Everyone knows that maintaining a clean kitchen is essential for safe food preparation. Failing to properly sanitize utensils after use can lead to foodborne illnesses from bacterial growth. Alongside dish sponges, cutting boards — particularly those used for raw meat — are hotspots for bacteria.Instead of relying solely on human-devised cleaning methods to combat bacterial buildup, researchers turned to nature for solutions. They found inspiration in the antimicrobial properties of shark sk ...read more

For certain fishes, evolution is easy. After tracking the evolution of teeth in cichlid fishes from Africa, a team of researchers has found that these fishes have developed the ability to evolve rapidly, allowing them to adapt their teeth readily for different habitats and diets. This ability, the researchers report today in a study in Nature, helps these fishes split off into new species faster than any other fishes and, for that matter, any other vertebrates.“This changes the way we think ab ...read more

In the late ‘80s, a team of Soviet and West African archaeologists discovered an African rainforest site that had the potential to rewrite at least a chapter of human evolutionary history. Artifacts encased in several layers of sediment hinted that some early humans had settled and thrived there, during a time when it was thought that they evolved primarily on savannas. Almost nobody paid attention.There were three reasons. First, the group published its findings in Russian, which relatively f ...read more

Decoding Thoughts: AI Translates Brain Scans into TextHow useful it would be to know what the person standing next to you on the train was thinking. Or what your boss was going to offer as a pay rise or what a potential partner thought of you. This ability is entirely futuristic, of course. But the groundwork is being laid now. Various groups have demonstrated the ability to decode certain kinds of thoughts, particularly what people are looking at, based on functional MRI brain scan images. This ...read more

Our brain is constantly working to keep the body functioning and, therefore, requires the utmost protection. In addition to a thick skull, the blood-brain barrier (BBB), a natural protective membrane, prevents microscopic intruders such as toxins and pathogens from entering the nervous system.Unfortunately, this also limits medical treatment for neurological disorders, including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, brain tumors, and ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis). But recent developments in medica ...read more

Exercise is one of the most important tools for staying healthy. It helps us to manage weight and improves cardiovascular and mental health. Exercise can also reduce our risk of certain diseases like diabetes and some cancers. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise each week, which amounts to about 30 minutes five days per week or 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity exercise weekly. This amounts to running or other vigorous forms ...read more

Want a flavorful beverage with a lot less lead? Try tea. According to a team of researchers from Northwestern University, tea leaves and bags adsorb lead, trapping lead ions on their surfaces and filtering them from drinking water during the process of tea brewing.“For this study, our goal was to measure tea’s ability to adsorb heavy metals,” said Vinayak Dravid, a member of the research team and a Northwestern professor, according to a press release. “By quantifying this effect, our wor ...read more

As far back as 22,000 years ago, humans may have improvised makeshift transportation tools that left grooves alongside their own footprints in what is now White Sands National Park in New Mexico. New research points to the travois — a device usually consisting of two poles joined together to carry a heavy load — as the source of these linear tracks, possibly representing the earliest evidence of transport technology used by humans. A research team surveyed the tracks in a study recently publ ...read more

The story of the red planet, it turns out, may be due for a revision. At one time, experts thought that Mars was covered with fields of rocks with iron trapped inside. Somehow or other, and over a long period, those rocks reacted to water in the air. That reaction formed rust, in much the same way it does when iron and water meet on Earth. Then, over billions of years, those rocks slowly eroded. As they broke down into dust, heavy winds spread the scarlet silty substance all around, until Mars� ...read more

LTT 9779 b, an exoplanet 262 light years from Earth, always stares directly at the sun. With a surface of nearly 2000 degrees Celsius (about 3632 degrees Fahrenheit), the planet glows bright red while still reflecting starlight. Researchers have called it a rare ultra-hot Neptune.Thanks to images from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) published in Nature Astronomy, researchers are now able to see and analyze extreme weather patterns on this intriguing exoplanet, which can help them better un ...read more