The 1960s was a big decade for cannabis: Images of flower power, the summer of love and Woodstock wouldn’t be complete without a joint hanging from someone’s mouth. Yet in the early ’60s, scientists knew surprisingly little about the plant. When Raphael Mechoulam, then a young chemist in his 30s at Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science, went looking for interesting natural products to investigate, he saw an enticing gap in knowledge about the hippie weed: The chemical structure of its a ...read more
Earth is hit by thousands of meteorites each year, according to a 2020 study published in Geology — but they're small meteorites, not planet-changing asteroids. And with those meteorites come numerous elements that are the key building blocks for life on Earth. Until now, researchers believed that volatile elements like zinc and water might have come from asteroids that formed near Earth. However, a new study published in the journal Science indicates that these volatile elements may ...read more
This article was first published on Feb. 13, 2015. “If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it,” Albert Einstein reportedly said. I’d like to broaden the definition of addiction — and also retire the scientific idea that all addictions are pathological and harmful. Since the beginning of formal diagnostics more than fifty years ago, the compulsive pursuit of gambling, food, and sex (known as non-substance rewards) have not been regarded as addictions. Only abuse of ...read more
You’ve long heard that eating your biggest meal in the morning and your smallest meal at night is the best way to stay slim and trim. But what’s the truth? What does science say about optimal eating times for keeping the weight off and staving off cardiovascular disease, diabetes and a host of other chronic illnesses? Experts contend that while the quality of the food you eat is most important, the timing is a close second. Research shows that when people ate the same amount of calories each ...read more
It’s been long known that arthropods, meaning all animals with articulated limbs and bodies with segments, can rebuild legs and arms after a loss, according to Gerhard Scholtz, a comparative zoologist at Humboldt University Berlin. For instance, when crustaceans are attacked they can even break off their injured leg themselves, and sacrifice it to survive. And a growing body of research into the molecular mechanisms behind regeneration seems to suggest that there’s no one-size-fits-all come ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine