-
Massive ‘space hurricane’ captured spinning over Earth for the first time
ORLANDO, Fla. – While Florida is no stranger to hurricanes at ground level, the Earth once experienced a 620-mile-wide “space hurricane.” That’s what researchers were calling a phenomenon that formed over the North Pole in 2014 captured for the first time by the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program. Instead of wind and rain, though, the “space hurricane” was whipping around electrons. Made up of plasma, the vortex spun counter-clockwise and lasted about eight hours, according to the research compiled by scientists from the University of Reading and Shandong University in China. They publis...
Orlando Sentinel
-
Former Cuomo aide defends governor as others call for investigation into sexual harassment allegations
ALBANY, N.Y. — A longtime adviser and ally of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo defended his old boss Thursday as someone who “demands excellence” and said he has “never seen anything of the like” when asked about allegations of sexual harassment made by a former aide. Steve Cohen, the current chairman of the Empire State Development Corporation, stood by Cuomo a day after Lindsey Boylan dropped bombshell accusations against the governor, alleging he once kissed her on the mouth against her will. “I can tell you never in my time working with the governor, the former attorney general, private citizen ...
New York Daily News
-
‘Like a horror movie’: Caterpillar silences tomato’s cry for help, scientists find
While there’s a famous horror-movie spoof about killer tomatoes, no one seems to have made one about caterpillars — the insect pests that eat the juicy red fruits of summer. Perhaps the time is ripe, with inspiration from a new study at Pennsylvania State University. Scientists found that a caterpillar called the tomato fruit worm not only chomps on tomatoes and their leaves, but also deposits enzyme-laden saliva on the plant, interfering with its ability to cry for help. If it all sounds a bit improbable, starting with the concept of plants crying for help, scientists also scoffed at that ide...
The Philadelphia Inquirer
-
COVID-19 led to a drop in heart surgery, with grim consequences
At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, heart surgeons warned that fewer people were coming in for bypass operations, valve replacements, and other cardiac procedures, in some cases dying as a result. In a new nationwide analysis, researchers determined that the consequences may have been even worse than many realized — particularly in hard-hit hot spots in New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. During April, the number of heart surgeries plunged by 71% in those three states and by 53% in the country as a whole, when compared with monthly averages in 2019. And those who did undergo heart surge...
The Philadelphia Inquirer
-
10,000-year-old dog bone found in Alaska offers answers for when species arrived in Americas
Researchers have fetched an ancient dog fossil that provides new context for when the species arrived to the Americas. The small fragment of a dog’s femur was recently found in Alaska and belonged to a canine that roamed the region about 10,150 years ago, according to a study by the University at Buffalo that was released online Tuesday. Further analysis of the finding determined the dog was likely part of a species “whose evolutionary history diverged from that of Siberian dogs as early as 16,700 years ago,” the study says. The newly uncovered dog bone is believed to be the oldest ever found ...
New York Daily News
-
Her great-grandfather was in Tuskegee Study, but she's getting vaccine
ATLANTA — Peggy Fitzpatrick Tatum recently spent two weeks trying to book an appointment to get the COVID-19 vaccine before eventually landing a date. Tatum's decision to get the vaccine may raise some eyebrows. The 65-year-old retired federal employee is the great-granddaughter of one of hundreds of Black men in Macon County, Alabama, who were part of a controversial U.S. Public Health Service study on syphilis, commonly known as the Tuskegee Study or Tuskegee Experiment, which began in 1932 and lasted 40 years. Blacks and Latinos have been disproportionately affected by the coronavirus in te...
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
-
New research: Why Zoom can wipe you out
COVID-19 pandemic has moved our lives into a virtual space. Why is that so exhausting? The tiredness doesn’t feel earned. We’re not flying an airplane, teaching toddlers or rescuing people trapped in burning buildings. Still, by the end of the day, the feeling is so universal that it has its own name: Zoom Fatigue. Stanford University professor Jeremy Bailenson, founding director of the Stanford Virtual Human Interaction Lab, has some answers. In research published Tuesday in the journal Technology, Mind and Behavior, he describes the psychological impact of spending hours every day on Zoom, G...
The Mercury News
-
Disgusted? Good. It could be beneficial to your health, a new study shows
SEATTLE — Eww, gross! There's no need to feel there's something wrong with you if you recoil when foodie friends talk about the interesting delicacies they've tried: still-beating cobra hearts, soft-boiled fetal duck or even the more banal chocolate-covered crickets. And you don't need to change — in fact, these reactions could keep you healthy. Disgust, it turns out, is good for you, according to a new study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that suggests revulsion could be the body's way of avoiding infection. The idea is not new: Charles Darwin hypot...
The Seattle Times
-
New COVID-19 strain discovered in Finland, researchers claim
Yet another COVID-19 strain has popped up — albeit in a surprising corner of the world. Scientists in southern Finland have discovered the new variant, called Fin-769H, reported the country’s national news outlet Yle on Thursday. The researchers noted that several mutations in the South African and U.K. virus versions are present within this one, but combined in a unique way. “The variant was discovered in a patient last week, so details about the infectivity and potential resistance of this strain to vaccines are not yet known,” said Taru Meri, a researcher at Vita Laboratories. The discovery...
New York Daily News
-
Can vaccinated people still spread COVID-19? How long does immunity last? Here's what science knows now
Six times over the course of a year, some select COVID-19 vaccine recipients at the University of Pennsylvania are rolling up their sleeves for a different kind of needle: one that draws blood. At each session, 10 vials of scarlet fluid are collected, bar-coded, and archived in laboratory freezers. Some will be tested for various kinds of antibodies, the Y-shaped proteins that the immune system makes in response to a vaccine or to a live infection. Others will be tested for antiviral defenders called T-cells, which are marked with fluorescent "tags" and counted at high speed with a laser. The ...
The Philadelphia Inquirer
- More