There’s something about fire on the horizon that grabs us — especially when that fire is molten rock flowing down the flank of a volcano. Mount Etna in Sicily, Europe’s most active volcano, lit up again this winter with lava flows that have tourists itching to get nearer. But what…
Category: Science
Medical
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A Human Brain Was Recorded While Dying. It Happened More Than Once.
This wasn’t a planned experiment. However, it was not a one-off. An 87-year-old man was being monitored with EEG equipment because of epilepsy. The recording was routine. Continuous. Then he suffered cardiac arrest. The machines kept running. That case produced the clearest data. But it wasn’t the only one. Two…
Culture
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Praying Mantises Have a Reputation — This One Learned a Workaround
I was reading about a newly discovered praying mantis the other day — the kind of thing you stumble on while pretending you’re just “checking the news” — and it turns out one species has solved one of nature’s more awkward problems. Specifically: how not to get eaten immediately after…
Humor
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They Found a Seven-Limbed Octopus on a Scottish Beach
A large octopus washed up on a beach in Scotland this week. Pale. Heavy. Motionless. Arms splayed in different directions, like the instructions got lost halfway through. Seven of them. Not torn. Not injured. Just seven. The photos show it lying there quietly, as if the ocean set it down…
Humor
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Turns Out Monkeys, Wolves, and Polar Bears Were Kissing Before We Existed
There’s nothing like waking up to a BBC headline that basically says, “Hey humans, you’re not special — monkeys did it first.” Scientists now believe the first mouth-on-mouth kiss goes back 21.5 million years, long before humans, before Neanderthals, before whoever invented the first scented candle. And get this: they…
Humor
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La Niña vs. Polar Vortex-The Winter Forecast Nobody Saw Coming
There’s a special kind of dread that creeps into your chest when you see meteorologists argue online. It’s like watching two doctors disagree over an X-ray of your lungs — you’re not sure what’s happening, but you know it’s probably bad for you. Right now the argument is over whether…
Science
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The New Species That Made Me Say -“Oh sh*t… Not Another Bug”
I saw the headline “devil-horned bee discovered in Australia” and had that familiar jolt through my spine — the same one I get when a mosquito buzzes past my ear at night and I assume it’s carrying some apocalyptic disease. I don’t know why the universe keeps rolling out new…
Culture
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From Super Bowls to Science Lab – Tom Brady Cloned Companion
Tom Brady can apparently outplay time. Now he’s testing whether he can outsmart it, too. This week, the seven-time Super Bowl champion revealed that his current dog, Junie, isn’t just a pet — she’s a clone. Specifically, a genetic duplicate of his late pit-bull mix, Lua, who passed away in…