By: Daniel McDonald
While you kick back and relax after your Thanksgiving dinner, your gut microbiota – the collection of beneficial microbes, mostly bacteria, that inhabit your lower intestine – will be hard at work breaking down the food you ate and carrying out all kinds of other essential functions. Research on the microbes that call your intestine home has shown they can affect your brain, treat a hospital-acquired condition called Clostridium difficile infectio ...read more
Turtles can’t head south for the winter, so they hibernate in rivers, lakes and ponds. (F_studio)
To breathe or not to breathe, that is the question.
What would happen if you were submerged in a pond where the water temperature hovered just above freezing and the surface was capped by a lid of ice for 100 days?
Well, obviously you’d die.
And that’s because you’re not as cool as a turtle. And by cool I don’t just mean amazing, I mean literally cool, as in cold. Plu ...read more
(Credit: Billion Photos/Shutterstock)
Whether it’s regulating a burst of anger or calming down a bout of anxiety, taking a deep breath can have a potent effect.
There are compelling hints that controlled breathing can improve overall physical wellbeing, but the neurophysiology — the link between our minds and bodies — of controlled breathing hasn’t been very extensively researched. A new study from researchers at Northwestern University and the Hofstra Northwell Sc ...read more
(Credit: Shutterstock)
In the skies above Japan, scientists have detected lightning triggering nuclear reactions. These new findings are clear evidence that thunderstorms are a natural source of radioactive isotopes on Earth.
Thunderstorms are natural particle accelerators, capable of hurling electrons outward at nearly the speed of light. When these electrons strike atoms, they can generate gamma rays, the highest-energy form of light.
Previous research suggested that gamma rays from lightnin ...read more
Makame Makame from the Zanzibar Malaria Elimination Programme holds one of the drones used to map malaria vectors. (Credit: Andy Hardy)
On a typically hot and humid July day in Stonetown, the capital of Zanzibar, a gaggle of children, teenagers and the odd parents watched our small drone take flight. My colleagues Makame Makame, Khamis Haji and I had finally found the perfect launch spot.
With a high-pitched humming, the drone took to the air. It sounded like a big mosquito—appropriate, s ...read more
(Credit: Shutterstock)
Roughly one in five cancer patients struggle with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in the aftermath of diagnosis and treatment.
A recent study from Malaysia indicates that PTSD is a fairly common result of the long and difficult process of living with and treating cancer. Though most commonly associated with soldiers returning from war, PTSD can result from many different forms of trauma. The disorder can sometimes go unnoticed, or be misdiagnosed, causing thos ...read more
Both prescription medications and illicit drugs such as heroin are fueling an opioid epidemic that’s affecting generations differently, say researchers. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)
As the opioid epidemic rages in the U.S., the number of overdose deaths has nearly quadrupled since 1999. And according to a new study, baby boomers and millennials are at significantly higher risk.
Researchers from Columbia University analyzed drug overdose deaths in the United States between 1 ...read more
Researchers call it “stink flirting.” A male ring-tailed lemur rubs his signature scent onto his long, fluffy tail, then waves it over his head in the direction of a nearby female. Males seem to intend this gesture as a sexual overture. But it often gets them into fights—with lemurs of both sexes. In fact, scientists aren’t sure stink flirting helps male lemurs at all.
Smell is an important communication tool for ring-tailed lemurs (Le ...read more
