We’ve all heard that an apple a day keeps the doctor away, but how true is that?Apples are not high in vitamin A, nor are they beneficial for vision like carrots. They are not a great source of vitamin C and therefore don’t fight off colds as oranges do.However, apples contain various bioactive substances – natural chemicals that occur in small amounts in foods and that have biological effects in the body. These chemicals are not classified as nutrients like vitamins. Because apples cont ...read more

Wildfires, pushed by powerful winds, raced through Lahaina, Hawaii, on Aug. 8 and 9, 2023, leaving a charred and smoldering landscape across the tourist town of about 13,000 residents that was once the capital of the Kingdom of Hawaii. At least 36 people died, Maui County officials said. Others were rescued by the U.S. Coast Guard after going into the ocean to escape the flames.Fires were still burning on Aug. 10, both in Maui’s tourist-filled west coast and farther inland, as well as o ...read more

The April 1941 issue of Astounding Science Fiction included "Reason," a story by Isaac Asimov later published in the collection I, Robot. The story in Asimov's Robot series was set on a space station that beams power in the form of microwaves directly to planets.More than 30 years later, Peter Glaser, a NASA engineer who worked on, among other projects, the Apollo moon missions, took a big step in turning Asimov's plot device into reality. Glaser designed — and in 1973 was granted a pate ...read more

A 300,000-year-old skull recovered from an archaeological dig in China could prompt a new branch on the human family tree. The development comes after scientists have spent years studying the skull and puzzling over its combination of archaic and modern features.The new paper published in the Journal of Human Evolution joins an existing call to found a new human species closely related to our Homo Sapiens.The study is the first attempt to fully classify the skull and its features of a flat face ...read more

It’s not unusual to hear of people getting headaches due to stress, poor sleep or sinus problems. Most of us have experienced one at some point. However, headaches can also occur during or after sex — and this may be unusual for some.Around 1 percent of adults report having experienced sex-induced headaches, also known as sex headaches or orgasm headaches. But because many people feel uneasy mentioning it all, the condition tends to fly under the radar.What Is a Headache During Sex?Sex-induc ...read more

A massive new whale discovered in the Peruvian desert presents a caloric quandary: At somewhere between 170,000 and 680,000 pounds, it would have required an equally massive diet to survive. Yet, Perucetus colossus was a slow, ponderous sort of sea creature that kept to the shallows and coastal regions.So, what did it do?Like many modern whales, it may have relied on filter feeding, or it may have munched on sea grass like a manatee. Or it could have suctioned up demersal fishes, crustaceans, mo ...read more

In medical and engineering circles, it’s known by a few different names: cabinet respirator, tank respirator, negative pressure ventilator and others. But since its creation almost a century ago, this lifesaving device has been known almost universally by another name: the iron lung.What Is an Iron Lung?As intimidating as the name sounds — and as scary as the coffin-like device looked — the iron lung was a medical miracle for people suffering from something even scarier: poliomyelitis. Bef ...read more

In the Early Triassic period, about 248 million years ago, the Hupehsuchus, an ancient tiny marine reptile, filter-fed its way through the early oceans. Paleontologists made the discovery after uncovering two intact Hupehsuchus nanchangensis skull specimens in a recent study published in BMC Ecology and Evolution. The find makes it the first marine filter-feeder that appeared after Earth’s biggest mass extinction. An Ancient Marine ReptileThe Hupehsuchus is a type of ichthyosauromorph with pa ...read more

For nearly 3,000 years, Egypt was ruled by a procession of pharaohs, starting with the Old Kingdom in 2,700 B.C., then the Middle Kingdom and culminating with the New Kingdom, which lasted until 1070 B.C. For the most part, these were absolute monarchs whose power was considered divine.Dynasties passed from one ruler to another with infighting and inbreeding a plenty. It was not an easy time to be atop the throne. But a few rulers stood above the rest. 1. Khnum Khufu (2589 B.C. – 2566 B.C.) ...read more

Days come and go. Our circadian rhythms are tuned to the rising and setting of the Sun and the push and pull of the Moon. Days appear stable to us, an endless cycle of day and night, unless we decide to change our clocks, there are always 24 hours in a day.However, change is the norm when it comes to Earth's day length over geological periods. Earth's satellite, our Moon, steals rotational energy to travel farther and farther away from us over time. And as the Moon's gravitational effect on the ...read more