Video catches split second before intense lightning strike
Posted on December 29, 2022
| 4 minutes
| 655 words
| Trudie Dory
Electrifying video footage has captured the moment just before lightning strikes, when thin tendrils of electricity reach down from the sky and up from the ground, until they collide with a dramatic flash.
Using a high-speed camera, researchers captured images of lightning as it struck a 1,066-foot-tall (325 meters) meteorology tower in Beijing. Two consecutive frames, each lasting 2.63 microseconds, show the moment when the downward-reaching and upward-reaching fingers of the lightning bolt suddenly touch, releasing a massive electrical discharge and a bright flash of light.
[Read More]Ancient Human Sacrifice Victims Faced Slavery Before Death
Posted on December 28, 2022
| 5 minutes
| 941 words
| Fernande Dalal
At an ancient site of human sacrifice in China, war captives may have been kept as slaves for years before they were killed, a new study finds.
Archaeologists have previously uncovered evidence of ritual human sacrifice in many ancient societies, including the ancient Greeks, the Vikings, the ancient Maya, and the Aztecs and the Incas, as well as in ancient China.
Prior worked revealed an extraordinary number of ritual human sacrifices were conducted during the Shang dynasty, which spanned from the 16th century B.
[Read More]Babies Picky About Who They Imitate
Posted on December 28, 2022
| 3 minutes
| 428 words
| Fernande Dalal
Babies are famous for copying adults, but a new study shows that little ones carefully choose whether to imitate an adult's actions based on how credible they think the adult is.
For example, if an adult has previously displayed unreliable or dishonest behavior, the baby is less likely to mimic them, according to the study.
Researchers divided 60 babies between 13 months and 16 months into two groups. In the first group, "
[Read More]Catchy Names Get Kids to Eat Veggies
Posted on December 28, 2022
| 2 minutes
| 262 words
| Patria Henriques
How do you get kids to eat their carrots in the cafeteria? Don't call them carrots — call them "X-ray Vision Carrots." New research out of Cornell University finds that catchy names can prompt kids to eat more veggies.
The first part of the study involved 147 students, ages 8 to 11 years old, from five different schools. For three days in a row, carrots were added to the schools' lunch menu, but on the second day, the carrots were served as either "
[Read More]Climate Threat: Thawing Tundra Releases Infected Corpses
Posted on December 28, 2022
| 8 minutes
| 1666 words
| Mittie Cheatwood
Yards and yards of clear plastic sheeting line the cellar floor, dwarfing the corpse: headless, frail, supine. The young bony arms — covered in fine black powder from centuries of immobility in the frozen tundra — are crossed at rest, reminiscent of a ceremonial burial. Camera flashes illuminate the scene. Several dozen scientists stand around the body, murmuring in Russian and English about the find of the day.
How long do you think it was buried?
[Read More]Electrified Droplets Create Mini Saturn Planets
Posted on December 28, 2022
| 3 minutes
| 459 words
| Fernande Dalal
By electrifying tiny drops of fluid, scientists have created miniature versions of the ringed planet Saturn.
Though gorgeous to look at, the resulting "planet" has more than aesthetic value: The achievement could help lead to new ways of generating microscopic and uniform particles and capsules often used in products such as drugs, inks, cosmetics, paints and ceramics, researchers said.
When a drop of electrically conductive liquid is exposed to an electric field, the droplet responds by forming two electrically charged poles.
[Read More]High Cholesterol Levels May Make It Harder to Get Pregnant
Posted on December 28, 2022
| 4 minutes
| 672 words
| Patria Henriques
Couples may have a harder time becoming pregnant if both the man and woman have high cholesterol levels, a new study suggests.
Researchers found that free cholesterol levels in men and women were higher, on average, among couples who did not become pregnant during the 12-month study than among couples who did conceive. (Free cholesterol is cholesterol that is not bound to another molecule; by contrast, HDL and LDL cholesterol is bound to proteins.
[Read More]Meditation May Boost Mood and Mental Toughness
Posted on December 28, 2022
| 3 minutes
| 489 words
| Trudie Dory
Meditation exercises could boost mental toughness in soldiers readying for war, keeping them from becoming overly emotional, according to new research.
The study found that mindfulness training, which teaches people how to stay alert and in the moment without becoming emotional (giving them a kind of "mental armor"), improved the moods of U.S. Marines preparing for deployment to Iraq. Practicing mindfulness also improved a type of memory that enables people to complete complex mental tasks.
[Read More]Men's Shaved Armpits Smell Better to Women, by a Hair
Posted on December 28, 2022
| 3 minutes
| 575 words
| Fernande Dalal
In a battle between nature and culture, culture has won by a hair — or lack thereof.
That's the finding of a group of scientists in the Czech Republic. In a new study, they had male participants shave one armpit and let the other grow wild; they then collected odor samples from each of the men's pits and passed them under the noses of a group of females, who then rated how attractive they found each odor.
[Read More]Missouri Woman Dies from Tick Bite: What Is Bourbon Virus?
Posted on December 28, 2022
| 3 minutes
| 430 words
| Arica Deslauriers
A woman in Missouri recently died from a rare tick-borne illness called Bourbon virus disease, which was first identified only a few years ago.
The woman, 58-year-old Tamela Wilson, began feeling unwell in late May, shortly after she'd spotted and removed two ticks from her body, CBS News reported. Soon, her health deteriorated further — she had severe headaches, pain and a light-red rash, and tests showed that she had a low white blood cell count.
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