Ancient 'Tomb' Unearthed in Guatemala Turns Out to Be Maya Steam Bath
Posted on September 21, 2022
| 3 minutes
| 553 words
| Fernande Dalal
Archaeologists have discovered an ancient steam bath that the Maya likely used for religious rituals — and possibly relaxation — more than 2,500 years ago.
The steam bath, discovered in the ancient Maya city of Nakum in what is now Guatemala, had fragmented ceramic vessels and obsidian tools in it — artifacts that were possibly used for rituals, said excavation co-leader Jarosław Źrałka, an assistant professor of New World archeology at Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland.
[Read More]Baby Panda Pics: See a Cub Growing Up
Posted on September 21, 2022
| 3 minutes
| 428 words
| Mittie Cheatwood
Welcome homeThis image of the cub's first exam was taken in late August 2012. The 3-minute exam ended with the cub receiving a clean bill of health from San Diego Zoo vets.
[Full Story: San Diego Zoo Panda Cub Gets First Exam]
It's a boy!On Sept. 6, 2012, it was determined that the 5-week-old cub was a healthy baby boy. With weight rising, hair growing in and ear canals opening, the furball was doing well.
[Read More]Caveman Art: Spotted Horses Likely Real, Not Fantasy
Posted on September 21, 2022
| 3 minutes
| 463 words
| Patria Henriques
Ancient cave paintings that seemed to depict make-believe white-spotted horses might have been drawn from real life, scientists now find.
The cave paintings of the Stone Age are not only among the oldest drawings made by humans, but also serve as evidence of our growing capabilities. Scientists hotly debate how realistic these paintings are — discovering this fact could reveal whether ancient humans tended more toward accuracy or creativity.
[Read More]COVID-19 infects the mouth. Could that explain patients' taste loss?
Posted on September 21, 2022
| 5 minutes
| 1045 words
| Arica Deslauriers
The coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 can infect cells in the mouth, which may spur the virus's spread both in the body and to other people, according to a preliminary study.
In the new study, posted Oct. 27 to the preprint database medRxiv, researchers predicted which mouth tissues might be most vulnerable to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. So the team examined RNA — a kind of genetic material that tells the cells' protein-making factories what to build — for different cell types in the mouth.
[Read More]Henry VIII's favorite ship has a bacteria problem, and now scientists have ID'ed the culprits
Posted on September 21, 2022
| 4 minutes
| 672 words
| Patria Henriques
Powerful X-rays have revealed what's eating the wreck of King Henry VIII's favorite warship, the Mary Rose. After the ship sank in a 1545 battle against the French, sulfur-producing marine bacteria spent the next few centuries munching on the wood of the submerged wreck, leaving behind residues that could turn to acid when exposed to air and harm the historic shipwreck today, researchers recently discovered.
The Mary Rose — what was left of it — languished at the bottom of the English Channel until the ship was raised in 1982, and though conservators took steps to treat and preserve the waterlogged structures, little was known about the bacterial species inhabiting the wood and if their byproducts could jeopardize the rescued ship's preservation.
[Read More]How Did Opium Poppies Get Their Painkilling Properties?
Posted on September 21, 2022
| 4 minutes
| 655 words
| Fernande Dalal
Humans have been turning to the poppy plant to get high or relieve pain for thousands of years. And despite all our other staggering pharmaceutical progress, our reliance on the plant hasn't changed much; poppies are used to make two of the world's most widely used painkillers, morphine and codeine, and the cough suppressant noscapine.
But how did the opium poppy plant (Papaver somniferum) get its pain-relieving properties to begin with?
[Read More]Image Gallery: Snapshots of Unique Ape Faces
Posted on September 21, 2022
| 2 minutes
| 255 words
| Fernande Dalal
Smile!To get a sense of how many individuals make up a wildlife population, researchers often put "camera traps" in the field. These have been used to capture photos of elusive wildlife, including cheetahs and leopards. Face-recognition software may be more efficient at counting elusive animals, such as this chimpanzee.
Camera ShyThe face-recognition software works in concert with a program that sifts through images and picks out only the ones in which the animals' faces can be seen.
[Read More]Mammals 'Got Milk' for Past 160 Million Years
Posted on September 21, 2022
| 4 minutes
| 752 words
| Mittie Cheatwood
Moms today are strongly encouraged to nurse their babies. Mother's milk is more nourishing than formula and provides infants with some immune protection.
This makes intuitive sense. Mammals and milk go together — it is produced by all species in this group and apparently has been for at least 160 million years.
A new study looks at the genes that produce milk among seven species of mammals, including us, and finds that all of them share a lot of the same milk-making genes but not all species deliver the same milk.
[Read More]Meth-Addicted Moms Have Babies With Odd Stress Response
Posted on September 21, 2022
| 3 minutes
| 467 words
| Mittie Cheatwood
Toddlers exposed to methamphetamines in the womb have abnormal responses to stress, but only when they also live in unstable home environments.
Unfortunately for kids, prenatal drug use and unstable homes often go hand-in-hand. In a new study, 68 percent of kids whose mothers used meth during pregnancy showed a blunted response to stressful situations.
"The lack of hormonal stress response that we observed in these children has serious implications, such as a greater risk for depression, anxiety and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder,"
[Read More]Rock Star's Company Seeks UFOs, Finds Military Contract
Posted on September 21, 2022
| 2 minutes
| 385 words
| Patria Henriques
A private company that researches UFOs has a new contract with the U.S. government, for developing technologies that could enhance ground vehicles in the military.
To The Stars Academy of Arts and Science (TTSA) was launched in 2017 by former Blink-182 guitarist Tom DeLonge; in December of that year, TTSA became the first company to share videos that showed U.S. Navy pilots interacting with UFOs. It was able to obtain the footage "
[Read More]