What happened to make plague able to cause devastating epidemics, as in this depiction from 1349? (Credit: Pierart dou Tielt/Wikimedia)
One of civilization’s most prolific killers shadowed humans for thousands of years without their knowledge.
The bacteria Yersinia pestis, which causes the plague, is thought to be responsible for up to 200 million deaths across human history — more than twice the casualties of World War II.
The Y. pestis death toll comes from three wide ...read more
The Nile River seen at sunrise. (Credit: Kirsty Bisset/Shutterstock)
Thousands of years ago, ancient Egyptians built their agricultural systems around the dependable movement of the Nile. Those rhythms date back much further than any human relative has been alive, scientists now find.
New research shows that the Nile has kept about the same course for its entire 30 million year existence. This is likely thanks to a reliable flow of rocky material just below the Earth's surface, which cont ...read more
On Twitter this week I joked that neuroscientists could save money on brain scanners by just asking people how active their brains are.
Why do we spend so much on neuroimaging and then rely on self-report measures of the other variables of interest? Why not self-report brain activity, how active is your amygdala 1-10? https://t.co/ph3A2Uc6zc— Neuroskeptic (@Neuro_Skeptic) November 6, 2019
However, it turns out that there has already been a study that actually asked people to do ...read more
Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo. The craft is flown by human pilots to space. (Credit: Steve Mann/Shutterstock)
Taking control of a 3,000-pound rocket motor launching into an inhospitable environment at speeds exceeding 2,000 mph sounds terrifying to some. But others will spend their whole careers in pursuit of those ephemeral, weightless moments.
With the expansion of commercial space exploration, more pilots will be needed to guide spacecraft beyond the bounds of Earth. These pilots com ...read more
Running just once a week could lead to a longer life, a new study finds. (Credit: Halfpoint/Shutterstock)
Reluctant joggers, here’s some encouragement: Running even once a week has some benefits.
According to a new study, running 50 minutes a week, at a pace between a 10- and 7.5-minute mile, helped reduce the risk of death from cancer, cardiovascular disease and other causes. Working out more than that didn’t convey significantly more health benefits, say the researchers, base ...read more
(Credit: Teo Mocnik)
Over the past couple of decades, astronomers have discovered thousands of alien planets and solar systems. These worlds come in a wide variety of arrangements, many of which are quite different from what we see in our own solar system.
Some have giant planets that swing through the planetary systems in stretched-out, or “eccentric,” elliptical orbits, unlike the nearly circular orbits of planets like Jupiter and Saturn.
Astronomers think that many ...read more
(Credit: leoks/Shutterstock)
A new collection of DNA from ancient Romans spanning 12,000 years shows how the population of the empire’s capital shifted along with its politics. Published in Science, the timeline is one of the first to examine what genetic information from archaeological digs says about the region after the time of hunter-gatherers and early farmers.
The analysis found that ancient Romans were from all over Europe, the Near East and northern Africa. “Rome was a ...read more
A landfill in Italy with a methane capture system. (Credit: newphotoservice/Shutterstock)
A new analysis finds that .2 percent of all California methane emitters — individual pipes emitting or leaking the greenhouse gas — account for more than a third of the state’s methane production.
Nearly half of these methane sources, dubbed “super-emitters,” come from landfills. Dairies and the oil and gas industry account for a quarter of discharge sites each. Ideally, ...read more
More rural residences have less bacteria and fungi than their urban counterparts. (Credit: Elise Lefran/Shutterstock)
Moving to the city might mean gaining some unexpected roommates. New research finds that urban dwellings host more fungi and bacteria than their rural counterparts. This is despite the fact that city homes use more cleaning and antifungal products.
The finding, published yesterday in Nature Microbiology, could provide clues about why urban residents have higher rates of he ...read more
Your houseplants look nice, and they might even make you happier, but they're unlikely to clean the air. (Credit: Anatolii Mikhailov/Shutterstock)
If you go for a walk in the forest, the air feels fresh. People often attribute that to trees' and plants' air-purifying abilities. They suck up C02 and exhale oxygen, removing pollutants from the air. So it seems the same should go for the air inside our houses as well.
Humans have tried to bring the forest to their homes for decades, installi ...read more
