A digital rendering of an astronaut walking on the moon. (Image credit: fStop Images – Caspar Benson) The flags of two countries hang unfurled — not by any breeze but by metal wiring — over the desolate, eerily still surface of the moon. One is the stars and stripes of the United States; the other, […]
Many people use cannabis to manage pain. (Image credit: photolona/ Shutterstock) Cannabis is one of the most widely used drugs (opens in new tab) in the world. While there are only a few countries where cannabis is legal for recreational use, many more countries have legalized the use of cannabis for medical reasons (opens in new tab). Reducing […]
For the first time, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a treatment that’s made using donated human poop, the agency announced (opens in new tab) Wednesday (Nov. 30). The treatment, called Rebyota, contains gut bacteria collected from the stool of healthy human donors and is approved for the prevention of a potentially life-threatening […]
The fossilised remains of a small, sharp-toothed lizard, left in a cupboard for more than half a century, has pushed back the origins of the group that encompasses modern snakes and lizards by tens of millions of years. The specimen was collected in the 1950s from a quarry near Tortworth in Gloucestershire by the late […]
As an English princess and heir to the throne, Victoria was the most pursued woman of her era. But when it came time for the newly crowned young queen to choose a husband, she chose a relatively lowly German prince who added little to the power or prestige of her throne. However, it was a […]
Mpox, formerly known as monkeypox, is a disease caused by the mpox virus, a pathogen closely related to variola virus, which causes smallpox. Mpox and smallpox infections trigger similar symptoms, but mpox tends to be far milder by comparison. Why is there a new name for monkeypox? On Nov. 28, 2022, the World Health Organization […]
An artist’s interpretation of a killer asteroid exploding on impact with the Red Planet. (Image credit: Shutterstock) (opens in new tab) A newly discovered impact crater on Mars was likely left by an enormous asteroid that slammed into the Red Planet around 3.4 billion years ago and may have triggered an 800-foot-tall “mega-tsunami.” The colossal […]
An artist’s impression of a comet flying through space trailed by twin streams of gas and dust. (Image credit: Shutterstock) (opens in new tab) A bizarre, volcanic comet has violently erupted, spewing out more than 1 million tons of gas, ice and the “potential building blocks of life” into the solar system. The volatile comet, […]
An otherwise healthy man developed a worrisome cough that persisted for three weeks without any other symptoms. It turns out, the cough was triggered by a nearly 7-inch-long (17.2 centimeters) mass pushing against his right lung. According to a description of the case, published Oct. 30 in the Journal of Surgical Case Reports (opens in […]
A dinosaur with an undulating noodle neck and a streamlined body like those of modern diving birds may have plunged through the depths of a Cretaceous sea about 71 million to 72 million years ago, in what is now Mongolia. This predator belonged to a different lineage of theropods — bipedal and mostly meat-eating dinosaurs […]