Our solar system, with its itty-bitty rocky planets on the inside and gaseous giants on the outer, is looking more and more like an oddball as astronomers continue to uncover scores of exoplanets. Astronomers rarely find Venuses or Earth when they look closely at stars in faraway solar systems. Rather, the common inner planet appears…
The Biden administration announced this week that most Americans will receive COVID booster shots eight months after receiving their second dose of Pfizer’s or Moderna’s messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccinations. People will begin receiving boosters on September 20 pending approval from the US Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine…
A major enigma remains a century after Alois Alzheimer identified the disease that bears his name. Despite decades of research, no one understands what causes Alzheimer’s disease in the long run. Genetic mutations, accelerated aging, immune system dysfunction, and environmental variables have all been suggested as possibilities, but experts have yet to come up with…
Stories and falsehoods concerning the COVID-19 vaccine’s impacts on all aspects of reproduction and sexual functioning have spread over social media platforms like a Delta type of viral disinformation, where people swap rumors of erectile dysfunction and fertility disruptions after immunization. Vaccines have not been connected to difficulties with pregnancy, menstrual periods, erectile performance, or…
Mariusz Stepien went to a farmer’s field on June 21, 2020, to see what he could find. That particular Sunday, he chose a pasture because it was the first time he’d been out in months. It appeared like a tourism ad when Scotland implemented movement restrictions in the early stages of the COVID crisis. The…
You reach for your phone, only to discover that it isn’t where you left it. You pat your pockets with a sinking feeling before tearing your room apart. However, the reality sets in your favorite device are missing, and you have no idea where it went. We rely on our cellphones for everything these days,…
Smartphone cameras are capable of more than just snapping images of drunken pals and sweeping landscapes. Your camera can do everything from translate texts to scan paperwork with the correct apps. Learn about some of the world’s most useful superpowers. TRANSLATE TEXT FROM A FOREIGN LANGUAGE You must tap out text in a foreign language…
For decades, people have known that we were born on a damaged planet on the verge of environmental collapse. Our minds, on the other hand, are ill-equipped to comprehend the magnitude of the Earth’s ecological death spiral. We try to imagine how climate change could displace entire populations in just a few decades. We can’t…
Maverick individuals who make a huge difference through their spot-on hunches are becoming an increasingly rare breed in this age of big research, with fundamental physics generally investigated in sprawling institutions such as CERN and LIGO. As a result, those who have done so in the past have taken on a mythic nature. Because of…
As social beings, we tend to focus on autism’s social issues, such as difficulty speaking, establishing friends, and displaying empathy. I am a geneticist and the mother of an autistic adolescent. I’m concerned, too, about whether he’ll be able to carry on a conversation and go grocery shopping, as well as whether he’ll ever have…