Einstein's 'Biggest Blunder' Turns Out to Be Right
Posted on June 18, 2023
| 4 minutes
| 739 words
| Trudie Dory
The Universe's Geometry Confirms Dark Energy Model | Einstein's Cosmological Constant
What Einstein called his worst mistake, scientists are now depending on to help explain the universe.
In 1917, Albert Einstein inserted a term called the cosmological constant into his theory of general relativity to force the equations to predict a stationary universe in keeping with physicists' thinking at the time. When it became clear that the universe wasn't actually static, but was expanding instead, Einstein abandoned the constant, calling it the '"
[Read More]General Mills Recalls Some Bags of Flour Due to Salmonella Risk
Posted on June 18, 2023
| 2 minutes
| 310 words
| Fernande Dalal
General Mills is recalling some of its flour products because they may be contaminated with Salmonella, according to the company.
On Wednesday (Jan. 23), the company announced that it is voluntarily recalling 5-lb. (2.26 kg) bags of its Gold Medal unbleached flour products that have a "better if used by date" of April 20, 2020.
The recall was issued after sample testing of the 5-lb. bag product detected Salmonella, General Mills said in a statement.
[Read More]Hurricane Preparation: What to Do
Posted on June 18, 2023
| 7 minutes
| 1464 words
| Arica Deslauriers
Hurricanes are powerful tropical storms that batter coastlines with heavy rains, strong winds and surging waves. Inland flooding is one of the most dangerous effects of a hurricane. With winds of at least 74 mph (119 km/h), hurricanes can also damage buildings and cars by blowing debris.
The most important thing a person can do to prepare for a hurricane is to start planning well before the tropical storm season begins, experts say.
[Read More]Is That Chest Pain Serious? New Blood Test Could Tell
Posted on June 18, 2023
| 4 minutes
| 775 words
| Mittie Cheatwood
Every day, a slew of previously healthy people experience chest pains and go to the emergency room. But a whole range of events can then follow; some of these people may be having a heart attack and may die later that day, while others will be sent home with medications and live decades longer.
Now, a new blood test could quickly give doctors a sense of a patient's risk for serious heart problems, such as a heart attack or even death, a new study finds.
[Read More]Kissing May Be Evolution's Matchmaker
Posted on June 18, 2023
| 5 minutes
| 863 words
| Trudie Dory
You've got to kiss a lot of frogs to find your prince, as the saying goes. New research suggests the cliché is true on an evolutionary level.
Kissing might have evolved as a way to assess the quality of potential mates, according to two new studies. Women, who tend to be pickier about romantic entanglements than men, also care more about kissing in the first phases of a relationship, suggesting that make-outs may weed out duds.
[Read More]Left at the 1st Neuron: Project Will Map Every Human Cell
Posted on June 18, 2023
| 4 minutes
| 740 words
| Trudie Dory
Imagine having the level of detail in Google Maps but for the inner workings of the human body. A new international initiative is creating an atlas that will chart every single cell in the human body, encompassing all of the tissues within Homo sapiens, scientists announced last week at a meeting in London.
The revolutionary project, called the Human Cell Atlas, will help biologists and doctors understand, diagnose and treat diseases with the help of high-resolution images of healthy and atypical cells from every structure in the body.
[Read More]Long-Lost Tomb of Jewish 'Maccabee' Rebels Possibly Found
Posted on June 18, 2023
| 4 minutes
| 847 words
| Mittie Cheatwood
An "unusual" new archaeological find could be the long-lost Tomb of the Maccabees, a burial site of leaders of a band of Jewish rebels from the second century B.C.
Israeli archeologists discovered the strange, pillared structure at the Horbat Ha-Gardi site near the ancient city of Modi'in. First excavated 150 years ago, this site was thought to be the mausoleum of a priest named Mattathias the Hasmonean and his five sons, who led a rebellion against Greek rule of Judea.
[Read More]Mental Health Problems Plague Transgender Kids
Posted on June 18, 2023
| 4 minutes
| 648 words
| Patria Henriques
Kids who are distressed because they feel their physical body doesn't match their gender suffer from high rates of psychiatric symptoms, such as depression and suicide attempts, a new study finds.
In a sample of children and adolescents treated at the Endocrine Division at Children's Hospital Boston, young people who experienced distress about the "mismatch" between their body's sex and their mental gender had high rates of psychiatric complications (before any gender treatment).
[Read More]Native American DNA Links to 6 'Founding Mothers'
Posted on June 18, 2023
| 3 minutes
| 469 words
| Arica Deslauriers
NEW YORK (AP) — Nearly all of today's Native Americans in North, Central and South America can trace part of their ancestry to six women whose descendants immigrated around 20,000 years ago, a DNA study suggests.
Those women left a particular DNA legacy that persists to today in about about 95 percent of Native Americans, researchers said.
The finding does not mean that only these six women gave rise to the migrants who crossed into North America from Asia in the initial populating of the continent, said study co-author Ugo Perego.
[Read More]Why We Shop 'Til We Drop (and Still Aren't Happy)
Posted on June 18, 2023
| 4 minutes
| 739 words
| Mittie Cheatwood
Scads of studies over the past decade have found that spending money on life experiences — vacations, dinners, outings and the like — makes people happier than purchasing material goods. So why do we keep buying so much stuff?
The answer has to do with a failure of forecasting, new research suggests. People realize that experiences will make them happier than things, researchers report today (April 2) in the Journal of Positive Psychology.
[Read More]