In March 2024, a group of boaters in Venice Beach, Florida ran into a great white shark feeding on a whale carcass. While white sharks’ diet consists primarily of large marine mammals such as seals and sea lions, scavenging off of whale carcasses is an important way for them to maintain their diet. From the southern tip of South Africa to the California coast, we’ve observed white sharks, also known as great white sharks, engaging in fascinating hunting patterns from shorelines around the w ...read more
Few drugs have achieved the stardom that semaglutide, marketed in the United States as Ozempic or Wegovy, has today. A synthetic, injectable version of an intestinal hormone, it is the flagship of a new category of drugs initially developed for diabetes that rose to fame in the medical and public arena as an effective weapon against obesity. Semaglutide has proved so successful that its manufacturer, the Danish company Novo Nordisk, is unable to keep up with demand.The US Food and Drug Administr ...read more
Many things can throw one’s microbiome out of kilter. Not eating enough fiber or relying too much on highly processed food can starve the “good bacteria” dwelling in your gut. Frequent and sustained antibiotic use can also unintentionally kill them off. With today’s busy schedule, many people forgo the things that maintain good gut health. “Modern lifestyles hit the microbiome at many different angles," says Christopher Damman, a gastroenterologist at the University of Washington in Se ...read more
The quokka, an adorable marsupial hailing from southwestern Australia, is bound to put a smile on anyone’s face. They’re small and fuzzy, and the distinctive shape of their mouth gives quokkas the appearance of an ever-present grin. And despite their limited range, these herbivorous marsupials have captured the hearts of millions around the world — the viral #quokkaselfie trend on social media features thousands of selfies taken with quokkas. Yet as the quokka population rapidly declin ...read more
The deeper you go, the bigger they get. This is an adage that applies to much of the life eking out an existence in the crushing depths of our oceans. Near the surface, tiny crabs are terrified of larger predators. In the deep, 13-foot-wide giant spider crabs are usually the predators themselves. Perhaps the most infamous example of this deep-sea gigantism is the giant squid, capable of attaining lengths of over 40 feet and possibly even longer should it stretch out its tremendous tentacles. Gi ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine