Europe is a continent of coasts. Indented and irregular, its serpentine shores stretch almost 24,000 miles, though they’re shrinking, and shrinking quickly. Across Europe, seas are rising at an average rate of around 2 to 4 millimeters per year. And though that may sound small, that rate is far from insignificant, threatening to swallow up Europe's low-lying costal cities, like Venice and Amsterdam. Though the current threat to the coastal communities of Europe is unprecedented — and undenia ...read more
For most of history, humans had no idea what happens when you die. Death was, as Hamlet put it, an “undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns.” But with the advent of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), people are returning, at least from the borders of that country, with tales to tell. What Do People See When They Die?The accounts of people who have had what are popularly known as neath death experiences (NDE) are remarkably similar: the presence of a glowing white figure, ...read more
Mammalian evolution didn’t happen in a straight line. For 320 million years, it has surged forward and crashed back down again amid successive mass extinctions, such as the one that killed the dinosaurs 66 million years ago.After each extinction, a population of small, generalist, insect-eating animals that could hide in the cracks of the world, led a new radiation of species to evolve. Or so biologists have tended to believe.But is this true? A new study that constructed a massive family tree ...read more
The woolly rhinoceros — known to scientists as any species of rhinos under the genus Coelodonta — roamed the planet up till 12,000 years ago, spreading all over Asia, Europe, and North Africa. “It had a huge geographical range,” says Pierre-Olivier Antoine, a specialist in Cenozoic megamammals at the Université de Montpellier, in France. It was clad in a thick, shabby coat of rust-colored fur to weather winter storms of the Ice Ages. As such, the hairy beasts earned the nickname “wool ...read more
You know when you see someone yawn, and suddenly, you find yourself yawning seconds later? It's possible that, just like a contagious yawn, stress works similarly. Think about how many times you've felt stressed out when a partner, family member, or even coworker around you was exhibiting symptoms of stress. So, is stress contagious? Krystal Lewis, clinical psychologist and board member of the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, explains if stress can be deemed emotionally contagious ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine