This Professor Called Coconut Oil 'Pure Poison.' Is She Right?
Posted on December 1, 2022
| 6 minutes
| 1071 words
| Patria Henriques
A Harvard nutrition professor's lecture has ignited a new front in the battle over coconut oil.
In one camp, coconut oil acolytes who claim the stuff can prevent heart disease, increase metabolism and burn fat. In the other, researchers like University of Freiburg professor Karin Michels, who called the stuff "pure poison" in a German-language YouTube video posted in July. On Monday, Business Insider brought Michels' comments to an English-speaking audience with an article about the lecture.
[Read More]To find intelligent alien life, humans may need to start thinking like an extraterrestrial
Posted on December 1, 2022
| 5 minutes
| 943 words
| Fernande Dalal
HONOLULU — Our hunt for aliens has a potentially fatal flaw — we're the ones searching for them.
That's a problem because we're a unique species, and alien-seeking scientists are an even stranger and more specialized bunch. As a result, their all-too human assumptions may get in the way of their alien-listening endeavors. To get around this, the Breakthrough Listen project, a $100-million initiative scouring the cosmos for signals of otherworldly beings as part of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), is asking anthropologists to help unmask some of these biases.
[Read More]What If 200 Million People Go Missing on Saturday?
Posted on December 1, 2022
| 5 minutes
| 878 words
| Arica Deslauriers
According to the predictions of Christian radio broadcaster Harold Camping, May 21 will be the day of the rapture, when God calls believers to heaven to live in everlasting paradise.
By Camping's estimation, that means the Earth will be 200 million souls lighter by Sunday morning. [Infographic: A Brief History of Doomsday]
While there's no reason to believe that Camping's doomsday predictions are more reliable than the hundreds of failed end-of-the-world predictions throughout history, the loss of 200 million people all at once would be the largest single population decrease in human history.
[Read More]What If the World Stopped Turning?
Posted on December 1, 2022
| 4 minutes
| 770 words
| Fernande Dalal
In this weekly series, Life's Little Mysteries provides expert answers to challenging questions.
Earth's spin controls our lives. As the planet dances around the sun, we sleep and wake by its daily pirouette. The rotisserie-style heating keeps Earth warm and sunny all the way around, and Earth's rotation also drives the geomagnetic field, weather patterns and the circulation of the oceans. Bearing all that in mind, one wonders: what if the world stopped turning?
[Read More]What Is Neuropathy?
Posted on December 1, 2022
| 2 minutes
| 343 words
| Trudie Dory
Peripheral neuropathy (often referred to simply as "neuropathy") refers to any condition that damages or disrupts nerves in the peripheral nervous system.
The peripheral nervous system is the network of nerves that connects the central nervous system, which consists of the brain and spinal cord, to the rest of the body.
There are three types of nerves in the peripheral nervous system: motor nerves, which regulate the movements of muscles under your conscious control; autonomous nerves, which regulate bodily functions outside your control; and sensory nerves, which carry messages from the sensory organs to the brain.
[Read More]What Makes a Tomato Taste Sweet?
Posted on December 1, 2022
| 3 minutes
| 583 words
| Arica Deslauriers
Mary Poppins was definitely onto something when she crooned, "Just a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down." Children and adults are evolutionarily ingrained to prefer sweeter foods to bitter ones, scientists have learned. But as it turns out, sugar isn't the only way to sweeten the pot. Researchers at the University of Florida in Gainesville are searching for new ways to make foods taste better naturally, without adding sugar or artificial sweeteners.
[Read More]Woman Dies After Eating Raw Oysters: What Are Vibrio Bacteria?
Posted on December 1, 2022
| 2 minutes
| 339 words
| Patria Henriques
A Texas woman developed a fatal infection with flesh-eating bacteria after eating raw oysters, according to news reports.
The woman, Jeanette LeBlanc, went crabbing with her friends and family on the coast of Louisiana in September, according to CBS News. During the trip, LeBlanc and her friend Karen Bowers shucked and ate about two dozen raw oysters, Bowers told CBS.
But shortly afterward, LeBlanc experienced breathing problems and had a rash on her legs, which looked like an allergic reaction, Bowers said.
[Read More]1 in 4 Couples Share HPV Strains
Posted on November 30, 2022
| 4 minutes
| 648 words
| Mittie Cheatwood
The human papillomavirus (HPV) spreads surprisingly quickly between two people in a new relationship, a new study finds.
In fact, couples in the study were actually more likely to be infected with the same strain or strains of HPV if they had been together less than one year, as opposed to a longer period, the researchers said.
"HPV is very infectious," said study researcher Alan Nyitray, of the H. Lee Mof?
[Read More]2,000-Year-Old Water Supply SystemUncovered inJerusalem
Posted on November 30, 2022
| 2 minutes
| 402 words
| Patria Henriques
Part of an ancient aqueduct built more than 2,000 years ago to transport water into the city of Jerusalem was uncovered during a recent construction project, according to the Israel Antiquities Authority.
A section of the so-called Lower Aqueduct was discovered in the modern-day neighborhood of Umm Tuba, in East Jerusalem, during efforts to construct a new sewer line. The Lower Aqueduct was originally built more than 2,000 years ago by kings in the Hasmonean dynasty, who ruled Judea and its surrounding regions from about 140 B.
[Read More]Attack Ants Feed on Worms and Snakes
Posted on November 30, 2022
| 3 minutes
| 512 words
| Fernande Dalal
Army ants have been spotted attacking and eating a huge worm and even a snake, suggesting to researchers that their cooperative hunting strategy initially evolved just for such a surprising purpose.
Animal behaviorist Sean O'Donnell was having afternoon coffee when a giant earthworm exploded out of the leaf litter covering the jungle floor in an Ecuadorian nature preserve. The worm, later measured at nearly 16 inches long, was pursued by a column of hundreds of raiding army ants that quickly paralyzed or killed it.
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