Until recently, civilization (as a whole) had never endured severe climate change at global scale. Individual cultures, on the other hand, have confronted regional climate shifts time and again, and for the people involved, they’ve been no less devastating. In fact, many of those cultures collapsed in the turmoil of fluctuating temperatures and dwindling precipitation (and, surely, other political and economic factors). From the deserts of the Middle East to the rainforest of Central America, ...read more

Back in 1971, a couple of British astronomers predicted the existence of a black hole at the center of our galaxy. And in 1974, other astronomers found it, naming it Sagittarius A*. Since then, astronomers have discovered that a similar “supermassive black hole” sits at the center of almost every other large galaxy. In 2019, they took the first image of a supermassive black hole. Today, these exotic objects are a fundamental part of our understanding of how galaxies form and evolve. But what ...read more

A molecule that is currently being used to treat cancerous soft-tissue sarcomas may be the key for developing a cure for HIV.This molecule, known as EBC-46, works by temporarily activating the HIV virus in the affected cells as they hide so that the body’s immune system can remove the virus, according to a study published recently in Science Advances.“It’s pretty amazing,” says Paul Wender, a chemist at Stanford University. “In this new agent, we were seeing things that get up to 90 pe ...read more

In the cave of El Mirón in northern Spain, intrigue surrounds a woman who was laid to rest there 19,000 years ago. Her bones, coated in an earthy shade of red derived from the natural pigment ochre, led archaeologists to give her the name the "Red Lady of El Mirón;" new research, however, has taken a closer look not at her red-hued bones, but at the soil within the cave. In a study recently published in Nature Communications, researchers analyzed sedimentary ancient DNA, or sedaDNA, refining ...read more

Dating can be full of surprises. In the social kind, one can learn about all sorts of unexpected things about a potential partner. In the scientific type, sometimes strange, unexplained phenomena comes to light.The latter was the case for a group of scientists, who found twice as much Beryllium-10 in the Pacific seabed then expected. This anomaly could shift our understanding of cosmic phenomenon that affect the Earth and also help recalibrate scientific dating techniques, they report in Nature ...read more

Is it better to be smooth or to be scaly? For fossil plesiosaurs around 183 million years ago, the answer was a bit of both. Scrutinizing some of the first soft tissues from a fossil plesiosaur in a study in Current Biology, a team of researchers has revealed that these massive marine reptiles sported both smooth and scaly skin, potentially suited to swimming as well as to skimming or “bottom-walking” over the seafloor.“Fossilized soft tissue, such as skin and internal organs, is exception ...read more

A team of European Space Agency (ESA) scientists detected an Einstein Ring, in which light from one galaxy is sucked into the gravity of another, then encircles it. The team reported the finding in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.The phenomenon is named after Albert Einstein, because his general theory of relativity predicts that light will bend around objects in space, focusing the light like a massive lens. The larger the object, the bigger the gravitational lensing effect appears. If ...read more

The second full moon of the year will appear on February 12, 2025, just before Valentine’s Day, and is called the snow moon. The snow moon doesn’t always appear in February, and it's constellation isn't always the same. Find out what constellation the snow moon will be in for 2025, and why February sometimes has a black moon.When to See the Snow MoonViewing the snow moon depends on your location, but it should be visible on the evening of February 12, depending on the weather. For optimal ni ...read more

These days, there’s a way to track nearly every aspect of fitness and health. You can track your calories, your sleep, your heart rate and the number of steps you take every day. You can track the number of miles you’ve run, biked or hiked. Often, tracking products advertise health benefits. Ads for fitness-tracking watches like Garmin and Fitbit urge users to “tune into your body,” “unlock human performance,” and “find your energy.” The basic idea is that knowing more about our ...read more

Science journalist Maria Smilios was editing a book on orphan lung diseases when one line caught her attention. In a chapter about a rare lung disease, the author commented that perhaps a cure could be discovered as quickly as the cure for tuberculosis was found at Sea View Hospital on Staten Island in the 1950s. Smilios began researching and learned how the first clinical trial for a lifesaving antibiotic happened at Sea View under the watchful supervision of experienced nurses — all of them ...read more