Iran is enriching uranium to 20%. What does that mean?
Posted on November 6, 2022
| 4 minutes
| 785 words
| Fernande Dalal
Iran announced that it is enriching uranium to 20% purity — does that mean they could develop a nuclear bomb?
The uranium enrichment process began at the Fordow nuclear facility in Iran on Monday (Jan. 4), according to the Islamic Republic News, the official news agency of the Iranian government. A purity of 20% far exceeds the limit of 3.67% allowed under the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which President Donald Trump withdrew from in 2018, Live Science previously reported.
[Read More]Jawbone UP24: Fitness Tracker Review
Posted on November 6, 2022
| 6 minutes
| 1270 words
| Mittie Cheatwood
I wore the Jawbone UP24 fitness tracker wristband for a week to monitor my exercise and eating habits through the day and the quality of my sleep at night. The UP24 is a flexible band that wraps around your wrist, and is a newer version of the Original Jawbone UP: It connects wirelessly to your iPhone or iPad to automatically sync, which is a must-have feature for a fitness tracker unless you enjoy plugging things together multiple times a day.
[Read More]NASA finally makes contact with Voyager 2 after longest radio silence in 30 years
Posted on November 6, 2022
| 4 minutes
| 665 words
| Arica Deslauriers
There's never been a radio silence quite like this one. After long months with no way of making contact with Voyager 2, NASA has finally reestablished communications with the record-setting interstellar spacecraft.
The breakdown in communications – lasting since March, almost eight months and a whole pandemic ago – wasn't due to some rogue malfunction, nor any run-in with interstellar space weirdness (although there's that too).
In this instance, it was more a case of routine maintenance.
[Read More]Photos: Renaissance World Map Sports Magical Creatures
Posted on November 6, 2022
| 2 minutes
| 316 words
| Fernande Dalal
In 1587, Italian cartographer Urbano Monte completed a Renaissance map of the world with a unique perspective. Rather than drawing the Earth on a rectangular sheet, as many maps are displayed today, Monte drew the world on 60 different pages, and left instructions for how they should be displayed as if a viewer were looking down on the globe from the North Pole.
The map, acquired in September by the David Rumsey Map Center at Stanford University, is finally on exhibit as Monte wanted it.
[Read More]Rare Date: Today Is Once-in-10,000-Years Palindrome
Posted on November 6, 2022
| 3 minutes
| 487 words
| Trudie Dory
Today might not seem any more special than yesterday or the day before, but it is a once-in-10,000-years event. Nov. 2, 2011, written out numerically, is 11/02/2011, which on its own makes it a very rare eight-digit palindrome date, meaning that it can be read the same way frontward and backward.
But, as one scientist has found, there's much more to this date that makes it truly one of a kind.
[Read More]The Water Shortage Myth
Posted on November 6, 2022
| 4 minutes
| 671 words
| Mittie Cheatwood
The two main environmental news stories of the past year or so have been the twin impending disasters of global warming and water shortages. There is a scientific consensus that global warming is occurring, and many governments (including, belatedly, the Bush Administration) have taken steps to address the problem.
But the more pressing issue is water; people can live with global warming (and have been for some time), but people cannot live without water.
[Read More]'Hopping' Fish Suggests Walking Originated Underwater
Posted on November 5, 2022
| 3 minutes
| 584 words
| Fernande Dalal
Air-breathing fish that can hop and walk across the floor on their fins hint that walking may have evolved underwater before such animals began migrating on to land, scientists find.
The distant ancestors of humans and all mammals, reptiles, birds, amphibians and other four-limbed animals, or tetrapods, are fish that eventually developed the ability to breathe on land. One of the few living fish related to these ancient land-dwellers are air-breathers known as lungfish, which are found today in Africa, South America and Australia.
[Read More]5 Experts Answer: Is Flossing Really Necessary?
Posted on November 5, 2022
| 5 minutes
| 866 words
| Patria Henriques
LiveScience asks the experts to answer questions about your health. This week, we asked dentists and experts on dental hygiene: why should people floss? Their answers have been edited.
Caren Barnes, a professor of dental hygiene at the University of Nebraska Medical Center:
When we eat carbohydrates, the microorganisms in dental plaque convert the carbohydrates to an acid that attacks the enamel of the teeth. The acid decalcifies the enamel, and thus a dental carious lesion, or cavity, begins to form.
[Read More]Big Love: Woolly Mammoths, Huge Elephants May Have Interbred
Posted on November 5, 2022
| 3 minutes
| 522 words
| Patria Henriques
The woolly mammoth may surprisingly have regularly interbred with a completely different and much larger elephant species, researchers now find.
Woolly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius) roamed the planet for roughly 250,000 years, ranging from Europe to Asia to North America. Nearly all of these giants vanished from Siberia by about 10,000 years ago, although dwarf mammoths survived on Wrangel Island in the Arctic Ocean until 3,700 years ago.
Although woolly mammoths lived in the cold of the tundra, the Columbian mammoth (Mammuthus columbi) preferred the more temperate regions of southern and central North America.
[Read More]Bizarre 'Sea Monster' Mystery Solved
Posted on November 5, 2022
| 1 minutes
| 163 words
| Fernande Dalal
The bizarre-looking body of an unidentified sea creature washed up on the shores of a Spanish beach last week, setting off wild speculation that a sea monster from the deep had been discovered.
The decomposing remains of the animal measured about 13 feet (4 meters) long, and appeared on the sand of the beach at Villaricos in Andalusia, Spain, on Aug. 15. Adding to the mystery was the appearance of a body part, separate from the creature's long torso, that looked like a pair of horns.
[Read More]