What Causes Hallucinations? The Brain May Be OverInterpreting a Lack of Info

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

Mental illness affects millions of Americans. Many people with bipolar disorder, depression, and schizophrenia suffer hallucinations, the perception of something that is not present. From phantom smells to hearing voices and seeing things that are not there, hallucinations can take many forms and stem from many causes. It's not just mental illness, either. Strokes, migraines and inner ear diseases can also lead to hallucinations. And obviously, psychedelic drugs do as well. Yet surprising ...read more

Drink Your Beets: The Science Behind the Vegetable’s Surprising Benefits

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

Carnitine, chromium, anabolic steroids: Athletes have experimented with a broad array of aids in pursuit of a performance edge. A popular — if unglamorous — one today that seems safe and backed by solid data: the juice of beets, for the nitrate it contains. Inorganic nitrate (NO3-) is added to cured and processed meats to extend their shelf life and give them their distinctive pink color. It’s also naturally found in spinach, arugula and beets. In the past decade, new evidence ...read more

Did Climate Change Help Take Down the Byzantine Empire?

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

(Inside Science) --  By examining the literal dustbins of history, archaeologists have now shed light on how a 125-year "little ice age" might have wreaked havoc on the Byzantine Empire -- an example of how climate change might influence human civilization. Although the Roman Empire is often said to have fallen in 476 A.D., that was only the end of its western part. Its richer, stronger eastern half continued as the Byzantine Empire for almost another thousand years until it fell to t ...read more

Pence: America Will Put Astronauts Back on the Moon in Five Years

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

The Trump administration wants to put Americans back on the moon by 2024, Vice President Mike Pence announced Tuesday at a meeting of the National Space Council in Huntsville, Alabama. "The first woman and the next man on the moon will both be American astronauts launched by American rockets from American soil,” he pledged. It's an audacious pledge, given NASA's current capabilities, and especially in light of recent setbacks to the Space Launch System (SLS), the ...read more

NASA Shuffles Crew, Nixing Historic All-Female Spacewalk

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

NASA’s first all-female spacewalk is on indefinite hold. After Anne McClain and Nick Hague’s successful spacewalk outside the International Space Station on March 22, NASA discovered that they don’t have enough suits of the right size to fit both McClain and Christina Koch, who were scheduled for a spacewalk together on March 29. Earlier this month, the space agency announced it would be the first all-female spacewalk. The spacewalk will continue, but with Hague and ...read more