The true toll is likely much higher. At least 1 million people have now died from COVID-19. This grim milestone comes over eight months after the public first learned that a mysterious respiratory virus was infecting people in China. The novel coronavirus swept quickly across the globe and overwhelmed hospitalsContinue Reading
The debate about when dinosaurs developed feathers has taken a new turn with a paper refuting earlier claims that feathers were also found on dinosaurs’ relatives, the flying reptiles called pterosaurs. Pterosaur expert Dr David Unwin from the University of Leicester’s Centre for Palaeobiology Research, and Professor Dave Martill, ofContinue Reading
Discovery may indicate modern humans and Neanderthals lived in the area concurrently Modern humans arrived in the westernmost part of Europe 41,000 — 38,000 years ago, about 5,000 years earlier than previously known, according to Jonathan Haws, Ph.D., professor and chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University ofContinue Reading
The scientists who re-engineered the plastic-eating enzyme PETase have now created an enzyme ‘cocktail’ which can digest plastic up to six times faster. A second enzyme, found in the same rubbish dwelling bacterium that lives on a diet of plastic bottles, has been combined with PETase to speed up theContinue Reading
Unusual flashes of gamma rays could reveal that what appear to be giant black holes are actually huge wormholes, a new study finds. Wormholes are tunnels in space-time that can theoretically allow travel anywhere in space and time, or even into another universe. Einstein’s theory of general relativity suggests wormholesContinue Reading
Black licorice contains a compound known to be toxic in large doses. A man in Massachusetts died after eating too much black licorice, which contains a compound known to be toxic in large doses, according to a new report. The 54-year-old man was in a fast food restaurant when heContinue Reading
People infected by the novel coronavirus can have symptoms that range from mild to deadly. Now, two new analyses suggest that some life-threatening cases can be traced to weak spots in patients’ immune systems. At least 3.5 percent of study patients with severe COVID-19, the disease caused by the novelContinue Reading
Some mutations have no effect, while others could impact transmissibility. In early January, the first genome sequence of Sars-CoV-2 — the virus that causes COVID-19 — was released under the moniker “Wuhan-1”. This string of 30,000 letters (the A, T, C and Gs of the genetic code) marked day oneContinue Reading
SpaceX just popped another Starship test tank. The Starship SN7.1 tank was destroyed on purpose Tuesday night (Sept. 22) at SpaceX’s South Texas facilities, during a pressure test designed to take the stainless-steel hardware to its bursting point. SpaceX has performed several other such tests, including one this past JuneContinue Reading
Thousands of animals worldwide (not just giraffes) are injured by lightning each year. Lightning recently killed two giraffes in South Africa; one of the giraffes — a 5-year-old female — had a fractured skull and a broken ossicone (giraffes’ knoblike horns), indicating that she died after a lightning strike directlyContinue Reading
