Rep. Scalise's Injuries: Why a Bullet in the Hip Can Be So Damaging
Posted on December 3, 2022
| 5 minutes
| 855 words
| Patria Henriques
Congressman Steve Scalise remains in critical condition today, after being shot in the hip on Wednesday (June 14). Although the public may perceive a bullet to the hip as being less serious than say, one to the chest or head, doctors say a gunshot wound to the pelvic area can cause life-threatening injuries.
Scalise, who is 51, was injured during a shooting this week at a practice for the annual Congressional Baseball Game for Charity.
[Read More]Singing Sand Dunes: The Mystery of Desert Music
Posted on December 3, 2022
| 3 minutes
| 553 words
| Mittie Cheatwood
If you've never heard a sand dune rumble, listen up. Marco Polo in the 13th Century said the singing sands -- which he ascribed to evil desert spirits -- "at times fill the air with the sounds of all kinds of musical instruments, and also of drums and the clash of arms."
Yes, certain sand dunes will occasionally let out a loud, low-pitch rumble that lasts up to 15 minutes and can be heard up to 6 miles (10 kilometers) away.
[Read More]Surgeons transplant pig's heart into dying human patient in a first
Posted on December 3, 2022
| 5 minutes
| 1041 words
| Arica Deslauriers
Update on March 9, 2022: The man who received the pig-heart transplant died two months after the historic surgery. Doctors aren't sure the exact cause of death. Read the full story on Live Science.
Doctors have transplanted the heart from a genetically modified pig into the chest of a man from Maryland in a last-ditch effort to save his life. The first-of-its-kind surgery is being hailed as a major step forward in the decades-long effort to successfully transplant animal organs into humans.
[Read More]Weird Engineered Organism Has 6-Letter DNA
Posted on December 3, 2022
| 4 minutes
| 677 words
| Patria Henriques
The first report of a bacterium whose genome contains man-made DNA building blocks opens the door for tailor-made organisms that could be used to produce new drugs and other products.
All living creatures have a DNA "alphabet" of just four letters, which encode instructions for the proteins that perform most of the key jobs inside cells. But expanding that alphabet to include artificial letters could give organisms the ability to produce new proteins never seen before in nature.
[Read More]Why Itchiness Is Contagious
Posted on December 3, 2022
| 3 minutes
| 574 words
| Arica Deslauriers
Mice, just like humans and monkeys, will start itching if they see a compatriot scratching itself, a new study finds.
The finding is the first evidence that "socially contagious itching" exists in rodents, the researchers said. Moreover, the researchers' neural analysis revealed that socially contagious itching is hardwired into the mouse brain.
"The mice got itchy when the other mice scratched [themselves]," said study senior researcher Zhoufeng Chen, the director at the Center for the Study of Itch at the Washington University School of Medicine in St.
[Read More]11 Surprising Thanksgiving Facts
Posted on December 2, 2022
| 4 minutes
| 762 words
| Trudie Dory
Do you love Thanksgiving? I mean do you really LOVE everything about the holiday, from the delicious food to seeing your crazy relatives? Then you are going to be amazed at what goes into making the holiday what it is. And you thought cooking your turkey was a challenge.
1) Are you ready for a day (or three) of eating?
If you can't make it through the daylong celebration of food, football and family be thankful that you weren't around for the first Thanksgiving.
[Read More]Drinking This Much Coffee May Trigger Migraines
Posted on December 2, 2022
| 4 minutes
| 651 words
| Mittie Cheatwood
Drinking too much coffee or other caffeinated drinks may be a trigger for migraines among people prone to these severe headaches, a new study suggests.
The study researchers found that, among people with periodic migraine headaches, consuming at least three caffeinated drinks a day was tied to a higher likelihood of experiencing a migraine on that day or the following day. However, consuming only one or two caffeinated drinks a day was generally not associated with migraines, the study found.
[Read More]Fish Masquerades as Coral to Hide in Plain Sight
Posted on December 2, 2022
| 2 minutes
| 401 words
| Mittie Cheatwood
One coral-living fish has found an ingenious way to avoid being gobbled up during a nap, a new study finds. The harlequin filefish has evolved to have polka-dot markings that match its coral home. Just before a snooze, the fish slicks back its fins to make like a piece of reef.
The harlequin filefish, also called the orange spotted filefish or Oxymonacanthus longirostris, is a blue and yellow spotted fish that eats the same coral it calls home.
[Read More]How a Woman's Birth Control Implant Ended Up in Her Lung
Posted on December 2, 2022
| 3 minutes
| 431 words
| Arica Deslauriers
A woman's birth control implant that went missing from its proper place in her arm turned up in her lung, according to a new report of the case.
The 31-year-old woman, who lives in Portugal, had a birth control implant inserted into her upper arm in 2017, according to the report, published July 9 in the journal BMJ Case Reports.
This small, rod-shaped device is placed under the skin and releases a steady dose of hormones into the bloodstream to prevent pregnancy.
[Read More]How the Gulf Oil Spill Containment Dome Will Work
Posted on December 2, 2022
| 6 minutes
| 1170 words
| Fernande Dalal
BP is taking extreme caution as they lower a containment dome about as tall as a four-story building to the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico today in an effort to stem the flow of oil still gushing from a damaged pipe after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and sank on April 22.
This is the first time an oil recovery system like this has been used in such deep waters.
[Read More]