It sounded like the plot of a disaster movie: a mysterious disease in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) appeared to jump from a bat to three children who ate it. They died within two days of developing symptoms. Those symptoms included diarrhea, vomiting, and internal bleeding. Within 21 days of the first reported case, 53 people had died and more than 400 developed symptoms. People were, to put it lightly, getting worried.Scientists had initially feared this spread could represent another ...read more
Climate change is affecting the environments in which we live more and more every year. Along with that, these drastic changes are starting to take a toll on our mental health, as well, especially for young adults. An international research team has taken an interest in what kind of effects climate change is having on adolescent mental health, and the results they have uncovered are concerning. A Mental Health CrisisIn a study published in the Journal of Climate Change and Health, researchers ...read more
Mount Spurr, just to the west of the city of Anchorage, is rumbling. The Alaska Volcano Observatory has been monitoring the earthquakes, gas emissions and visible changes at Spurr and think we might be headed towards a new eruption, the volcano's first since the early 1990s. They've placed it at Yellow Alert status thanks to all the unrest since the start of 2025.More potentially active volcanoes are located in Alaska than any other state in the US thanks to the long chain of the Aleutians that ...read more
Birds-of-paradise are among the most resplendent creatures on Earth, with long, elaborate feathers in eye-popping shades of yellow, blue, and red. Naturalists have admired them for centuries. Yet it turns out they didn’t know the half of it.As if those vibrant colors weren’t enough, a recent study found that the birds — native to Australia, Indonesia, and New Guinea — are also biofluorescent. Their skin and plumage absorb light at high-energy wavelengths, then re-emit it at low-energy wa ...read more
The evolutionary path leading to the rise of modern humans is full of twists and turns, and the latest surprise reveals that our species likely sprung forth from two ancient intermingling populations. A new study has confirmed that these groups first diverged from each other around 1.5 million years ago and later merged back together 300,000 years ago, initiating a genetic mixing event that culminated with the birth of modern humans. The study, published in Nature Genetics, completely rewrites ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine