Astronauts and cosmonauts aren't at any elevated risk from radiation damage -- at least so far. (Credit: NASA)
As NASA and other agencies look forward to placing humans on the Moon, Mars, and other destinations far beyond Earth’s sheltering atmosphere and magnetic fields, their worries about the harmful radiation that permeates space will only grow.
Many aspects of how the human body will react to long periods in space remain unknown. But using the small group of people who have alre ...read more
(Credit: NASA, ESA, N. Smith (University of Arizona) and J. Morse (BoldlyGo Institute))
As though in preparation for summer festivities, the Hubble Space Telescope captured this cosmic fireworks show from Eta Carinae. The double star system, glowing in red, white, and blue, has exploded several times. The most recent explosion was nearly 200 years ago, in 1838, when an event called the Great Eruption set this fireworks show off.
Hubble has been photographing Eta Carinae for 25 years, ...read more
The planet GJ 3470 b has a rocky core and a thick hydrogen and helium atmosphere, and circles quite close to its dim red star. (Credit: NASA/ESA/L. Hustak)
The Kepler Space Telescope revealed planets outside our solar system by the thousands. With this wave of discoveries, astronomers realized something peculiar: the most common type of planet in the galaxy is one our solar system doesn’t have. It’s a planet between the size of Earth and Neptune, known either as a super-Earth or a ...read more
Lichens come in many colors. (Credit: Field Museum)
65 million years ago, a meteor catastrophically changed our planet’s biodiversity. All non-avian dinosaurs went extinct. By some estimates, 15,000 teragrams (that’s equal to the mass of 10 million redwood trees) of soot darkened the air. Lush and flowering plants that had proliferated around 40 million years earlier were decimated, deprived of life-giving sunlight. Surrounded by death, fungi flourished – their favorite food ...read more
(Credit: aijiro/Shutterstock)
Nearly a third of all deaths in the world are due to heart diseases. Now, a new study suggests that an infusion of gut bacteria might hold promise for treating cardiovascular conditions.
The proof-of-concept study looked at obese people given a daily supplement of helpful bacteria that had been killed with heat, or pasteurized. The study paves the way for a larger human trial aimed at turning the discovery into a commercially-available food supplement that co ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine