After a retired speech-language pathologist had a stroke, he struggled to articulate his thoughts, even though he knew what he wanted to say. His wife didn't understand the source of his difficulties until a clinician showed her a video that explained what her husband wished he could tell her: His stroke caused apraxia.Apraxia is a term used to describe a list of neurological disorders that impact speech, movement or gestures. Clinicians have observed apraxia for centuries, but they still don ...read more
Half a billion years ago, in the earliest days of animal life, there were few undersea predators. A strange shrimp-like creature that grew up to 6 feet in length and wielded twin claws served as top predator. Meanwhile, small chaetognath worms snapped at prey with a mouth that bristled with spines.But these sparse ranks have just gotten a little less sparse.A new fossil discovery has confirmed that a much more familiar predator, a type of jellyfish, also stalked the oceans more than 500 million ...read more
Living on the same planet that we evolved on, it can be easy to take things for granted. We have an abundance of fuel and fresh water, plants and animals for food, and an atmosphere with plenty of oxygen.Yet we also have plans to send people off-world. In the coming decades, humans will set out to explore our solar system in greater detail than ever before; we have plans to erect a base on the moon through NASA’s Artemis mission, and even send the first people to Mars.Is There Oxygen in Space? ...read more
It was the first epoch after the age of dinosaurs in a part of the world that had recently recovered from an asteroid blast of epic magnitudes. The blast birthed the tropical rainforests along the equator that exist today. A landscape that was damp and swampy, covered in dense tropical foliage — ample places for Titanaboa to hide.What Was the Largest Snake in the World?Titanaboa, the largest snake in the world, lived during the Paleocene around 58 to 60 million years ago. It thrived alongsid ...read more
A predatory species of fish has adapted to the destruction of its local coral reef by using another fish, the peace-loving parrotfish, for cover, according to a new study.Researchers and local divers in the Caribbean have long talked about the tactic and painted a similar picture: The long, thin trumpetfish swims alongside the more rounded parrotfish (or another reef fish) as if seeking cover from it. But does this really help the trumpetfish to hunt?To find out, the researchers from the univers ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine