Faraway from Earth in the Sunrise Arc galaxy lies a star so distant that it took 12.9 billion years for its light to reach our planet. Named Earendel, after a character from J.R.R Tolkien’s Silmarillion, this star is the most distant ever observed by scientists and is now a mind-boggling 28 billion light years from Earth.An Astonishing Star DiscoveryEarendel dates back to the first billion years after the big bang, offering researchers a glimpse of stars from this time in the Universe’s hist ...read more

Solitude is, simply enough, “the state or condition of being alone,” explains Thuy-vy Nguyen, a researcher at Durham University, U.K., who studies solitude. Time alone might be voluntary or involuntary; it might be pleasant or unpleasant. It all depends on the context. So, solitude is not necessarily bad, but is it beneficial? Nguyen is the principal investigator of Solitude Lab, where she and her team work to unravel these kinds of mysteries. They’ve found that solitude offers at least t ...read more

For adults of a certain age, dental implant advertisements appear ubiquitous. But the price — at potentially thousands of dollars per tooth — might, for many people be a case of financially biting off more than they can chew.What if, instead, they could regrow their pearly whites, perhaps at a fraction of the cost?Approaches that replace — rather than patch up — teeth with crowns or fillings may be closer than you think. Scientists have been exploring multiple methods in the past few dec ...read more

The commonly held belief that it takes 21 days to form a habit is a little off. Well, actually, it’s way off. According to new research from the University of South Australia, forming healthy habits can take two months to a year to form. But don’t be discouraged; understanding how habit forming works can help you maintain life-long wellness habits.“Adopting healthy habits is essential for long-term well-being, but forming these habits – and breaking unhealthy ones – can be challenging, ...read more

We can now track the spread of humanity by following a trail of blood…types.A group of researchers did just that, by analyzing genetic information from three groups of Early Man — most recently Neanderthal and Homo sapiens (earlier work also included Denisovans, an extinct subspecies that roamed Asia until about 30,000 years ago).Although their analysis, which appears in Scientific Reports, stretches back about 120,000 years ago, it also offers some implications for current medicine and heal ...read more

A genetic investigation has finally tracked down the source of the pathogen that caused the Irish potato famine, closing a case that has been up in the air for years. Researchers nailed down the Andes Mountains in South America as the birthplace of Phtytophthora infestans, otherwise known as potato blight or late blight. The pathogen, taking the form of a fungus-like microorganism (oomycete/water mold), has devastated potato and tomato plants throughout history. A new study published in the jou ...read more

A set of leggings with a matching Minnie Mouse shirt, freeze-dried blueberries, a face cream; These seemingly unrelated items shared one toxic trait — they were recalled because they contained a dangerously high level of lead.The Minnie Mouse outfit, for example, used lead paint to print the smiling character onto the shirt and matching daisies onto the pants. Almost 90,000 units were sold, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Although government bans have reduced lead ...read more

According to a new U.K. study published in The British Journal of Psychiatry, adults diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) may have shorter life spans than those without. In this first-of-its-kind study, the authors determined that both men and women saw a drop in life expectancy, and this may be due to limited access to treatments and an overall misdiagnosis of ADHD.   A Shortened Life Expectancy Researchers from the University College London (UCL) analyzed data fro ...read more

“Get me a rewrite,” reporters used to shout into a telephone when they called into a newsroom with changing information. Scientists may now want to yell the same thing — but about how our existing genetic code came to be, according to a study in PNAS. That rewrite could shift our understanding of how life evolved on Earth from its simplest forms, and what it could look like on other planets.How the Genetic Code WorksThat code is both deceptively simple in appearance, but amazingly complica ...read more

In the relentless search to know how the ancestors of humans spread across the world, the latest evidence has revealed that hominins were in Europe at least 1.95 million years ago. Clues on their presence were recently found by researchers at an archaeological site in Romania that could now help explain hominins’ early dispersal out of Africa.A study published in Nature Communications details the prominent find, which predates evidence of hominins previously found at other sites across Europe ...read more