Space, to the naked eye, appears still, tranquil. But to scientists viewing it through increasingly powerful telescopes, it looks turbulent, with violent streams of gas buffeting dusty materials that form fascinating shapes, then disperse.Now an international team of astronomers has employed the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) to get a better view of this action. ALMA’s amazingly high resolution has sharpened the view of the tempestuous churn in Milky Way’s central zone. ...read more

If you’ve walked past the penguin exhibit at the zoo, then you’ve likely caught a whiff of their unpleasant-smelling poo. The smell has perhaps made you want to cover your nose and, despite a penguin’s cuteness, want to walk away. Humans aren’t the only ones repelled by penguin poo, however. To krill, tiny shrimp-like creatures, the smell of penguin poo triggers evasive maneuvers, probably because they know that penguins are on their way to eat them. After putting it to the test, a rese ...read more

Medieval alchemists sought to literally turn non-valuable substances into gold. Now some scientists have discovered a figurative equivalent method to transform sewage sludge into food for animals and fuel for automobiles, according to research published in Nature Water.Sewage sludge — the thick, organic, and, yes, smelly wastewater treatment byproduct— represents a massive and costly problem. The world’s cities produce over 100 million tons of the stinky substance. It often clogs treatment ...read more

As temperatures continue to rise, so too will cases of Lyme disease and other tick-born illnesses. Therefore a search to stop its spread and treat its symptoms has picked up some urgency — and now offers a glimmer of hope.Warmer weather give nasty little vectors like the deer ticks that carry the disease a longer time period to spread it. The ticks carry the disease from their "reservoir" of small woodland mammals into human hosts by biting them. Although it is most prevalent in wooded areas, ...read more

When athletes line up at the start of a race, the crowd often hushes in anticipation until the quiet is broken by the crack of a starter pistol. The discharge sounds like a real gunshot, yet most people aren’t filled with fear. Instead, the race begins, the fans cheer, and the blast is forgotten. To not react negatively to a starter pistol, the brain has to recognize the blast as harmless and then shut down any fearful reactions. But how does the brain know when to ignore a starter pistol but ...read more

Researchers are starting to reveal the science of red sprites. No, not the supernatural spirits that flit through fairytales, but the bursts of rare red lightning that flicker and flash through the middle-upper atmosphere. Teasing out the timing of over 90 red sprites and tying over 60 of them to specific strokes of parent lightning, the research reveals that one of South Asia’s largest shows of sprite fireworks arose within a cluster of thunderstorms above the Himalayas in 2022. Its appearanc ...read more

The European Space Agency’s Euclid telescope has just magnified our view of the universe with the release of its first wave of survey data, capturing hundreds of thousands of galaxies in remarkable detail. The latest update shares a preview of three deep fields, areas chock-full of galaxies that Euclid will inspect as part of its mission to map one-third of the entire sky. With one scan of each deep field, Euclid has been able to spot 26 million galaxies, the farthest of which lie 10.5 billio ...read more

There’s some good news and bad news about treating back pain. The good news is research has identified what actually works. The bad news is, it’s not very much.Only about 10 percent of common, nonsurgical treatments for lower back pain appear effective, with many therapies working only slightly better than a placebo, according to research in BMJ Evidence Based Medicine.For acute or temporary lower back pain, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS) like ibuprofen, naproxen, and celecox ...read more

Imagine a lush and vibrant rainforest teeming with life, with various insects crawling and flying around, and abundant aquatic fauna. This is what the now cool, temperate Central Tablelands in southwestern Australia would have looked like around 15 million years ago.This was confirmed by a spectacular recent discovery at the McGrath Flat fossil site near Gulgong in New South Wales, Australia. The site is classified as a "Lagerstätte" — a location that contains fossils of exceptional quality w ...read more

It sounded like the plot of a disaster movie: a mysterious disease in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) appeared to jump from a bat to three children who ate it. They died within two days of developing symptoms. Those symptoms included diarrhea, vomiting, and internal bleeding. Within 21 days of the first reported case, 53 people had died and more than 400 developed symptoms. People were, to put it lightly, getting worried.Scientists had initially feared this spread could represent another ...read more