conjectures are the starting points of mathematical theorems, which are conclusions that have been proved by a series of equations.
Related: The most massive numbers in existence
The set of algorithms is named after Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan.
[Read More]Scientists want to store DNA of 6.7 million species on the moon, just in case
Posted on January 15, 2023
| 6 minutes
| 1226 words
| Trudie Dory
A "lunar ark" hidden inside the moon's lava tubes could preserve the sperm, eggs and seeds of millions of Earth's species, a group of scientists has proposed.
The ark, or gene bank, would be safely hidden in these hollowed-out tunnels and caves sculpted by lava more than 3 billion years ago and would be powered by solar panels above. It would hold the cryogenically preserved genetic material of all 6.
[Read More]Video Captures Near-Deadly Iceberg 'Tsunami'
Posted on January 15, 2023
| 3 minutes
| 542 words
| Fernande Dalal
One second you're volunteering to be your uncle's translator, and the next a glacial wave nearly sinks your ship.
Jens Møller was visiting family near Ilulissat, Greenland, when he decided to go for a boat ride with his uncle to serve as a translator for an Australian tourist, and to have a look at the local glaciers.
Møller, who's from Greenland but speaks fluent English, hopped aboard his uncle's 18-foot (5.5-meter) ship. Upon inspecting the glaciers at a place named Eqi, the group heard some cracking.
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