Symptoms of advanced Parkinson's and dementia might mask another problem. ...read more

This blog post is an edited excerpt from Human Impact, a new publication from Science Connected. Edited by Kate Stone and Shayna Keyles, Human Impact delivers 17 true tales of how humanity has changed the Earth, for better or for worse. This chapter appears in Human Impact as “Act Now: Engaging in Citizen Science,” and includes contributions from Caroline Nickerson, Kristin Butler, and Julia Travers. Act Now: Engaging in Citizen Science Ci ...read more

Spiraling cloud patterns called Von Kármán vortices, spotted at nighttime off the coast of Morocco on July 19, 2019 by the Suomi NPP satellite. (Source: NASA Earth Observatory) Spiraling cloud formations are often visible in satellite images — but at night, as seen above? Until recently, that has been rare, at best. But newer technology for sensing and processing light in the shortwave infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum has made it easier for satellites to s ...read more

The entrance to Denisova cave, where the ancient humans were first discovered. (Credit: Igor Boshin/Shutterstock) Nestled in foothills of Russia’s Altai Mountains, Denisova Cave has been a research mecca since 2010, when fossil DNA from the site revealed a previously unknown human lineage, now called the Denisovans. Scientists have been working hard to reconstruct the cave’s history, through ongoing excavations as well as new analyses of materials recovered years ago. First, wh ...read more

Astronomers using the Spitzer Space Telescope discovered that exoplanet LHS 3844b probably lacks any atmosphere at all. (Credit: ESO/NASA) Rocky planets just a little larger than Earth are some of the best targets for finding life in our local cosmic neighborhood. They're abundant. But it’s not just the size that has to match Earth. Our planet wouldn’t be the life-sheltering place it is without its atmosphere, which keeps us warm enough not to freeze, but not so hot that we smothe ...read more

Scientists decode the black widow spider’s language of love. ...read more

Left-handed people are under-represented as volunteers in human neuroimaging studies, according to a new paper from Lyam M. Bailey, Laura E. McMillan, and Aaron J. Newman of Dalhousie University. Bailey et al. analyzed a sample of 1,031 papers published in 2017, finding that just 3.2% of participants were non-right-handed, even though this group makes up about 10-13% of the general population. These findings are hardly unexpected. The exclusion of non-right-handed people from neur ...read more

Supernova 2016iet is an example of one of the most extreme types of stellar explosions, though it has some odd features. (Credit: Gemini Observatory/NSF/AURA/ illustration by Joy Pollard) In November of 2016, the sharp-eyed Gaia spacecraft spied a supernova that exploded some billion light-years from Earth. Astronomers followed up with more telescopes, and quickly realized that this supernova – dubbed SN2016iet – was an odd one in many ways. For one, the star that caused the s ...read more

Frigid terrain on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, where researchers recently documented microplastic pollution in falling snow. (Credit: Sejsejlija/Shutterstock) When it snows in the Arctic, there's another kind of flake drifting down alongside the ice crystals. Tiny bits of degraded plastic, commonly called microplastics, have been found swirling among the snow in otherwise pristine Arctic environments. Microplastic pollution has previously been found everywhere from city streets ...read more

The full moon has been associated with aberrant behavior for centuries. (Credit: Aron Visuals/Unsplash) It’s sometimes called the "Transylvania effect.” In the dark sky, the clouds shift, revealing the full moon’s eerie silver gleam, and the people on Earth below go mad. It’s a story that gets repeated by doctors, teachers and police officers. The science, though, says something different. Blaming the full moon for strange behavior is a time-honored tradition. In th ...read more