Science

Remains of 3,000-mile-wide ‘lost continent’ discovered on ocean floor, study says

While Atlantis — a fabled continent said to have been swallowed by the sea — continues to elude its seekers, another long-lost and less famous land mass has been discovered at the bottom of the ocean. The splintered remnants of Argoland, a 155 million-year-old continent that once stretched as wide as the United States, were recently located throughout the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia. “Finding Argoland proved challenging,” geologists wrote in a pre-print study posted Oct. 19 in the journal Gondwana Research. “We spent seven years putting the puzzle together,” Eldert Advokaat, one of the stu...

German archaeologists uncover more parts of medieval castle complex

Archaeologists have uncovered the remains of outer castle fortifications, pit houses and a later castle in Germany at the site of a former medieval imperial palace in the eastern town of Helfta, near Eisleben. "In the two outer castles of the fortified imperial palace, there was evidence of dense settlement with numerous pit houses," project leader Felix Biermann with the Saxony-Anhalt State Office for the Preservation of Monuments and Archaeology told dpa at the conclusion of this year's excavations. "This is an important insight into the infrastructure of the imperial palace and the areas wh...

Hospital's pioneering gene therapy aims to free patients of blood disease. Is a cure at hand?

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Faith in God called Clint and Alissa Finlayson to adopt two sick girls from an orphanage in China. Faith in medicine called them to Oakland. Born with a deadly blood disease, the Finlayson’s daughters — Ada, 9, and Lily, 12 — are the first patients on the West Coast to receive a new gene therapy offered by UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland. Already, Ada is already feeling better 10 weeks after receiving her stem cell transplant. Lily started treatment last week. Both have 90% chance of a permanent cure. “It’s science, and it’s a miracle,” said their mother Alissa, si...

Restoring Cuyamaca's tree canopy is years away. Some birds may never return

SAN DIEGO — It is a 2.6-mile hike up Lookout Road to reach Cuyamaca Peak from Paso Picacho Campground. The paved path winds its way upward, gaining more than 1,600 feet of elevation as it passes through endless thickets of shrubs dotted with snags, those blackened and sun-bleached vertical reminders that this used to be a forest trek. Twenty years after the Cedar fire ripped through Cuyamaca Rancho State Park in eastern San Diego County, there is a lot more sunshine and a lot less birdsong. The dappled shade of tall conifers has long ago given way to broader views of the surrounding mountainsi...

1.6 million acres of Great Plains grasslands were destroyed in 2021 alone, World Wildlife Fund says

Over the course of 12 months, an area of Great Plains grasslands bigger than the state of Delaware was erased from the map. In 2021 alone, 1.6 million acres were plowed across the United States and Canada to make way for primarily row crop expansion, according to the World Wildlife Fund’s annual Plowprint Report, released Thursday.The report analyzed grasslands plow-up in North America using government data and satellite imagery from the past two years. Since 2012, the region has had 32 million acres of its landscapes destroyed. But the land most suited for farming in the Great Plains was plow...

GOP's speaker once filed lawsuit seeking public cash for Ken Ham's creationist Ark museum

Newly minted House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has a long history of advocating on behalf of right-wing causes, including total bans on abortion, cutting Social Security and Medicare, and filing lawsuits aimed at keeping former President Donald Trump in office despite losing the 2020 election.

Daily Dot has flagged another aspect of Johnson's resume that appears to go beyond standard Republican policy positions, however: His advocacy on behalf of an organization that pushes for the teaching of creationism.

Keep reading... Show less

Doubts abound about a new Alzheimer’s blood test

For the first time, people worried about their risk of Alzheimer’s disease can go online, order a blood test, and receive results in the privacy of their homes. This might seem appealing on the surface, but the development has Alzheimer’s researchers and clinicians up in arms. The Quest Diagnostics blood test, AD-Detect, measures elevated levels of amyloid-beta proteins, a signature characteristic of Alzheimer’s. Introduced in late July, the test is targeted primarily at people 50 and older who suspect their memory and thinking might be impaired and people with a family history of Alzheimer’s ...

Can this team create a ‘perfect’ reef? Why the US military is banking on it

MIAMI -- The nation’s military has been working on a new weapon: Creating a "perfect," self-healing coral reef that can withstand disease, warming temperatures and sea rise. Many U.S. military bases along the coasts are feeling the effects of climate change, and their current methods of defense — like sea walls — aren’t working against flooding and erosion. A reef would break up waves before they crash against the base. So for the past 14 months, the Department of Defense has been working with three international teams of scientists, including from the University of Miami, to build a hybrid re...

Crusty creatures with ‘rather complex’ genitalia found in caves. It’s a new species

Deep within a cave in Brazil, a crusty creature crawled along the moist, rocky ground. Something about the subterranean animal caught the attention of nearby scientists. The scientists were surveying wildlife in the reddish, iron-rich cave system of the Carajás Mountains, according to a study published Sept. 13 in the journal Zoosystema. These “extensive surveys” took place between 2005 to 2019, “resulting in a considerable amount of material available for study.” During these cave surveys, scientists collected over 1,300 millipedes and preserved the specimens in museum collections but did not...

Instagram and body perception: New study reveals racial discrepancies among young women

In a recent study published in psychological journal Computers in Human Behavior, researchers discovered that the way young women interact with Instagram — whether by just browsing or actively posting self-images — has varying impacts on how they perceive their bodies, depending largely on their racial background. Instagram, the popular photo-sharing app, has often been flagged as a platform for possibly fostering body image issues, especially among young women. The picture-based platform promotes visual content that could encourage its users to frequently compare their own appearances with ot...

Study: Humanity 'dangerously close' to climate tipping points

Water scarcity and species extinction can lead to irreversible and life-threatening impacts if humanity does not change course, according to a new report by the United Nations University in Bonn published on Wednesday.

"As we indiscriminately extract our water resources, damage nature and biodiversity, and pollute both Earth and space, we are moving dangerously close to the brink of multiple risk tipping points that could destroy the very systems that our life depends on," lead author Zita Sebesvari told dpa.

Hurricane Tammy churns in Atlantic as weaker storm falls apart near Nicaragua

ORLANDO, Fla. — Hurricane Tammy has moved into the open Atlantic while newly formed Tropical Depression Twenty-One fell apart as it moved ashore into Central America on Tuesday.

As of 5 p.m., the center of Tammy was located about 565 miles south-southeast of Bermuda moving northeast at 8 mph with maximum sustained winds of 75 mph.

Keep reading... Show less

Study sheds light on celebrities’ power to shape the social acceptability of vaping

A new study has found that celebrities may not have the automatic power to shape our views on what’s considered normal, at least when it comes to vaping. Contrary to what we might assume, the mere presence of celebrities in articles discussing vaping did not significantly alter people’s perceptions of its social acceptability. Instead, factors like personal liking for celebrities and the desire to emulate them play pivotal roles in shaping perceptions. The study was published in Health Communication. “I think everyone knows that celebrities are influential people. People often follow their exa...