A Man's 'Beer Belly' Was Actually a Massive Tumor
Posted on December 9, 2022
| 2 minutes
| 264 words
| Arica Deslauriers
A New Jersey man's "beer belly" turned out to be a 30-lb. (13.6 kilograms) tumor.
The man, Kevin Daly, realized something was wrong when he lost more than 30 lbs. in 2015, but his belly fat didn't budge, the New York Daily News reported earlier this month.
A CT scan revealed that the man's belly bulge was in fact a rare type of tumor called a liposarcoma, according to Fox News.
[Read More]Bad Breath: Causes and Cures
Posted on December 9, 2022
| 4 minutes
| 658 words
| Patria Henriques
A whiff of bad breath can hint at matters more serious than a meal of onions and garlic or a skipped tooth brushing. Foul exhalations warn of gum disease, dry mouth, and other unhealthy medical conditions.
Unfortunately, even the healthiest of bodies suffer from morning breath.
"Nobody's going to wake up in the morning with flowers in their mouth," said Walter Bretz, an associate professor at New York University College of Dentistry.
[Read More]Earth spent 500 million years creating and eating dead continents
Posted on December 9, 2022
| 4 minutes
| 653 words
| Mittie Cheatwood
When Earth was just a wee young thing, it birthed many new continents — then it swallowed them all up, leaving just a few traces behind, a new study shows.
These first continents had a knack for living fast and dying young, but in doing so, they paved the way for solid continents that eventually led to the emergence of plate tectonics, the new study suggests.
"Our results explain that continents remained weak and prone to destruction in their infancy, ~4.
[Read More]Engineering OJ: Terrible Smells Make Juice Fresh
Posted on December 9, 2022
| 2 minutes
| 371 words
| Arica Deslauriers
Ah, freshly-squeezed orange juice - what makes it taste so good? Is it that hidden smell of paint thinner? Or perhaps the subtle hint of mothballs?
Researchers have isolated more than 40 of the natural compounds that make up the aroma of orange juice. When smelling the extracted compounds, volunteers compared some of the scents to gasoline, cut-grass, roses, cheesy feet, and cotton candy.
"By themselves some of them stink, but they are necessary to the mix,"
[Read More]Kelp Waits to Take Its Place in America's Stomachs
Posted on December 9, 2022
| 8 minutes
| 1516 words
| Fernande Dalal
The leaves resemble brown lasagna noodles when they wash ashore on coasts around the world. Like many other seaweeds, sugar kelp has all sorts of uses. The leaves of Saccharina latissima provide a sweetener, mannitol, as well as thickening and gelling agents that are added to food, textiles and cosmetics.
But some believe its most important potential is largely untapped: as an addition to the American diet.
Seaweed is widely cultivated and consumed in Asia.
[Read More]Magnetic Fields Can Remotely Control Brain Cells in Mice
Posted on December 9, 2022
| 3 minutes
| 562 words
| Mittie Cheatwood
Using magnetic fields, scientists can activate specific brain cells in mice and make them run, spin and freeze, new research shows.
This could help scientists pinpoint the specific brain circuits animals use for certain behaviors, which could in turn help scientists pinpoint with greater accuracy which brain areas are involved in those same behaviors in humans, said Arnd Pralle, a biophysicist at the University at Buffalo in New York.
The main goal is to develop tools that can help scientists study the brains of laboratory animals to see how they encode emotions and behaviors, Pralle told Live Science.
[Read More]Microbes in Glittering Crystal Cave Revived After 10,000 Years
Posted on December 9, 2022
| 5 minutes
| 884 words
| Patria Henriques
Microbes that may be between 10,000 and 50,000 years old have been revived from the inside of enormous, glittering crystals from a Mexican cave.
The microbes come from the Cave of the Crystals within Chihuahua state's Naica Mine. This chamber is filled with selenite crystals many meters long that formed over hundreds of thousands of years in magma-heated, mineral-rich groundwater. Inside these crystals are small, fluid-filled pockets, from which researchers cultured organisms that have never been seen before.
[Read More]Rays Don't Stray: Giant Mantas Stick Close to Home
Posted on December 9, 2022
| 5 minutes
| 871 words
| Patria Henriques
Until recently, manta rays — which sail through tropical and temperate ocean waters, looking much like enormous kites — were thought to migrate great distances across ocean basins, as do many of the largest marine animals.
But a new study finds that these big fish have a much smaller range than scientists had thought.
Researchers investigated data gathered from tracking devices on the manta rays, as well as chemical and DNA analysis of the rays' muscle tissues.
[Read More]Secret Message Discovered in Milton's Epic 'Paradise Lost'
Posted on December 9, 2022
| 3 minutes
| 525 words
| Patria Henriques
An undergraduate student has discovered a secret message in John Milton's epic poem "Paradise Lost."
The hidden message is an acrostic, meaning a missive spelled out by the first letters in each line of the poem. It reads "FFAALL" and "FALL" — an appropriate triple-use of the word "fall," as the poem's subject is the Biblical story of the decline of Satan, as well as the banishment of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden.
[Read More]Spider-Man's Silk Really Could Stop a Train
Posted on December 9, 2022
| 2 minutes
| 426 words
| Fernande Dalal
In the 2004 movie "Spider-Man 2," the superhero slings silk from his wrists to keep a runaway subway from plunging off the end of the tracks. Far-fetched as the scene may be, a group of physics students say Spidey's webbing material, if it was truly as strong as a spider's silk, could indeed stop a train.
"It is often quoted that spiderwebs are stronger than steel, so we thought it would be interesting to see whether this held true for Spider-Man's scaled-up version,"
[Read More]