Content Warning: Brief Mention of SuicideNo one knows the cause of this ailment. Currently, no lab results can conclusively test for it. There is no approved treatment — let alone any kind of cure — for this health problem.Some doctors actually refuse to believe that the condition exists. But those doctors are wrong. In fact, research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) currently estimates that more than 3 million Americans suffer from the problem.As medical mysteries g ...read more
As winter's brutal grip on the Arctic has begun to loosen, the vast region's sea ice cover likely reached its maximum extent for the year on March 14. That maximum spread of the ice was not as paltry as it has been in some recent years. But according to the latest analysis from the National Snow and Ice Data Center, it was still 247,000 square miles below the 1981 to 2010 average.That's an area of 'missing' ice nearly as large as Texas. For the record, NSIDC data show that the maximum extent of ...read more
Black licorice may look and taste like an innocent treat, but this candy has a dark side. On Sept. 23, 2020, doctors reported that black licorice was the culprit in the death of a 54-year-old man in Massachusetts. How could this be? Overdosing on licorice sounds more like a twisted tale than a plausible fact.I am a toxicologist and author of the book “Pleased to Meet Me: Genes, Germs, and the Curious Forces That Make Us Who We Are.” I have a long-standing interest in how chemicals in food an ...read more
The brain is one of the most complex structures ever to exist. But, what if brains could be made better? What if they could be faster, able to solve more complex problems, and linked directly to the vast network of information we have available via the Internet? That's the lofty aim of the team at Neuralink. Elon Musk, who founded the firm in 2016, said the company's ultimate goal is to achieve a state of “symbiosis” with artificial intelligence. Neuralink still has a long way to go to meet ...read more
In the U.S., wildland firefighters are able to stop about 98% of all wildfires before the fires have burned even 100 acres. That may seem comforting, but decades of quickly suppressing fires has had unintended consequences.Fires are a natural part of many landscapes globally. When forests aren’t allowed to burn, they become more dense, and dead branches, leaves and other biomass accumulate, leaving more fuel for the next fire. This buildup leads to more extreme fires that are even harder to pu ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine