6 in 10 Infectious Diseases Come from Animals. The CDC Is Most Worried About These 8.

 Posted on September 11, 2022  |  3 minutes  |  499 words  |  Mittie Cheatwood

More than half of the infectious diseases that affect people come from animals. Now, for the first time, the government is releasing a list of the top eight illnesses spread from animals — called zoonotic diseases — in the United States. The list includes some strains of the flu, Salmonella infection, West Nile virus, the plague, emerging coronaviruses such as Middle East respiratory syndrome, rabies, brucellosis (a bacterial infection) and Lyme disease, according to the list, released May 6 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). [Read More]

Antarctic Hills Haven't Seen Water in 14 Million Years

 Posted on September 11, 2022  |  2 minutes  |  411 words  |  Arica Deslauriers

Water has not flowed across Antarctica's Friis Hills for 14 million years, researchers reported Tuesday (Oct. 29) at the Geological Society of America's annual meeting in Denver. The Friis Hills rise 2,000 feet (600 meters) above Antarctica's Taylor Valley, one of the "Dry Valleys" west of McMurdo Sound. Fossils show tundra mosses and a lake once covered the flat-topped hills, when Earth's climate was warmer more than 14 million years ago. [Read More]

Beating Human Heart Tissue Grown from Spinach Leaves

 Posted on September 11, 2022  |  3 minutes  |  489 words  |  Mittie Cheatwood

Vegetables are good for your health, but now there's a whole new way that one veggie could help your heart: Spinach leaves can be used as a scaffold for beating human heart cells, a new study finds. In several experiments, scientists grew beating human heart cells on spinach leaves by perfusing them with a detergent solution, which stripped them of their plant cells. This proof-of-concept study suggests that multiple spinach leaves could be used to grow layers of healthy heart muscle that could one day be used to treat heart attack patients, the researchers said. [Read More]

Did Lioness Really Befriend Baby Antelope?

 Posted on September 11, 2022  |  3 minutes  |  453 words  |  Patria Henriques

While documenting a lion hunt in Uganda recently, a photographer came across a surprising sight: a lioness seeming to "adopt" a baby antelope after killing and eating its mother. In photographer Adri De Visser's photo series of the incident, which has been reproduced all over the Web in recent days, the lioness nuzzles the tiny, orphaned calf, picks it up by the scruff of its neck and hauls it off "like one of her own cubs," [Read More]

Do Goldfish Prefer Bach or Stravinsky?

 Posted on September 11, 2022  |  2 minutes  |  413 words  |  Patria Henriques

Goldfish may be more refined than people give them credit for. A new study shows the fish can distinguish between the works of Johann Sebastian Bach and Igor Stravinsky. The study may seem strange, but the results actually add to a growing body of research showing that a variety of animals can distinguish between different composers and musical genres, and sometimes appear to prefer one to another. In this case, the researchers played several songs by Bach and Stravinsky in a series of experiments. [Read More]

Early Urban Planning: Ancient Mayan City Built on Grid

 Posted on September 11, 2022  |  4 minutes  |  685 words  |  Fernande Dalal

An ancient Maya city followed a unique grid pattern, providing evidence of a powerful ruler, archaeologists working at Nixtun-Ch'ich' in Petén, Guatemala, have found. The city, which contains flat-topped pyramids, was in use between roughly 600 B.C. and 300 B.C., a time when the first cities were being constructed in the area. No other city from the Maya world was planned using this grid design, researchers say. This city was " [Read More]

How Did This Weird, Super-Salty Pond Form in Antarctica?

 Posted on September 11, 2022  |  5 minutes  |  878 words  |  Arica Deslauriers

At the bottom of the world, in a frigid Antarctic desert, sits a weird pond only a few inches deep that is so salty, it stays liquid even at temperatures of minus 58 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 50 degrees Celsius). The source of the pond's unusually heavy and pure load of salt has been a geochemical mystery since it was discovered during a 1961 expedition. Scientists had generally assumed that Don Juan Pond — a play on the names of the expedition's helicopter pilots — was fed by deep groundwater, but a widely publicized 2013 paper suggested the salts came from a shallower source. [Read More]

How Do Birds Navigate?

 Posted on September 11, 2022  |  2 minutes  |  378 words  |  Mittie Cheatwood

About 50 animal species, ranging from birds and mammals to reptiles and insects, use Earth's magnetic field for navigation. Yet Earth's magnetic field is very weak. It ranges from approximately 30 to 60 millionths of one tesla. By comparison, magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, uses magnetic fields from 1.5 to 3.0 tesla. So scientists unsure exactly how birds do it. New research finds that a photochemical compass may simulate how migrating birds use the magnetic field, along with light, to navigate. [Read More]

How Many Neutrons and Protons Can Get Along? Maybe 7,000

 Posted on September 11, 2022  |  5 minutes  |  888 words  |  Fernande Dalal

This article was updated June 28 at 4:54 p.m. ET. Scientists have long wondered whether there is a limit to the number of protons and neutrons that can be clustered together to form the nucleus of an atom. A new study comes closer than ever to finding the answer by estimating the total number of nucleus variations that can exist. The periodic table of elements includes 118 known species of atoms, and each of these exists (either naturally or synthetically) in several versions with differing numbers of neutrons, giving rise to a total of about 3,000 different atomic nuclei. [Read More]

In Photos: A Look Inside an Egyptian Mummy

 Posted on September 11, 2022  |  2 minutes  |  327 words  |  Mittie Cheatwood

Suffering MummyResearchers examined a 2,900-year-old mummy using X-rays, CT and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans. They found that he suffered from Hand-Schuller-Christian’s disease, a very rare condition that left him with lesions in his skull and spine. A large hole on his frontal-parietal bone can be readily seen in this image. His brain appears to have been removed through his nose during the mummification process. Hole in HeadNormally MRI scans can't be used on mummies, because mummy bodies don't have any water in them. [Read More]