Before the ash of Mount Vesuvius buried the city of Pompeii in 79 C.E., some of the city’s elites would host parties in their own private bathhouse.Researchers from the Archeological Park of Pompeii — Parco Archeologico di Pompei — announced the discovery of an elaborate bathhouse inside a private home (domus). According to the Archeological Park of Pompeii, this may be the largest bathhouse ever found at the site. The new finding sheds more light on the lives of Pompeii’s citizens up un ...read more
Long before humans acquired an appetite for meat, one of our earliest hominin ancestors — Australopithecus — stuck to a vegetarian diet. The ancient hominin, living in eastern and southern Africa around 3.5 million years ago, ate primarily plant-based foods, according to a new study that analyzed their fossilized teeth. The study, published in the journal Science, marks the latest chapter in the hunt to unearth the foundation of humans’ carnivorous tendencies. Scientists have regularly sp ...read more
Astrophysicists have taken images of a large sample of exocomet belts for the first time, imaging the bands along with the tiny pebbles that orbit within. The images were published in a study in Astronomy and Astrophysics, showing bands of a variety of structures. “The images reveal a remarkable diversity in the structure of belts,” said Sebastián Marino, a study author and an astronomer at the University of Exeter, according to a press release. “Some are narrow rings […] but a larger n ...read more
Using the Body Mass Index (BMI) to diagnose obesity should go the way of blood-letting, an international panel of 58 scientists argued in the British medical journal The Lancet. Doctors should instead measure how excess body fat affects the body — a measurement called adiposity. Physicians have used BMI in part because it’s a simple calculation that compares weight relative to health.The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology Commission argues that BMI is more simplistic than simple, because it ...read more
The fictional Magic School Bus enables its passengers to explore scientific phenomena, such as dinosaurs. Now, a non-fictional Space Bus named Pandora is ready to investigate celestial mysteries, like exoplanets that orbit small stars.The team that conceived of and built Pandora — consisting of scientists from institutions including NASA, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and the University of Arizona — announced its completion at an American Astronomical Society press briefing in Mary ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine