CDC: Do Not Eat Any Romaine Lettuce Until We Can Figure Out What the Hell Is Going On
The Centers for Disease Control has an ominous warning for the nation this week: Please, for the love of god, do not consume romaine lettuce of any kind.
Scientists Stabbed Cactus Spines Into Meat to Study Evolution
One benefit of working at a university with an agricultural school is the availability of meat. That’s especially useful if you need something to stab cactus spines into.
Teen Vaping May Have Led to Less Teen Smoking, Study Finds
The FDA calls teen vaping an “epidemic,” but the influence of e-cigarettes on teens’ overall health might be more complicated than assumed, according to a new study out Thursday in the journal Tobacco Control. It suggests that while teens and young adults in the U.S. did start flocking to e-cigarettes these past few…
Blockchain Is Especially at Risk for Quantum Attacks, Scientists Warn
Blockchain is meant to be secure—but a new paper from quantum computing scientists warns that quickly advancing quantum technology poses a vulnerability for the much-hyped blockchain.
Colorful Maps Show How We've Transformed Earth's Surface Over the Past 25 Years
The world’s changed a lot over the last quarter century. In fact, 22 percent of our planet’s livable surface has changed dramatically between the years 1992 and 2015, according to a new study published Monday.
Brain-Destroying Prions Also Spread Through Victims' Eyes
One of the strangest things that can sicken us—a rogue misfolded protein that destroys the brain, known as a prion—is even scarier than we knew. Researchers were able to find the prions responsible for sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (sCJD), the most common prion disease in people, seeded everywhere in the eyes of…
Animal Welfare Lawyers Say New York's 'Loneliest Elephant' Is a Person
A 47-year-old Asian elephant named Happy has lived in isolation at the Bronx Zoo for the past 12 years. A team of lawyers is now fighting for Happy’s freedom, saying she’s a legal person who’s been falsely imprisoned.
Decolonizing Mars: Are We Thinking About Space Exploration All Wrong?
Interplanetary travel is pitched to us as a good thing. Explorers will visit other planets, which settlers will then colonize. But colonization on our own planet led to the genocide and displacement of cultures and people, economic inequity, and the destruction of environments. What lessons from Earth’s colonialist…
Stunning Pinwheel Nebula Is a Cosmic Cataclysm in the Making
This image of a dusty, gas-rich nebula looks pretty, but appearances can be deceiving. Known as a Wolf-Rayet star system, it’s poised to unleash a catastrophic gamma-ray burst when it finally goes supernova. What’s remarkable about this particular Wolf-Rayet system, however, is that it’s the first to be discovered in…
Virgin Orbit Plane Completes Test Flight With Attached Rocket
A Virgin Orbit plane took off with a rocket under its wing on Sunday, marking a successful test flight for the company that hopes to provide satellite-launching services.
NASA's Mars 2020 Rover Will Land in Jezero Crater
NASA has announced the landing location of its upcoming Mars 2020 rover: Jezero Crater.
These 4,000-Year-Old Termite Mounds Can Be Seen From Space
Scientists have discovered an immense grouping of freakishly large termite mounds in northeastern Brazil. Obscured by trees, the previously undetected array occupies a space equal to the size of Great Britain.
Do Animals Grift Each Other?
Ours is a dog-eat-dog world—but is the same true for dogs? I’ve seen dogs tussle over discarded bits of hamburger meat, but I’ve never seen one try to enlist another in a shady multi-level marketing scheme, nor have I seen one dog try to distract another dog while a third dog steals the second dog’s rat carcass or…
We Finally Know How Wombats Produce Their Distinctly Cube-Shaped Poop
A bold team of scientists has delved into the mystery of cube-shaped wombat poop, uncovering the physiological processes involved in this unique digestive trick.
NASA Image of Merging Galaxy Clusters Looks Suspiciously Like the USS Enterprise
Humanity’s current understanding of physics may suggest faster-than-light travel is impossible, but researchers here on Earth can still observe happening in places much too far away to ever actually visit (and generally only what they looked like in the distant past). One of them is a galactic collision that, at least…
We Visited the World's Largest Digital Camera and Damn
The devil’s in the details when you head inside a cleanroom. Everything you plan on bringing inside, from your phone to your camera tripod, needs to be wiped down with lint-free wipes. You need to put on a special bunny suit. If you put the gloves on wrong, you need to throw them away and get a new pair. You…
Jennie-O Recalls More Than 91,000 Pounds of Raw Ground Turkey Amid Salmonella Outbreak
Jennie-O Turkey recalled more than 91,000 pounds of raw ground turkey this week amid a nationwide Salmonella turkey outbreak. The move marks the first reported recall of non-pet food meat in the outbreak that’s sickened at least 164 people and is linked to one death.
Spacecraft Witness Explosion in Earth's Magnetic Field
Magnetic fields around the Earth release strong bursts of energy, accelerating particles and feeding the auroras that glow in the polar skies. On July 11, 2017, four NASA spacecrafts were there to watch one of these explosions happen.
Bizarre Microbes Represent a Major New Branch on the Evolutionary Family Tree
Canadian scientists have identified microscopic creatures that are so unlike anything seen before, they had to create an entirely new branch on the evolutionary tree of life to slot them in.
A Planned FDA Study Could Clear the Way for Fewer Dogs Used and Killed in Animal Research
Dogs have been everything we’ve ever needed them to be, including volunteers for clinical trials of drugs meant for both people and pooches. Sadly, these furry test subjects are sometimes euthanized at the end of these experiments, because it’s deemed the only way to get the accurate test results scientists are…
Advertisement
