Hurricane Helene has been rampaging through the southeastern United States today, causing catastrophic flooding and killing at least 40 people in four states. The death toll is likely to rise.The storm slammed ashore as a Category 4 hurricane on Thursday evening with maximum sustained winds of 140 mph. It also pushed up inundating storm surges. As I'm writing this on Friday afternoon, it has been downgraded to a tropical storm — but it still poses deadly dangers. "Historic, catastrophic and li ...read more
Archeologists have discovered what may be a missing link between agriculture that grew ancient civilizations in Egypt and Mesopotamia and more recent ones in the Mediterranean. Excavations in a northwestern African area known as the Maghreb reveal farming practices similar to those that sprouted civilizations on the Nile River and the Tigris and Euphrates. They also show evidence of trade that tracks how human developments expanded northward, according to a report in Antiquity.Spreading Civiliza ...read more
Life as a scribe in Ancient Egypt took its toll on the body. Researchers examining the bones of these ancient writers found them riddled with arthritis and other work-related wear and tear, offering fascinating insights into their lives. They detailed their findings in a study published in the journal Scientific Reports.Researchers from the Czech Republic studied the remains of 69 individuals who were buried in the Abusir necropolis in Egypt over 4000 years ago, between 2700 and 2180 B.C.E. Th ...read more
Billions of birds are flying south for the annual fall migration, including 4.7 billion leaving the U.S. alone, bound for Mexico, Central and South America. Sadly, over the past 50 years, North American bird populations dropped by nearly 3 billion, due to habitat loss, climate change, and massive development along their flight paths. An estimated one billion deaths per year are due to building collisions, with light pollution being an amplifying factor.We (scientists, conservationists, media and ...read more
The blue whale is renowned as the Earth’s largest animal, taking that title today by quite some distance. That holds true even stretching back through time as these enormous marine mammals are even bigger than some of the largest of the dinosaurs.How Big Is a Blue Whale?(Credit: Ajit S N/Shutterstock)The largest blue whale ever found stretched 33 meters (108 feet) and was caught by whalers in the early 1900s. Usually, however, they can range between 24 and 30 meters (78-98 feet) in length, dep ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine