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.