La Niña typically casts a bit of a chill over the globe, and that certainly has been the case during its reign over the past three years. Yet despite the climate phenomenon's continuing influence, last month turned out to be one of the warmest Januarys ever recorded globally. Moreover, even though La Niña exerted its maximum cooling effect in 2022, that year still entered the record books as being warmer than 2021. The reason, of course, was human-caused climate change. Now, La Niña is fadin ...read more
Without the aid of modern anesthesia or, for that matter, modern disinfection, a Bronze Age practitioner of some kind wielded a tool with a sharp, beveled edge and began a grisly business. In about 1500 B.C., the primitive surgeon cut away a polygon of scalp just above the left eye and peeled it off, leaving scratches in the bone below. Then began the painstaking process of slicing into the “living bone,” according to a new archaeological study, leaving remarkably clean grooves and carving ...read more
The speculations surrounding the death of Dr. Charles R. Drew are steeped in rumor. Drew, a pioneer in blood banking and blood and plasma storage, may have died after being refused a blood transfusion. In 1950, Drew was brought to a segregated hospital in North Carolina after falling asleep at the wheel while driving to a medical conference with other physicians. But surgeons at the hospital recognized the famed scientist and tried to save his life, making the rumors about his death false. ...read more
Einstein’s special theory of relativity governs our understanding of both the flow of time and the speed at which objects can move. In special relativity, the speed of light is the ultimate speed limit to the universe. Nothing can travel faster than it. Every single moving object in the universe is constrained by that fundamental limit. Speed and Mass This isn’t something like the speed of sound. Early scientists wondered if we could ever go faster than that speed, not because of some fundam ...read more
From jewelry to tattoos, the picture of a snake that bites its tail is engrained in many of our minds. But experts argue this is just symbolism we've inherited from ancient mythology and not actually a concern of herpetologists and snake scientists alike — with a couple of exceptions. Rooted in Myth: Ouroboros and Hoop Snakes The visualization of a snake biting its own tail is deeply rooted in myth. In ancient mythology, a tail-eating snake is called an ouroboros, from the Greek word that ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine