A 'pacemaker' for brain activity helped woman emerge from severe depression
Posted on November 18, 2022
| 8 minutes
| 1512 words
| Fernande Dalal
After all available treatments had failed, a patient with severe depression found relief from an implanted device that delivers short pulses of electricity to specific spots in her brain.
The battery-powered device, called the NeuroPace RNS System, not only stimulates the brain but also monitors electrical activity from inside the organ. And so the device can be programmed to switch "on" in response to specific brain activity patterns. The U.
[Read More]Breath-Holding Superstition May Have Caused Car Crash
Posted on November 18, 2022
| 4 minutes
| 674 words
| Trudie Dory
A man fainted while holding his breath as he drove through a tunnel near Portland, Oregon, causing a head-on collision that sent four people to the hospital, possibly highlighting the ill effects of even common, and seemingly silly, superstitions.
At the end of May, the driver, Daniel Calhon, lost consciousness and swerved his car into oncoming traffic. Calhon, his passenger and two others sustained non-life-threatening injuries; occupants in a third vehicle involved suffered no injuries.
[Read More]Did the Redcoats teach George Washington how to fight?
Posted on November 18, 2022
| 5 minutes
| 854 words
| Arica Deslauriers
Inside History of War magazine(opens in new tab) issue 104, historian David Smith(opens in new tab) looks at the early military career of George Washington — America's first president and commander in chief.
He reveals how Washington learned the strengths and weaknesses of the British Army while serving the King in battle against the French and Native Americans. Smith also recounts how while Washington's role during the Revolutionary War was critical to defeating the British, his leadership did not go unchallenged, and in fact faced several crises on the path to victory.
[Read More]Earliest Evidence of Human Hunting Found
Posted on November 18, 2022
| 3 minutes
| 569 words
| Arica Deslauriers
Archaeologists have unearthed what could be the earliest evidence of ancient human ancestors hunting and scavenging meat.
Animal bones and thousands of stone tools used by ancient hominins suggest that early human ancestors were butchering and scavenging animals at least 2 million years ago. The findings, published April 25 in the journal PLOS ONE, support the idea that ancient meat eating might have fueled big changes in Homo species at that time.
[Read More]Forecast: Dorian Will Slam into Florida As a 'Major' Category 4 Hurricane
Posted on November 18, 2022
| 2 minutes
| 295 words
| Fernande Dalal
Hurricane Dorian will likely hit Florida Sunday (Sept. 1) as a Category 4 hurricane, according to the latest forecast from the National Hurricane Center (NHC).
The storm, which dealt Puerto Rico a comparatively mild blow Wednesday (Aug. 28), has since moved a couple hundred miles north. Dorian is tracking northwest toward Florida with maximum sustained winds of 85 mph (135 km/h), making it a Category 1 hurricane now. However, the NHC said, pressure inside the hurricane has dropped significantly, which should drive the storm to strengthen into a "
[Read More]How Are Earthquakes Measured?
Posted on November 18, 2022
| 2 minutes
| 341 words
| Fernande Dalal
The familiar Richter scale (which is not a physical device but rather a mathematical formula) is no longer widely used by scientists or the media to report an earthquake's size.
Today, an earthquake's size is typically reported simply by its magnitude, which is a measure of the size of the earthquake's source, where the ground began shaking.
While there are many modern scales used to calculate the magnitude, the most common is the moment magnitude, which allows for more precise measurements of large earthquakes than the Richter scale.
[Read More]How Coyotes Dwindled to Their Modern Size
Posted on November 18, 2022
| 4 minutes
| 712 words
| Trudie Dory
In ancient times, when woolly mammoths and cave bears roamed Earth, coyotes boasted bigger bodies, rivaling the size of wolves, only to shrink to near modern size about the same time these megafauna went extinct.
Now researchers say the coyotes lost their robust bodies, along with facial features that made them better at shredding meat and taking down larger prey, because their meaty fare changed from young horses, for instance, to smaller rodents and rabbits, and hefty competitors such as dire wolves went extinct.
[Read More]Lacrosse Helmets Recalled by Easton Sports
Posted on November 18, 2022
| 1 minutes
| 205 words
| Fernande Dalal
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, in cooperation with Easton Sports, of Scotts Valley, Calif., announced a voluntary recall of tabout 12,000 Easton Raptor Lacrosse Helmets.
Hazard: The chin bar can break, causing the wearer to suffer a jaw or facial injury.
Incidents/Injuries: Easton Sports has received six reports of the chin bar cracking or breaking on impact with a ball or lacrosse stick, including one laceration injury.
Description: This recall involves all Easton Raptor Lacrosse Helmets.
[Read More]Man Who Slapped Hippo's Butt at LA Zoo Is Still at Large
Posted on November 18, 2022
| 3 minutes
| 629 words
| Trudie Dory
Police in Los Angeles are on the lookout for a man who was recently captured on video trespassing at the LA Zoo and getting dangerously hands-on with a hippopotamus.
In the footage, posted to Twitter on Aug. 7, the unidentified man is seen climbing over a railing into a restricted area near the zoo's hippo enclosure. He then leans close to the two animals standing by the wall — a mother and daughter pair named Mara and Rosie — and smacks 4-year-old Rosie on her bottom, the Los Angeles Times reported.
[Read More]Monster antimatter particle slams into Antarctica
Posted on November 18, 2022
| 3 minutes
| 601 words
| Fernande Dalal
Editor's note: This story was corrected at 6:20 p.m. ET on Thursday, March 18 to reflect that Sheldon Glashow's first name is not "Stephen."
The most remote particle detector on Earth has detected the most energetic antimatter particle ever: a single ultralight particle that smacked into the Antarctic ice with the (relatively) thundering energy of 6,300 flying mosquitos.
The collision occurred in 2016, but researchers only confirmed the details of the event March 10 in a paper published in the journal Nature(opens in new tab).
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