Stress Causes Headaches, Scientists Confirm
Posted on September 16, 2022
| 3 minutes
| 483 words
| Arica Deslauriers
Perhaps it's no surprise to anyone who has had a splitting migraine after a miserable day, but doctors have solidified the link between stress and headaches.
Although headaches can be triggered by many factors, ranging from muscle strain to exposure to noxious gases, stress clearly plays a major role, according to a study released today (Feb. 19) which will be presented at a neurology research meeting in April.
In the study, researchers followed more than 5,000 participants in Germany for two years and found that the greater the stress in a person's life, the more intense and frequent their headaches were.
[Read More]These Dolphins Taught Each Other to Moonwalk — But It Was Just a Fad
Posted on September 16, 2022
| 3 minutes
| 523 words
| Trudie Dory
A pod of wild dolphins living Down Under can literally walk on water, thanks to some instruction from "Billie," a wild dolphin who learned the trick while she was briefly held in captivity, a new study finds.
The feat highlights how dolphins can learn incredible skills from one another in the wild, even when those skills have no known advantage for survival, the researchers said.
However, this so-called tail walking, which the mammals accomplish by vigorously pumping their tail underwater so that the rest of their body is elevated above the water, appears to be a passing fad.
[Read More]Why Russia's Cold Snap Is So Deadly
Posted on September 16, 2022
| 2 minutes
| 235 words
| Patria Henriques
If any nation on Earth is accustomed to dealing with a harsh winter, it would be Russia. But from the farthest reaches of Siberia to downtown Moscow, the Russian people are being pummeled by a winter so brutal it's shattering cold-weather records across the continent — and it's only December.
As temperatures plunge as low as –minus 58 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 50 degrees Celsius) in some areas, the Pravda news site reports that 45 people have died of causes related to the subfreezing weather; 21 people froze to death in just one day.
[Read More]Woman's Blood Turns a Shocking Shade of Blue After She Used Tooth-Numbing Gel
Posted on September 16, 2022
| 2 minutes
| 320 words
| Mittie Cheatwood
A woman in Rhode Island went to the emergency room when her skin and blood took on an odd hue: She was turning blue, according to a new report of the case.
"I'm weak and I'm blue," the 25-year-old told her doctors, according to Otis Warren, a physician at Miriam Hospital who treated the woman and spoke to NBC News. The patient reported applying "large amounts" of topical benzocaine, a numbing medication, on an aching tooth the night before, Warren and colleagues wrote in the report about the woman's case, published Sept.
[Read More]Zika Pesticide Controversy: Is 'Naled' Dangerous to Human Health?
Posted on September 16, 2022
| 4 minutes
| 737 words
| Trudie Dory
To fight mosquitoes that may be carrying the Zika virus, officials in Miami-Dade County are now using aerial spraying, and this is stirring local controversy about the safety of the chemicals that are used in those sprays.
The debate is over a pesticide called naled, which has been registered for use by the Environmental Protection Agency since 1959. The insecticide has been banned in Europe since 2012, however, which has made some locals nervous.
[Read More]A Lost Page of Notes on Einstein's 'Theory of Everything' Has Turned Up in Jerusalem
Posted on September 15, 2022
| 2 minutes
| 302 words
| Mittie Cheatwood
A never-before-seen page of Albert Einstein's handwritten notes and equations on the unified theory of physics has been discovered in an archive of Einstein manuscripts recently acquired by The Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
According to a statement from the university, the newfound page was part of an appendix that Einstein included with a scientific article on unified field theory — the long-sought theory that unites all the fundamental forces of nature into a single set of equations — which Einstein submitted to the Prussian Academy of Science in 1930.
[Read More]Ah-CHOO! 7 Tickling Facts About Sneezing
Posted on September 15, 2022
| 3 minutes
| 568 words
| Fernande Dalal
What is a sneezeEveryone knows the feeling: it begins with that insidious tickle in the back of your nose, then comes the gasping intake of breath and the final, cathartic blast: a sneeze. Whether it's sickness, allergies or even just bright light, many things can trigger these violent expulsions of mucus and saliva. But why do humans and other animals sneeze? How far and fast do sneezes travel, and why do they sometimes come in sets?
[Read More]Beam Me Up: Bits of Information Teleported Across Computer Chip
Posted on September 15, 2022
| 5 minutes
| 1038 words
| Mittie Cheatwood
Quantum mechanics allows for some very strange things, like the teleportation of information and computers that can break even the toughest codes.
Recently, scientists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich made a step toward building a working quantum computer by teleporting bits of information across a computer chip. The results of the study were detailed Aug. 15 in the journal Nature.
Creating such a circuit is an important milestone, said Benjamin Schumacher, a professor of physics at Kenyon College in Ohio.
[Read More]Bubonic Plague Still Kills Thousands
Posted on September 15, 2022
| 3 minutes
| 435 words
| Mittie Cheatwood
Bubonic plague, the deadly scourge that wiped out half of Europe during the Middle Ages, still lurks in pockets of the globe, new research suggests.
Although plague is now rare in Europe, it recently sickened more than 10,000 people in Congo over a decade, and cases still occasionally emerge in the Western United States, according to a study published Sept. 16 in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.
[Read More]Centipede Bursts from Snake's Stomach
Posted on September 15, 2022
| 2 minutes
| 390 words
| Arica Deslauriers
A group of researchers stumbled upon a grisly scene during a field study in Macedonia last year: a dead nose-horned viper with a centipede's head sticking out of its ruptured abdomen.
After a post-mortem, the scientists think it's possible that the centipede quite literally eviscerated the snake from the inside out.
"All of us were astonished, as nobody has ever seen something like this," Ljiljana Tomović, a herpetologist at the University of Belgrade, told Live Science in an email.
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