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Spikes in sodium and hydrogen in well water warned of mounting strain before two Iceland earthquakes, geologists say. The new study, published today (Sept. 21) in the journal Nature Geoscience, provides some of the best evidence yet for earthquake precursors. Despite centuries of effort, no one has discovered reliable precursors, which are changes seen before an earthquake. But while seismologists would dearly love to save lives by predicting earthquakes, the well-water evidence is not a first step toward early warnings — it's more like a glimpse of a long, bumpy road. [Read More]

Vanessa Woods is a research scientist at Duke University and the co-founder of Dognition, a website that helps owners find the genius in their dogs. She is also the co-author of the New York Times bestseller "The Genius of Dogs(opens in new tab)."Shecontributed this article to LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. At 36 years old, I finally went to Disney World. I'm a new citizen of the United States, so I thought I had better take part in a great American tradition. [Read More]

Low impact workouts are a great way to improve your fitness while avoiding injury. While we all know that exercise is good for us, many forms of it can cause injuries, such as running. Here are five low impact workouts you can use as alternatives to boost your fitness while hopefully avoiding injury. There is a caveat – no sport or exercise is completely without risk, and some of the workouts suggested here, such as swimming and cycling, involve their own unique risks. [Read More]

Arachnophobia — that is, the unreasonable fear of spiders — isn't illegal, but it could still bring the police to your door if you scream loud enough. An Australian man learned that the hard way this morning when, according to reports by the BBC, a passerby heard him shouting, "Why don't you die?" inside his suburban Perth home. The passerby also heard a toddler wailing. Justifiably, the passerby called the police. [Read More]

Women with early stage breast cancer who undergo breast-conserving surgery do just as well, and perhaps better, in terms of survival, than those who have their breasts removed, a new study suggests. In the study, early stage breast cancer patients who were treated with lumpectomy — a surgery that removes the tumor and part of the surrounding tissue — were 19 percent less likely to die from any cause over a nine-year period compared with those who received a mastectomy. [Read More]

An underwater research vessel has stumbled upon a gargantuan coral reef, standing like a monolithic tower off the coast of northern Australia. According to scientists at the Schmidt Ocean Institute, who are conducting a yearlong expedition of the ocean around Australia, this newly discovered reef stands more than 1,640 feet (500 meters) high from base to tip, making it taller than the Empire State Building. The newly discovered reef is part of the Great Barrier Reef — the single longest coral reef in the world, spanning more than 1,400 miles (2,300 km) along the northeastern coast of Australia. [Read More]

The Republic of Congo has declared a new national park that conservationists hope with protect a core population of western lowland gorillas, a critically endangered species, as well as other threatened species, the Wildlife Conservation Society announced today (Jan. 31). The WCS discovered a population of 125,000 western lowland gorillas in the northern part of Congo in 2008. After the discovery, the Congolese government pledged to protect the area with a national park, the WCS said in a statement. [Read More]

How do Olympic athletes' diets and exercise regimens affect their performance … in the bathroom? Olympians-in-training undergo intense and prolonged exercise routines, often accompanied by specific dietary requirements. But studies have shown that these practices — especially in endurance sports, such as marathon running — can have adverse effects on the body and, in particular, on the gastrointestinal (GI) system. Researchers have found that rigorous training can not only lead to nausea, abdominal pain and diarrhea, among other physical symptoms, but also affect the bacterial communities living in the gut, which can carry additional implications for an individual's health, experts told Live Science. [Read More]

Anyone who's had a urinary tract infection has probably heard of the centuries-old home remedy of swigging cranberry juice. The knowledge that cranberries fight the bacteria causing these infections comes in handy, especially as the overuse of prescription antibiotics forces new strains of drug-resistant bacteria to evolve. Although scientists are still not exactly sure how the fruit juice functions as a natural antibiotic, a new study has provided a bit more insight. [Read More]