In the fifth century B.C., Hippocrates first reported a disease with “flu-like symptoms” spreading across northern Greece. Years later, in Renaissance Florence, around A.D. 1300 a flu virus called “influenza di freddo” hit the Italian city with a vengeance. History shows that we’ve been dealing with the flu for thousands of years, while COVID-19 is a comparably new contagion. Still, according to experts, the flu has provided the groundwork for how we might respond to COVID-19 in the f ...read more
Researchers at the Museum of Archaeology and Paleontology in Madrid, Spain have uncovered a chamber of a cave filled with 35 skulls of long-dead herbivores. The skulls are assumed to have been placed there by groups of Neanderthals, a close relative to the modern human. Read More: Who Were the Neanderthals? The cave, known as the Cueva Des-Cubierta, is in the north Madrid region of Spain. Researchers initially discovered it in 2009, but this collection of skulls was not found until recently – ...read more
Though many dog owners may not be aware of it, our canine friends can develop dementia too. Dementia in dogs — also known as canine cognitive dysfunction syndrome — often follows a similar pattern of development as it does in humans, says Gary Landsberg, a veterinary behaviorist and senior veterinary scientific director with the research organization CanCog. Read More: We’re Not Alone: Animals Suffer From Mental Health Issues Too “Dogs have neurodegenerative disease disorders that they d ...read more
A growing body of research is making some surprising discoveries about insects. Honeybees have emotional ups and downs. Bumblebees play with toys. Cockroaches have personalities, recognize their relatives and team up to make decisions. Fruit flies experience something very like what we might call fear. Read More: Bumble Bees Like To Play Just For Fun Insects having emotions is not a new idea. In 1872, in The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, Charles Darwin wrote, "Even inse ...read more
The world was an unrecognizable place more than 2.45 billion years ago. But for most of the tiny organisms that lived on the planet at the time, things were just fine; at least, until the cyanobacteria started to proliferate. As a result, these photosynthetic bacteria began to produce oxygen — so much of it that the tiny microbes sparked the "Great Oxidation Event" that infused the gas into our atmosphere. “You could argue that that’s the biggest poisoning event of Earth’s history, ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine