A mouthful of chewing gum might also be a mouthful of microplastics, according to the results of a small pilot study. The research, presented at the spring meeting of the American Chemical Society, suggests that a single piece of chewing gum could introduce as many as 3,000 microplastic particles into the saliva, positioning them for potential ingestion.“Our goal is not to alarm anybody,” said Sanjay Mohanty, a study author and an engineering professor at the University of California, Los An ...read more
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has caught yet another spectacle in a newly released image of a “cosmic tornado” forming billows of gas and dust that appear to be crowned with a spiral galaxy. This colorful display, known as Herbig-Haro 49/50, illustrates an outflow that was originally launched from a young star and is now zipping through space at breakneck speed. The galaxy sitting at the summit of the colorful arc is really much more distant than it seems and entirely unrelated ...read more
If you’re already on your second cup of coffee from the office coffee machine, you may want to take a moment to reconsider. While there is plenty of information out there on the benefits and concerns of drinking coffee, a new study published in Metabolism & Cardiovascular Diseases reports that specific coffee machines, typically found in the workplace, contain high amounts of a substance that can elevate the body's low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol. LDL cholesterol can lead to card ...read more
Immunotherapy is an innovative way to harness the power of the body’s immune system to fight threats like cancer. Normally, our immune system can detect and destroy abnormal cells on its own. But when cancer develops, it often uses tactics to fool the immune system, allowing the cancer to grow unchecked.Chemotherapy is one of the most common cancer treatments, but it comes with a heavy toll on the body due to harsh side effects. Immunotherapy, on the other hand, holds the potential to minimize ...read more
To many people, a rock is just a rock. If anyone has been house shopping, you know how realtors will mention that the countertops are "granite" and you might wonder why, from house to house, they all look so different. Turns out (much to the chagrin of geologists in the housing market), those countertops are likely neither granite nor all the same type of rock. That's because rocks are made of different minerals and rocks get their names (mostly) from what minerals they contain.Now, much of the ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine