How Much Should I Sleep? Science Has the Answers

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

Not getting enough sleep is tied to a host of health issues. (Credit: JimAK_Photo/Shutterstock) Are you one of the roughly one-third of Americans who sleep less than seven hours each night? If so, I’ve got some bad news for you: you’re probably not getting enough Zs. While you sleep, your body and brain undergo several important changes. Gradually, you get cooler. Your breathing and heart rate slow down. Chemicals that decrease your appetite are released so you don’t wake ...read more

Second-Fastest Dead Star Pair Ever Found Orbits Every Seven Minutes

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

The two white dwarf stars orbit so close together that the whole system could fit inside the planet Saturn. (Credit: Caltech/IPAC) Astronomers using the Zwicky Transient Facility at Kitt Peak in Arizona have discovered the second fastest orbiting pair of white dwarfs. At the end of their normal lives, our sun and other stars like it become white dwarfs. Their outer layers puff away and leave behind a hot, dense core. And if those stars started life in a binary pair, as most stars do, then th ...read more

Alaska’s Shishaldin Sports a New Lava Lake

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

The lava lake at the summit of Shishaldin in Alaska, seen on July 23, 2019. Image by David Fee, UAFGI/AVO. It has been over a year since a volcano in the United States was host to a lava lake. At the beginning of 2018, Hawaii's Kīlauea was home to one at the summit and one on the East Rift Zone at Pu'u O'o. However, when the lower Puna eruption struck last May, both lava lakes drained. Well, the wait is over for a new lava lake, this time in Alaska. The Alaska Volcano Observatory repo ...read more

New Clues to Alzheimer’s Cause Found in How Fluid Leaves the Brain

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

(Credit: SubstanceTproductions/Shutterstock) Some five ounces of clear fluid fills the spaces between your brain and your skull. This brain juice, or cerebrospinal fluid, cushions against injury, supplies nutrients and clears away waste. Your body can make as much as a pint of fresh stuff every day to replace the old. But for 150 years, scientists have puzzled over how the used cerebrospinal fluid leaves the brain to make room for more. New research, published Wednesday in Nature, has fin ...read more

Unlike Modern Climate Change, the Biggest Swings in Recorded History Were Just Regional Patterns

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

Skaters enjoy a frozen canal in Rotterdam during the so-called Little Ice Age in Germany. A new analysis shows the temperature swings of the past 2,000 years were all regional in nature, unlike modern climate change. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons/Painting by Bartholomeus Johannes van Hove, Circa 1825) Today's climate change is unlike any seen in the last 2,000 years, scientists report Wednesday in the journal Nature. New research shows that the civilization-altering warm and cold ...read more