Dozens of wildfires are burning across Canada in May 2024 and sending unhealthy smoke blowing into the northern U.S. again. At the same time, the southeastern U.S. is getting smoke from Mexico, where drought conditions have been fueling fires.Last year, Canada’s record 2023 wildfire season introduced millions of Americans across the Midwest and northeastern states to the health hazards of wildfire smoke, with air quality alerts that reached levels never seen there before.Professional baseball ...read more

For a team of researchers studying the effects of stress on ancient humans, their work wasn’t exactly like pulling teeth — but it did involve examining their enamel.A study in Scientific Reports that used enamel defects as a proxy for stress, says that Neanderthal children (who lived between 400,000 years and 40,000 years ago) and Upper Paleolithic kids (who lived between 50,000 years and 12,000 years ago) experienced similar levels of stress — but at different times during their developme ...read more

Recent reports that the H5N1 avian flu virus has been found in cow’s milk have raised questions about whether the U.S. milk supply is safe to drink. According to the federal Food and Drug Administration, the answer is yes, as long as the milk is pasteurized.Nonetheless, raw (unpasteurized) milk sales are up, despite health experts’ warning that raw milk could contain high levels of the virus, along with many other pathogens.As an extension food scientist in a state where raw milk sales are l ...read more

The airline industry spews about 800 megatons of CO2 into the atmosphere each year, roughly 2 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions. There is an increasingly need to decarbonize air travel, but that doesn’t mean that we’ll be cutting the cord on it anytime soon.Air travel is imperative for global connectivity, with roughly 100,000 flights in transit every day carrying people and goods around the world. Aircrafts come with a lengthy list of qualifications, like the need to be lightweight, ...read more

Timor Island might not have been a stepping stone. Many archeologists have theorized that the island, served as a sort of way station for travelers en route to destinations further south and east, like Australia. The island lies southeast of Indonesia and about 450 miles from Australia’s northern coast. But the sheer number of artifacts — and the fact that many dated to the same time period about 45,000 years ago — instead indicates the island was targeted for colonization, according to a ...read more

There’s a reason why high achievers are commonly told to “shoot for the stars” — space travel is far from a simple task. While once an ambitious goal, limited to government entities that had the funding and technology to execute major launches, commercial launches are dominating outer space today, giving rise to a relatively new, rapidly growing industry. “I would say many of the trends we're seeing in the space industry, from increased satellites in orbit to decreasing payload sizes, ...read more

It’s a simple idea: Stop mowing your lawn in the month of May to let flowers in the lawn, such as dandelions and clover, grow and support bees and other pollinators.“No Mow May” was started in 2019 by Plantlife, a conservation charity based in the United Kingdom, in response to a well-documented loss of meadows and an alarming decline of native plants and animals there. Since then, it has been taken up by many gardeners and conservation advocates in North America.Studies have shown that ma ...read more

Jamestown residents likely turned to Indigenous dogs as a food source several times during the first 10 years of their Virginia colonization, according to a new study in American Antiquity. They also examined how Indigenous dogs disappeared over the next 400 years.“The consumption of dogs suggests that Jamestown residents faced multiple periods of severe famine during the site’s early occupation, as well as later periods,” the paper said. “While the consumption of dog flesh in modern Wes ...read more

Imagine a simple, easy-to-access tool that could elevate your mood, improve your sleep, and strengthen your relationships. It's not a miracle pill or a high-tech device — it’s gratitude. Long extolled in proverbs and philosophical teachings, the age-old wisdom of being thankful now finds support in modern scientific studies, showing meaningful mental and physical health benefits. Gratitude on the BrainAt its core, gratitude involves recognizing and appreciating the positive aspects of life, ...read more

The question of whether some dinosaurs were covered with either scales or feathers has a new answer: both.Researchers examined the skin of the feathered dinosaur Psittacosaurus from the early Cretaceous period (135 million years to 120 million years ago) and found “zones” of reptile-style scales as well as “zones” where feathers were present, according to a study in Nature Communications. The early Cretaceous marks the period when some dinosaurs were evolving into birds. Rare Skin Sample ...read more