King Charles III, who assumed the throne of the United Kingdom in 2022 upon the death of Queen Elizabeth II, has a reputation as an environmental activist. What's more, some political commentators see his reign as an opportunity to enact the large-scale change needed to fight global warming. When he first entered public life at age 20, the then-Prince of Wales used his celebrity to sound the alarm. “Conservation or problems about pollution should not be held up as separate concepts from housin ...read more
With forty wild feline species scattered across the globe, cats boast an array of adaptations that allow them to thrive in some of Earth’s harshest environments. Here, we marvel at some of the extremes of the cat world – smallest, fluffiest and more – and see what evolution has done with these magnificent mammals. 1. Cheetah: The Speed Demon(Credit: Elana Erasmus/Shutterstock)Holding the records for the world's fastest cat and fastest land animal, cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus) can reach spee ...read more
Natural disasters, such as tornados, hurricanes, earthquakes, fires, floods and volcanic eruptions, have caused devastating effects. However, human-caused disasters can have equally devastating impacts on the lives of countless people. Here are five of the biggest human-caused disasters to occur in modern history. 1. Chernobyl Disaster(Credit:JoRanky/Shutterstock)In 1986, an explosion at the Number 4 nuclear reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant released massive amounts of radioactive ...read more
Who was this girl, and why was her burial so special?Those are the questions archaeologist Hala Alarashi and her colleagues ask in a new paper published in PLOSONE that details the burial of an 8-year-old girl in an ancient Jordanian town sometime between 7,400 and 6,800 B.C. Interred with her bones in the village of Ba‘ja, they found the piecemeal remains of some sort of intricate jewelry that had no precedent at this point in neolithic history.“The making of the necklace appears to have in ...read more
Click-clack, click-clack! It’s a sound that many of us may have heard whenever our dogs walk or run across any surface that isn’t carpeted. If you have hardwood, your first thought might be, I hope he didn’t scratch my floors! But instead of worrying about that, maybe your first thought should be, is it time to clip my dog’s nails?The answer is probably yes. For many dogs, when their claws are so long that you can hear them tap-tap-tapping across any hard surface in the house, it’s oft ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine