Fossils of prehistoric elephants may have inspired the Greek myth of giant, one-eyed, man-eating creatures, known as cyclopes. In the Odyssey, the ancient Greek poet Homer recounts the hero Odysseus’s near fatal encounter with the cyclops Polyphemus. Stranded with his crew on the island of Sicily, the wily Odysseus blinds the giant and escapes with the remnants of his crew — many of whom had been eaten — beneath a herd of sheep.It’s possible that visitors to islands in the Mediterranean ...read more
“I started waking up in the middle of night with pain in my hand,” says Moon-Moon Majumdar, a medical doctor in the U.K. who has suffered from carpal tunnel for the past four years. “It’s a kind of tingling and burning sensation.”Majumdar sought medical advice and was told to wear a wrist brace at night to prevent her arm and hand from getting into positions that could aggravate the problem.Even though we haven’t seen carpal tunnel appear in the news as much lately, somewhere between ...read more
The sad eyes. The whimpering. The trouble with the water dish. Sometimes, the surgical collar prescribed for a post-op pet can seem worse than the actual wound.Researchers and clinicians call it an “Elizabethan collar” or E-collar because it resembles the fashionable fabric ruffle in Elizabethan times. Pet parents, however, know it as the “cone of shame” for how humiliated and unhappy it makes their pet.In recent years, animal behaviorists have researched the impact of E-collars on anima ...read more
The Jezero crater has captivated scientists since its discovery in 2005. Some studies suggested that the crater was home to an ancient lake with flowing rivers that dried out between 3.5 billion years and 3.8 billion years ago. In a new study, more evidence gathered by the Perseverance Rover’s ground penetrating radar confirmed the presence of lake sediments. The find has reignited anticipation for when rock samples from Mars return to Earth in the early to mid-2030s.“From orbit we can see a ...read more
Many people are wired to seek and respond to rewards. Your brain interprets food as rewarding when you are hungry and water as rewarding when you are thirsty. But addictive substances like alcohol and drugs of abuse can overwhelm the natural reward pathways in your brain, resulting in intolerable cravings and reduced impulse control.A popular misconception is that addiction is a result of low willpower. But an explosion of knowledge and technology in the field of molecular genetics has chan ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine