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ScienceHealth
Fire Chief ‘Bewildered’ After Mysterious Incident at E-Cigarette Plant Left 29 Sick
Nearly 30 workers at an e-cigarette plant in Salem, Massachusetts were hospitalized following a mysterious incident. Firefighters were first called to the Thermal Circuit plant around 3:30pm Sunday afternoon to investigate a chlorine leak. A hazardous material team then came to the plant and took care of the chlorine issue, acting Salem Fire Chief Gerry … Continued
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ScienceSpace
Black Astronaut Jeanette Epps Still Doesn’t Know Why NASA Cancelled Her Historic Mission This Year
NASA astronaut Jeanette Epps, who was slated to be the first African-American spacefarer to serve as a long-term crew member on the International Space Station until she was pulled from the roster in January, is still waiting on an explanation of why. Epps, who holds a Ph.D in aerospace engineering and previously worked with Ford … Continued
By Tom McKay -
ScienceAnimals
Rat Dies Doing What It Loved: Breaking Into an ATM and Gorging Itself on Nearly $18,000 in Cash
There’s that old adage about dogs chasing cars, not knowing what they’d do if they caught one. Well, a rat in Assam state, India knew exactly what it wanted to do when it broke into an ATM earlier this month, and that was feasting on money until it died. According to Reuters, State Bank of … Continued
By Tom McKay -
ScienceSpace
SpaceX Wins $130 Million Falcon Heavy Contract to Launch Classified USAF Satellite in 2020
SpaceX, the Elon Musk-helmed company which earlier this year saw its partially reusable Falcon Heavy officially become the most powerful rocket in the world, has won its first contract to use that system to deliver a classified payload. Per the Verge, the Air Force announced this week the $130 million contract to deliver its AFSPC-52 … Continued
By Tom McKay -
ScienceAnimals
Whoa, Check out Zebrafish Eyes
Imagine that during our evolutionary history, we could not turn our heads up or down. How might our vision have evolved differently from the two frontal, mobile eyes we have today? Zebrafish larvae, a fan favorite when it comes to scientific research, can help us with this thought experiment. They have visual system completely unlike … Continued
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SciencePhysics
Physicists Think the Weather Can Trigger Blackouts in an Unexpected Way
Renewable resources are great, but they bring a new element of uncertainty to a power grid. This element can lead to failure in surprising ways, according to a new paper. A team of researchers built a model of power grids that transport electricity from solar and wind power. That means that there are places where … Continued
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ScienceHealth
Oh Joy, We Just Found Another Virus Spread By Mosquitoes That Might Make Us Sick
A mosquito-borne virus discovered over a half century ago has been found in humans for the first time ever. And it possibly might have even caused a case of severe rash and fever in a Florida teenager in 2016. But despite the recent reveal, it’s likely the germ has been making people sick for quite some … Continued
By Ed Cara -
ScienceGenetics
Massive Genetic Study Finds Many Links Between Various Psychiatric Illnesses
An excavation of a million people’s genes has provided some interesting clues to how several common psychiatric disorders might arise, including major depression and schizophrenia. And it’s also highlighted connections between some mental illnesses and other health problems, including heart disease. An international group of researchers from the US, UK, China, Singapore, Japan, and Australia … Continued
By Ed Cara -
ScienceHealth
The FDA Has Approved an Implantable Glucose Monitor for Diabetics That Lasts for Months
Keeping track of your blood sugar is poised to become a lot easier for some diabetics living in the U.S. On Thursday, the Food and Drug Administration approved the Eversense Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) system. The Eversense is not the first approved CGM system, though it is the first with a fully implantable sensor, according … Continued
By Ed Cara -
SciencePhysics
How to Stop the Sound of a Dripping Faucet Instantly, According to Science
It’s tempting to think that the “plink” sound produced by a falling water droplet on a liquid surface is caused by the droplet itself, but new research points to an unexpected source of this familiar, yet annoying, sound. Excitingly, the researchers have also identified a neat hack to stop it. The sound produced when a … Continued
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ScienceSpace
Blue Origin Says It Will Start Selling Tickets for Spaceflights in 2019
Private space company Blue Origin announced that it plans to sell suborbital spaceflight tickets to aspiring space tourists starting next year. No price was given, but the company said it expects to conduct the first passenger tests of the New Shepard launch system “soon.” As Jeff Foust reports in SpaceNews, Blue Origin Senior Vice President … Continued
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ScienceFrom the Lab
What Happens When a Ghost Town Turns Into a Lab
Gothic, Colorado is a surreal place. Once populated with thousands of silver-seeking miners, the tiny outpost is now home to the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, where dozens of scientists are coming to grips with the consequences of climate change (among other things). Some of them have been doing research there for decades. But to understand … Continued
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ScienceSpace
Einstein’s Theory of Gravity Passes Enormous Test on a Galaxy
It would be hard to overstate how resilient the theory of general relativity has been. In its hundred-plus-year history, it’s managed to predict things far beyond the capabilities of 1910s experiments, and it withstands every new test scientists throw at it. This time around, researchers flipped typical experiments on their head. Often, scientists look at … Continued
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ScienceSpace
The Dust Storm on Mars Is So Huge It Now Encircles the Entire Planet
For the past two weeks, a massive dust storm has churned on Mars, forcing NASA to put its Opportunity rover into hibernation mode. But Curiosity, a rover on the other side of the planet, is now feeling the effects of the storm as well, revealing the dramatic, planet-size scale of this dusty weather system. The … Continued
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ScienceHealth
Herpes Viruses Linked to Alzheimer’s Disease in New Brain Research
A fringe theory about the origins of Alzheimer’s disease—that latent viral infections can sometimes trigger its emergence—has gotten perhaps its most significant bit of support yet. A complex new study published Thursday in Neuron has found evidence that certain viruses are not only more common in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s, but that they … Continued
By Ed Cara -
ScienceAnimals
Swamp Sparrows Display Evidence of Centuries-Old Tradition in Their Songs
If you start listening to birds, you’ll realize that they have a species-specific sets of calls. Would you consider these songs a form of culture? Maybe, maybe not—but bird calls are passed down through generations, much as human traditions are. And it appears that some birds may have song traditions that persist over centuries. At … Continued
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ScienceAnimals
Extinct Gibbon Species Found in Tomb of Ancient Chinese Noblewoman
A certain Chinese noblewoman—potentially Lady Xia, grandmother to the first emperor of China—had a menagerie buried with her in her tomb: a leopard, a crane, an asiatic black bear, a lynx, and, most notably, a gibbon. That gibbon was part of newly identified, now-extinct genus and species, researchers reported Thursday. The existence of a previously … Continued
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ScienceSpace
America Isn’t Ready to Handle a Catastrophic Asteroid Impact, New Report Warns
We’ve long said that humans generally worry about the wrong asteroids. Tabloids love to publish headlines about “potentially hazardous asteroids,” a category created by NASA that can be a bit misleading. The truly worrisome rocks are the smaller ones that we aren’t tracking. The US National Science and Technology Council knows about this problem—and thankfully, … Continued
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ScienceAnimals
Bogong Moths Are First Insect Known to Use Earth’s Magnetism to Navigate at Night
Every spring in Australia, millions of bogong moths emerge from their pupae and embark on a 600-mile trip to the Australian Alps, the highest mountain range in Australia. For weeks, the insects rest during the day and take to the skies at night to reach the Alps, where they cram into caves and rest for … Continued
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ScienceAnimals
Koko the Gorilla, Famous for Learning Sign Language, Has Died
Koko, arguably the world’s most famous gorilla, has died at the age of 46. Known for her ability to communicate through sign language, Koko forever changed our conceptions of primate intelligence and emotional capacities. Earlier today, the Gorilla Foundation, a not-for-profit that cared for Koko, announced the sad news in a tweet. “Her impact has … Continued