Japan landed its Smart Lander for Investigating the Moon, or SLIM, craft on the surface of the Moon on Jan. 20, 2024. Despite a power issue with the lander, the event holds both political and technical importance. It’s Japan’s first lunar landing – making it only the fifth country in the world to successfully land on the Moon. This is a significant achievement and solidifies Japan’s position as a leader in space technology.While the craft landed successfully on the lunar surface and d ...read more

Our bodies require a range of vitamins and minerals to maintain a healthy balance and keep us in good shape. Some of those – such as vitamin D and magnesium – have strong bonds and work together. Here is how vitamin D and Magnesium impact the body when taken together. What Is Vitamin D? Vitamin D is known as the “sunshine vitamin,” as the body generates it via exposure to ultraviolet light from the sun’s rays. It’s also found in a range of foods such as mushrooms, eggs, and fatty f ...read more

Only about 1 in 4 Americans said that they had trust in the nation’s institutions in 2023 – with big business (1 in 7), television news (1 in 7) and Congress (1 in 12) scraping the very bottom.While institutional trust is decreasing, political polarization is increasing. The majority of Republicans (72%) and Democrats (64%) think of each other as more immoral than other Americans – a nearly 30% rise from 2016 to 2022. When compared with similar democracies, the United States has exhibite ...read more

When you use your fingerprint to unlock your smartphone, your phone is looking at a two-dimensional pattern to determine whether it’s the correct fingerprint before it unlocks for you. But the imprint your finger leaves on the surface of the button is actually a 3D structure called a fingermark.Fingermarks are made up of tiny ridges of oil from your skin. Each ridge is only a few microns tall, or a few hundredths of the thickness of human hair.Biometric identifiers record fingermarks only as 2 ...read more

The fate of old notes is a critical issue for central banks that oversee their disposal. These notes cannot be thrown away like ordinary rubbish. Instead, central banks have developed standards to ensure the disposal is safe and secure. This often involves a type of shredding that slices each note into hundreds of tiny pieces, each typically smaller than about thirty square millimeters. The shredded paper, or increasingly plastic, can then be disposed of, or recycled, off site. Some central bank ...read more

Dietary supplements fall into a sort of gray area. They often resemble medication —pill-shaped and sold in bottles with child-safe screw tops. Their labels might also suggest certain health benefits. However, unlike medication, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) considers supplements to be a food and doesn’t give them the same scrutiny it devotes to drugs.“The FDA does not analyze the content of dietary supplements until consumers complain about it,” says Lina Begdache, a regist ...read more

In any list of famous cryptids, you’ll find Bigfoot, of course, the Abominable Snowman/Yeti, or even the Chupacabra. But one name that always ends up near the top is the Loch Ness Monster — or Nessie, as it’s known to its friends.For at least 1,500 years, the monster has been a part of local legend and achieved international fame in the last century or so, with hundreds of sightings reported down through the decades. But what is the Loch Ness Monster? Is there any chance it could be real, ...read more

Shingles has long been considered a disease that impacts the older population — people over the age of 50. In the U.S., one in 3 adults will get shingles in their lifetime, and in recent years, more and more people have been diagnosed with the disease across all age groups, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Researchers aren’t entirely sure what’s driving the change, but they do have some clues. What Is Shingles?(Credit:adtapon duangnim/Shutterstock) Shingl ...read more

On Monday, April 8, the sky’s most dramatic event occurs as the path of a total solar eclipse sweeps across the U.S. and the 2024 eclipse begins. At such times, the Moon is directly between the Sun and Earth, and it casts its shadow on our planet.Because the Sun is large, the Moon’s shadow has two parts. If you’re under the outer, lighter shadow — called the penumbra — you will see a partial eclipse. But that’s not the best place to see it. Ideally, your goal should be to stand benea ...read more

Every year over the Christmas holiday, I declutter and organize my kids’ rooms. I just can’t stand the thought of adding more clutter to their cabinets when they’re already filled to the brim with all that stuff.I separate their toys, books, and clothing into one of three piles: for donations, friends with younger children, and, finally, that which is too damaged to keep at all. The process can take hours, but when I’m done, there’s a huge weight lifted as all the clutter finds a new h ...read more