This Woman Doesn’t Feel Pain. A Tiny Mutation May Be to Thank.
Posted on September 21, 2022
| 4 minutes
| 651 words
| Fernande Dalal
Imagine smelling your flesh burning before feeling it.
A 71-year-old woman in Scotland has lived her entire life like that, not only not feeling the pain of burns but any other pain as well. Her extremely rare insensitivity to pain is caused by a mutation in a gene previously thought to be useless in the body, according to a new report of her case, published yesterday (March 27) in the Journal of Anaesthesia.
[Read More]Visualization shows face shields may not protect against COVID-19 spread
Posted on September 21, 2022
| 4 minutes
| 789 words
| Mittie Cheatwood
A new visualization shows why face shields and masks with exhalation valves may not be the best barriers for preventing the spread of COVID-19.
Although face shields initially block droplets from a simulated cough, small droplets can easily move around the sides of the visor and eventually spread over a large area, according to the visualization, which is detailed in a study published Tuesday (Sept. 1) in the journal Physics of Fluids.
[Read More]Weird Horse-Cows and 6-Legged Sheep Found in Iron Age Burials
Posted on September 21, 2022
| 5 minutes
| 1006 words
| Arica Deslauriers
This story was updated at 1:04 pm EDT on July 21.
Weird, "hybridized" animal skeletons, including a cow-horse and a six-legged sheep litter the bottom of storage pits in an Iron Age site in England, archaeologists have found. One pit even holds the bones of a woman with a slit throat laid on top of animal bones, the scientists said.
The unusual remains belong to an ancient people who lived in southern England from about 400 B.
[Read More]What the Heck Is the Deal with This Weird, Square Iceberg?
Posted on September 21, 2022
| 2 minutes
| 418 words
| Trudie Dory
Look at that iceberg. It's beautiful. Perfectly rectangular. An object of near geometric perfection jutting into a polar sea of the usual squiggly, chaotic randomness of the natural world. It calls to mind the monolith from "2001: A Space Odyssey."
But, unlike the monolith from that very weird movie, this iceberg was not deposited on this world by space aliens. Instead, as Kelly Brunt, an ice scientist with NASA and at the University of Maryland, explained, it was likely formed by a process that's fairly common along the edges of icebergs.
[Read More]Young People Face Stroke Risk with Methamphetamine Use
Posted on September 21, 2022
| 3 minutes
| 542 words
| Mittie Cheatwood
Using methamphetamines may increase the risk of stroke among young people, according to a new review.
Methamphetamine use was linked most strongly to a type of stroke caused by bleeding in the brain, known as a hemorrhagic stroke, as opposed to ischemic stroke, which is caused by blood clots.
What's more, strokes among young methamphetamine users tend to be deadlier than strokes among young people in general, the review found.
[Read More]'Doomsday Preppers' Get Ready for the Apocalypse
Posted on September 20, 2022
| 3 minutes
| 591 words
| Trudie Dory
Big Al will not drink his own urine. He's very clear about that. But he does spend three months of every year in his underground bunker because he fears that the Russians might send a nuclear missile toward Uncle Sam at any moment.
His bunker, buried 10 feet (3 meters) underground in an undisclosed location, will protect him from the gamma rays of an atomic bomb. But the temperature outside his bunker dips to minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 40 degrees Celsius) in the winter, so he stores 10,000 pounds (4,536 kilograms) of wood inside to keep him warm using his wood-burning stove (which curiously seems to lack a chimney), and a one-year supply of "
[Read More]'Elinor Wonders Why' teaches kids to explore science by asking questions
Posted on September 20, 2022
| 3 minutes
| 588 words
| Patria Henriques
Young children who are just starting to explore the world around them often have plenty of questions, and a new animated series from PBS Kids not only encourages endless questions, but it also shows youngsters how they can use science to find answers.
In "Elinor Wonders Why," an inquisitive bunny named Elinor leads her friends in adventures around Animal Town. Along the way, they encounter new challenges and discover mysteries of the natural world that they've never seen before and don't understand.
[Read More]'Warrior' dinosaur with nasty gouge mark on claw uncovered in New Mexico
Posted on September 20, 2022
| 4 minutes
| 850 words
| Patria Henriques
About 70 million years ago, a cousin of Velociraptor got in a brawl with a larger predator that left it with a nasty rib injury. But this dinosaur, a feathered hypercarnivore, lived to tell the tale, as its rib showed signs of healing, a new study finds.
The newfound species, dubbed Dineobellator notohesperus, had another injury; a gash on its sickle-shaped claw that "we hypothesize may have been made by another Dineobellator,"
[Read More]Athenian 'Snake Goddess' Gets New Identity
Posted on September 20, 2022
| 4 minutes
| 705 words
| Trudie Dory
SEATTLE - A mysterious "snake goddess" painted on terracotta and discovered in Athens may actually be Demeter, the Greek goddess of the harvest.
Once linked to the worship of the dead, the goddess is flanked by two snakes on a slab of terracotta about the size of a piece of notebook paper. She has her hands up above her head, which has given her the nickname "the touchdown goddess" thanks to the resemblance of the pose to a referee's signal.
[Read More]Brain Sees Men as Whole, Women as Parts
Posted on September 20, 2022
| 4 minutes
| 788 words
| Mittie Cheatwood
A glimpse at the magazine rack in any supermarket checkout line will tell you that women are frequently the focus of sexual objectification. Now, new research finds that the brain actually processes images of women differently than those of men, contributing to this trend.
Women are more likely to be picked apart by the brain and seen as parts rather than a whole, according to research published online June 29 in the European Journal of Social Psychology.
[Read More]