Like many famous men over the course of history, Charles Darwin gets his name attached to a lot of things that he had nothing to do with. The great naturalist certainly never came up with the Darwin Awards. And he didn’t coin the phrase “survival of the fittest.” So, what are we to make of his relationship to Darwin Island, exactly? Did he even set foot on the Galápagos island that bears his name? What Did Charles Darwin Do?Darwin traveled to the Galápagos, of course. He remains the most ...read more

Supernatural, religious and mythical beliefs are a normal part of human culture.In every society, for as long as human history has been recorded, people have explained all manner of phenomena in the world by way of divine intervention or some supernatural agenda.Ancient societies believed they had to sacrifice innocent people to please gods to bring rain, while today, some people blame natural disasters on the perceived moral indiscretions of their peers. Why do we do this?God of the Gaps IdeaSc ...read more

ChatGPT and other AI systems have emerged as hugely useful assistants. Various businesses have already incorporated the technology to help their employees, such as assisting lawyers draft contracts, customer service agents deal with queries and to support programmers developing code. But there is increasing concern that the same technology can be put to malicious use. For example, chatbots capable of realistic human responses could perform new kinds of denial service attacks, such tying up all t ...read more

Strokes primarily impact the aged, but they can also strike the young, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). One in seven affect people between the ages of 15 and 49.The agency recounts the case of Brooke Bergfeld of Bismark, North Dakota, a 29-year-old mom who suffered a stroke not long after giving birth to her son, Hudson. Bergefeld reported many common symptoms, including a terrible headache, a pain in her arm, slurred speech and a drooping face.She was later dia ...read more

In Alexandre Dumas’s classic novel The Count of Monte-Cristo, a character named Monsieur Noirtier de Villefort suffers a terrible stroke that leaves him paralyzed. Though he remains awake and aware, he is no longer able to move or speak, relying on his granddaughter Valentine to recite the alphabet and flip through a dictionary to find the letters and words he requires. With this rudimentary form of communication, the determined old man manages to save Valentine from being poisoned by her ste ...read more

Did you spend your youth being yelled at about your posture? Parents and teachers can sometimes seem a bit obsessed with standing up straight. And they might have a point: Bad posture can do some real harm, and good posture can be almost miraculous.Bad PostureBad posture can cause many physical problems, and some might not be what you'd expect. Sore neck? Sure. Aching back? Oh yes! But constipation, incontinence and heartburn? Yep, those problems, along with breathing difficulties and reduced en ...read more

The content of this article may be triggering for some. Reader’s discretion is advised. In the mid-1990s, model and actress Karen Duffy had a contract with Revlon, a spot on People magazine’s list of the most beautiful people in the world and a date with actor George Clooney to the Emmy Awards. She also had a persistent, piercing headache that prompted her to see her physician.Duffy was diagnosed with sarcoidosis of the central nervous system, an inflammatory disease in which the immune ...read more

Citizen science asks everyday volunteers to make observations of the world around them and add data to research projects that scientists use to answer big questions. When you make citizen science observations, you might enter the information into an app, take a photo or answer a few questions in an online form and hit submit. That might be the end of your part of the process, but submitting a data point is just the first step in the long, rigorous journey from observation to scientific conclus ...read more

This article was originally published on Nexus Media. On a clear morning in April, after milking his seven cows, Tim Sauder looked over the pasture where he had just turned the animals out to graze. Like many dairy farms, Sauder’s fields swayed with a variety of greenery: chicory, alfalfa and clover. But they were also full of something typically missing on an agricultural landscape — trees. Thousands of them.Between 2019 and 2021, Sauder planted 3,500 trees at Fiddle Creek Dairy, a 55-acre ...read more

An ambitious space project is underway to help answer a fundamental question about our universe: Does life exist elsewhere in the solar system?On April 14, the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) successfully launched, with its sights set on the biggest planet in our orbit.After 13 years in the making, the craft left from the European Space Agency spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.JUICE Mission (Illustration Credit: Shutterstock/ joshimerbin)The mission is scheduled for arrival in the Jovian sys ...read more