Intermittent fasting, and fasting in general, has been a popular fad health gimmick, but the science isn't on its side. Instead, proponents believe mice are little people so if mice weaned on starvation diets lived longer, people would also.
The coconut is the sixth most cultivated fruit on earth and thanks to fads around things like coconut oil and water, demand continues to rise. Growing products that rich people want is great for developing nations but they face challenges. Trees grow slowly and natural plagues Lethal Yellowing Disease put existing ones at risk. The answer may be what made bananas the staple they are now: cloning."Coconut plants do not form side shoots. They put all their energy into one shoot that has to grow as fast and as tall as possible. This makes it very difficult to clone and store the plants," said Bart Panis of KU Leuven.Image courtesy of Hannes Wilms at KU Leuven
Man's best friend learns to understand human emotions, and that can help them predict our behavior and informs their decision making.
Coronavirus may only have been identified as distinct from the common cold in the 1960s, and it may have only had two pandemics (SARS and MERS) in this century prior to COVID-19, but there is a reason it is called COVID-19 and not just COVID. There have been too many to know about.Viruses evolve and adapt. New research shows Sarbecoviruses they have been hitting us with disease for over 20,000 years.
In 2019, astronomers spotted a snowball in space moving at over 110,000 miles per hour. They quickly realized they had never seen it before. It was not even from our solar system.Now named Borisov, it was the first interstellar comet ever detected by humans. That doesn't make it rare.A new computer estimate instead believes that in the Oort Cloud—a shell of debris in the farthest reaches of our solar system—interstellar objects outnumber objects belonging to our solar system.Borisov comet. Credit: NASA, ESA and D. Jewitt (UCLA)
Dietary supplements containing Garcinia cambogia extract and green tea can cause similar liver, finds an analysis of the Drug-Induced Liver Injury Network.G. cambogia, alone or with green tea, are touted by companies who sell alternatives to medicine and bought by people who believe in them, commonly for weight loss. But the analysis reveals that in the period covered the drug-induced liver injury caused by the supplement led to 91% being hospitalized, while 2 died and 1 survived due to a liver transplant
Citrus canker, caused by the bacterium Xanthomonas citri, was first identified in the United States near the Florida-Georgia border in 1910 and then raged across southern states. It was considered eradicated in 1933, thanks to chemical intervention, but in 1995 it was found again in Miami-Dade County, Florida. This time, Florida found it impossible to eliminate and worked on containment. It moved to Louisiana in 2014 and 2016, USDA confirmed the presence of the Asiatic A strain, a more severe form of citrus canker, on two sour orange trees in Houston.
Microfossils found in rock samples retrieved in Australia more than 60 years ago (DOI 10.1126/science.abj2927) fill an approximately 25-million-year gap in knowledge by reconciling the molecular clock - or pace of evolution - with the fossil spore record - the physical evidence of early plant life gathered by scientists over the years.This reconciliation supports an evolutionary-developmental model connecting plant origins to freshwater green algae, or charophyte algae. The “evo-devo” model posits a more nuanced understanding of plant evolution over time, from simple cell division to initial embryonic stages, rather than large jumps from one species to another.
It's common when the subject of stupid behavior comes up, like belief in supplements or acupuncture over medicine, for someone to post a picture of Darwin or recommend them for a Darwin award.It's scientifically wrong - Aedes aegypti is an ecologically useless mosquito that is only a disease vector for yellow fever, dengue fever, Zika, etc. yet still exists - but it may also be a sign of dysfunctional psychological characteristics, such as exploitative attitudes towards others, hostility, and low self-esteem. At least according to survey results in PLOS ONE.
A new lightweight fabric is 3D-printed from nylon plastic polymers comprises hollow octahedrons (eight equal triangular faces) that interlock with each other.While soft, the fabric can be wrapped within a flexible plastic envelope and vacuum-packed, which makes it rigid - 25 times stiffer or harder to bend. This ‘wearable structured fabrics’ could be optimized to harden automatically, or tuned manually when needed. Modern chain mail, anyone? That LARP weekend just got a lot more fun to watch.
Urban people may believe nature is balanced and peaceful and pristine but biologists know that nature really just wants to suck the nutrients from your dead corpse.Insects have more nature to worry about, in the form of the delicate stalk and pretty white flowers of Triantha occidentalis, the first new carnivorous plant to be identified by botanists in 20 years. It is notable for the unusual way it traps prey with sticky hairs on its flowering stem.Triantha occidentalis in a bog at Cypress Provincial Park, British Columbia, Canada. Credit: Danilo Lima
Nearly 30 years ago, scientists agreed that for clinical trial results to be valid for both sexes, they needed more women.Yet women seem to be a lot less likely to sign up for clinical trials for cardiovascular disease. The authors of a new paper outline the issue as to why:Differential Care – Low rates of referral to cardiologists and specialty programs for more aggressive care might lead to fewer women being treated by specialists recruiting for clinical trials.
A fearsome beast soared above the ancient, vast inland sea once that once covered covering much of outback Queensland. This newly found pterosaur, named Thapunngaka shawi, was discovered in Wanamara Country, near Richmond in North West Queensland.It's the stuff of nightmares, with a spear-like mouth containing 40 giant teeth and a wingspan around 20 feet. We may imagine it to be like a big bird or a bat but that is not so, according to University of Queensland doctoral student Tim Richards: "Pterosaurs were a successful and diverse group of reptiles – the very first back-boned animals to take a stab at powered flight.”
