Why Is Orange Snow Falling Across Eastern Europe?

 Posted on October 16, 2022  |  2 minutes  |  222 words  |  Patria Henriques

Orange snow fell across parts of Eastern Europe Friday (March 23) and through the weekend, resulting in some strange and beautiful images. People who had gone up the mountains near the Russian city of Sochi posted photos to Instagram of the strange phenomenon. British meteorologist Steven Keates, of the U.K.'s Met Office, told The Independent that it's "feasible" that the deeply tinted snow is the result of intermixed sand and dust kicked up by storms in northern Africa, as has been widely reported. [Read More]

Bazinga! 'Big Bang Theory' Catchphrase Inspires New Compound

 Posted on October 15, 2022  |  3 minutes  |  586 words  |  Trudie Dory

The catchphrase "bazinga" — a zinger commonly uttered by Dr. Sheldon Cooper, a fictional theoretical physicist on the TV show "The Big Bang Theory" — has inspired the creation of a novel compound, according to new research. The compound, known as BaZnGa (barium, zinc and gallium), may have unorthodox roots (after all, how many compounds exist because of a sitcom wisecrack?), but its creation fits into a goal pursued by countless physicists: to discover new materials, as well as materials with novel properties, said study co-author Paul Canfield, a professor of physics and astronomy at Iowa State University. [Read More]

California Tule Fog Becoming Increasingly Rare (Photo)

 Posted on October 15, 2022  |  3 minutes  |  591 words  |  Trudie Dory

At first glance, this image might seem to show Central California covered in snow. But that white stuff isn't the makings of a winter wonderland. It's thick, dense fog known as tule fog. Tule fog season in California is traditionally between November and March, when rains bring moisture to the state's Central Valley. The term "tule" comes from the plant of the same name (Schoenoplectus acutus), which dominates marshes in the region. [Read More]

Dwarf Mistletoe: Parasitic Plant Wreaks Havoc

 Posted on October 15, 2022  |  3 minutes  |  477 words  |  Arica Deslauriers

The dwarf mistletoe, a kissin' cousin to the variety hung from doorways at Christmas-time, is unique in its family both for its sexual habits and the level of destruction it causes within the forests where it resides. This variety is the only truly parasitic member of the legendary plant family with new research revealing how it employs a pressurized water pump to shoot its seeds up to 65 feet (20 meters). [Read More]

Evolutionary Battle of the Sexes Drives Human Height

 Posted on October 15, 2022  |  5 minutes  |  916 words  |  Mittie Cheatwood

For women looking to pass on their genes, it pays to be short. For men, tall is the ideal. The result? An evolutionary tug-of-war in which neither gender reaches their perfect height. Those are the results of a new study published today (Aug. 7) in the journal Biology Letters. The research finds that an evolutionary battle of the sexes keeps the genders in an endless feedback loop of height variations across the generations. [Read More]

Here's Why There Are Hundreds of Ancient, Mummified Penguins in Antarctica

 Posted on October 15, 2022  |  3 minutes  |  621 words  |  Patria Henriques

The bodies of hundreds of mummified penguins in Antarctica aren't a sign of an ancient illness that swept through the icy continent, nor are they the remains of a penguin massacre by a ravenous predator. Rather, these penguins, who were mummified by the cold, dry Antarctica environment, likely died from weather on the opposite end of the spectrum: two extremely rainy and snowy events that happened over the past 1,000 years, a new study finds. [Read More]

Highest recorded temperature in European history reported in Italy

 Posted on October 15, 2022  |  3 minutes  |  609 words  |  Trudie Dory

Italy may have just recorded the hottest temperature in European history, according to preliminary reports from local meteorologists. And perhaps fittingly, the culprit of the heat wave has been named Lucifer. Syracuse, a city on the coast of the Italian island of Sicily, registered temperatures of 119.85 degrees Fahrenheit (48.8 degrees Celsius) on Wednesday (Aug. 11). If the measurement is confirmed by the World Meteorological Organization, it will break the previous European record of 118. [Read More]

If you have the coronavirus, how long before symptoms show up?

 Posted on October 15, 2022  |  3 minutes  |  592 words  |  Trudie Dory

The incubation period for a virus is the time between catching the virus and showing symptoms of disease. For the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, health officials estimate an incubation period of between one and 14 days.Most people start showing symptoms about five days after becoming infected, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). These estimates are based on what was observed in the early days of the virus outbreak in Wuhan, China, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported. [Read More]

Melting ‘glue’ may have sent the world’s largest iceberg to its doom, new study finds

 Posted on October 15, 2022  |  4 minutes  |  694 words  |  Mittie Cheatwood

The thinning of an icy "glue" that holds fractured ice together may drive ice shelf collapse in Antarctica, according to a new study. Ice shelves are massive stretches of ice that build up over many thousands of years, Live Science previously reported. But warming air and rising ocean temperatures have been driving ice shelves to disintegrate. Many of Antarctica's ice shelves have fractured or collapsed in the past couple of decades, according to the new study, but exactly what's accelerating the ice loss has been unclear. [Read More]

Mission to Study Earth's Gaping 'Open Wound'

 Posted on October 15, 2022  |  4 minutes  |  820 words  |  Patria Henriques

A team of scientists will embark on a voyage next week to study an “open wound” on the Atlantic seafloor where the Earth’s deep interior lies exposed without any crust covering. The lesion is located mid-way between the Cape Verdes Islands and the Caribbean in the Atlantic Ocean [image]. It lies nearly 2 miles beneath the ocean surface and extends over thousands of square kilometers. “It’s quite a substantial area,” said Chris MacLeod, a marine geologist at Cardiff University in the UK, who will be part of the expedition. [Read More]