[ad_1] The impending eruption of Alaska’s Mt. Spurr is a timely reminder that, if you live near a volcano, you should be prepared in case it blows. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) says there are 170 potentially active volcanoes in the country, and chances are you could live near one. But how should you…
[ad_1] The Hubble Space Telescope has sent back a gorgeous new view of one of our nearest galactic neighbors, which is full of bright, colorful stars. Located about 200,000 light-years from Earth, the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) is a dwarf galaxy home to active star formation. It is one of our Milky Way galaxy’s closest…
[ad_1] Nearly two decades after suffering a brainstem stroke at the age of 30 that left her unable to speak, a woman in the US regained the ability to turn her thoughts into words in real time thanks to a new brain-computer interface (BCI) process. By analyzing her brain activity in 80-millisecond increments and translating…
[ad_1] The pleasure we get from eating junk food — the dopamine rush from crunching down on salty, greasy French fries and a luscious burger — is often blamed as the cause of overeating and rising obesity rates in our society. But a new study by scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, suggests that pleasure in…
[ad_1] Time Spent in Nature Can Be Good—and Sometimes Bad— for Your Brain A “Goldilocks” measure of green space might help stave off dementia, but an excess could lead to cognitive decline By Teresa Schubert edited by Gary Stix There’s nothing like a good walk through your local park to unwind and release stress from…
[ad_1] Aspirin’s health-boosting potential could extend beyond easing pain and preventing heart disease David Burton / Alamy Imagine if a cheap, accessible and relatively safe pill could prevent cancer in those who have never had it and stop it from returning among those in remission. The idea that aspirin is such a “wonder drug” is…
[ad_1] In the 1960s, physicists showed how light could interact with itself in intriguing ways thanks to a process known as second-harmonic generation. In the right kind of material, two photons of a certain frequency can interact to produce another photon of twice the frequency, turning red light into green, for example. Since then, physicists…
[ad_1] Researchers have created a “fingerprint” of a sulfur-based molecule found in space that may offer new clues about the formation of life on Earth, a new study reports. Sulfur is an essential element for life as we know it, and a building block for proteins and amino acids. Scientists recently created a spectral “fingerprint”…
[ad_1] The decades-long mystery of a never-ending explosion of X-rays around the remains of a dead star may have finally been solved. The radiation probably originates from the scorching-hot wreckage left behind by a giant planet’s annihilation. This discovery stems from four decades of X-ray observations of the Helix Nebula, located 650 light-years from Earth….
[ad_1] They say one person’s trash is another’s treasure, but a chunk of ‘rock’ used to keep a door open for decades is a treasure by pretty much anybody’s standard. The 3.5-kilogram (7.7-pound) stone was found in a stream bed in southeast Romania by an elderly woman, who brought it home and put it to…