A burning container ship dumped tons of plastic debris onto Sri Lanka’s beaches. A burning container ship dumped tons of plastic debris onto Sri Lanka’s beaches, prompting a widespread environmental disaster, according to recent news reports. The ship, the X-Press Pearl, had sailed to Sri Lanka from India and wasContinue Reading
Researchers may have identified a potential treatment for the rare condition. Six years ago, a teenager from Italy traveled to the U.S. in hopes of finding a diagnosis for her mysterious medical condition, which had caused her to lose the ability to walk and required her to have a breathingContinue Reading
Coronavirus variants of concern and variants of interest will now be named using a system similar to hurricane naming, wherein each variant gets assigned a letter of the Greek alphabet, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced Monday (May 31). For example, the coronavirus variant first found in the U.K. willContinue Reading
Gold veins thicker than your arm finally get a geological explanation. Why did some gold prospectors strike it rich with a bonanza gold vein, while others came up empty-handed? The credit may go to nanoparticles. New research reveals that high-grade veins of gold contain clusters of gold nanoparticles, which isContinue Reading
Her nickname is “Fernanda.” A giant tortoise in the Galápagos Islands that was thought to have gone extinct over a century ago just came out of hiding. Researchers discovered the female tortoise on the Galápagos’ Fernandina Island during a joint expedition carried out by the Galápagos National Park Directorate andContinue Reading
A colony of wild African green monkeys living near the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport finally gets an origin story. Much-beloved wild African monkeys that live near the Fort Lauderdale airport are the descendants of a bunch of zoo escapees from 1948. Local lore long held that the monkeys (Chlorocebus sabaeus)Continue Reading
The skeleton of a soldier found on a beach at Herculaneum, an ancient town that was buried when Mount Vesuvius erupted in A.D. 79, may be that of a rescue-party member sent by Roman naturalist and military officer Pliny the Elder to help evacuate people, a researcher has suggested basedContinue Reading
Whale sharks, hammerheads and more frequent the site. The top of Darwin’s Arch, the famous natural stone archway in the northern Galapagos Islands, has crashed into the waves, according to news reports. The arch, located less than 0.6 miles (1 kilometer) off the steep and rocky coast of Darwin Island,Continue Reading
Here are the most common signs of labor and ways you can try to promote labor. The signs of labor can differ from one woman to another, and even for the same woman they may change from one pregnancy to the next. Although there’s no way to predict how aContinue Reading
An airplane saw thunderstorms create extremely high levels of chemicals called oxidants. Lightning may play an important role in clearing the air of pollutants. A storm-chasing airplane has shown that lightning can forge large amounts of oxidants. These chemicals cleanse the atmosphere by reacting with pollutants such as methane. ThoseContinue Reading