Etna Wakes Up for Summer with a New Eruption

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

Spattering lava during the recent eruption at Etna in Italy, seen on May 30, 2019. Image by Giuseppe Distefano, used by permission. Over on Sicily off Italy's western coast, Etna decided to bring the heat for the start of summer. After a fairly quiet few months, the volcano roared back over the weekend with explosions, new fissures opening and long lava flows. Etna watchers will be keeping on eye on the volcano to see if this is the start of a set of major eruptions like we saw in 2013. T ...read more

Curiosity Finds Mars Clay That Points Toward Watery Past

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

Curiosity snapped this selfie May 12, 2019; to the left of the rover are its two recent two drill sites, "Aberlady" and "Kilmarie." (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS) Finding the conditions to support life on Mars is the main goal for NASA's Curiosity rover, and a new discovery of clay could be leading the rover on the right path.  After drilling in an area on Mars dubbed the “clay-bearing unit,” Curiosity turned up two new samples that have the highest amounts of clay minera ...read more

ESA Draws Up Plans to Bring Back a Sample From Mars

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

A sample return mission would require multiple launches and grabbing samples out of Mars’ orbit. (Credit: ESA/ATG Medialab) NASA isn’t the only space agency with a hunger for the Red Planet. The European Space Agency would also like to snatch samples from Mars, and now they're making their own plans for a mission that will bring back priceless pieces of our neighboring planet. ESA’s plans will certainly work in cooperation with NASA’s, and in fact NASA’s upco ...read more

Neuroscience’s Shoe Saga

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

If you delve into the wildest depths of the scientific literature, you will find a trilogy of papers so weird, that they have become legendary. In these articles, spanning a 12 year period, author Jarl Flensmark says that heeled shoes cause mental illness, while flat footwear promotes brain health: Is there an association between the use of heeled footwear and schizophrenia? (2004)Physical activity, eccentric contractions of plantar flexors, and neurogenesis: therapeutic potential of fla ...read more

Exercise Alleviates Symptoms of Autism, Mouse Study Says

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

(Credit: Andrew Burgess/Shutterstock) Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has no cure. And medications to treat the condition’s core symptoms – anxiety, repetitive behaviors and difficulty engaging in social interactions like talking to others – do not exist. Now researchers may have landed on a simple and effective way to ease autism symptoms: exercise. Exercise reversed autistic behaviors in an animal model of the condition researchers announced Tuesday in the journal&n ...read more