study

A Love For Nature May Come From an Unexpected Place, Finds Large Twin Study

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Do you love spending time in nature? Or are you a city slicker, happier in the concrete jungle than the great outdoors? Back in 1986, the US biologist EO Wilson proposed that humans have an innate connection with the natural world, an idea known as biophilia.   Almost every aspect of our lives depends on … Read more

Long-Term Cannabis Smoking Appears to Alter Lung Function, But Not Like Tobacco

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A long-term study tracking just over a thousand participants has found regular cannabis smoking can change the function of your lungs as you age. Unlike smoking a cigarette, however, cannabis seems to impact a person’s breathing in a slightly different way.    Over adulthood, tobacco smoking is associated with a progressive decline in how much air … Read more

A New, ‘Highly Virulent’ HIV Variant Was Just Discovered in Europe

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A newfound variant of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, has been uncovered in the Netherlands and appears to cause faster disease progression compared with other versions of the virus.   The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infects and destroys immune cells called CD4 cells in the body, causing the number of these cells to plummet. … Read more

Life-enabling moons can probably only form around small planets, study finds

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Earth’s moon is large for the planet’s size, and many astronomers have long believed that this fact has helped make Earth a habitable world. And a new study has now found that our planet was just the right size to form such a large, life-enabling moon.  The study, by researchers from the University of Rochester … Read more

World-First Experiment That Infected People With Coronavirus Shares Early Results

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Scientists deliberately infected young, healthy volunteers with SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 – and now, they’ve shared their first results from that experiment.      The new study, published Tuesday (Feb. 1) in Springer Nature’s preprint database, In Review, has not yet been peer-reviewed, but it could provide insight into how mild COVID-19 unfolds, from the moment … Read more

Human Spines Found Mounted on Sticks in Peru, And Archaeologists Think They Know Why

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People in the Chincha valley of Peru threaded the spines of the dead onto wooden rods around 500 years ago, a mostly-unknown practice only recently documented by archaeologists.   It may have been an attempt to restore the bodies of the dead during the European colonization, according to a study by the researchers who unearthed … Read more

Uranus And Neptune Aren’t The Same Color. A New Study Could Finally Explain Why

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Uranus and Neptune are the most twin-like of all the planets in the Solar System. They are almost the same size and mass, have similar compositions and structures, even similar rotation rates.   Which makes one glaring difference quite perplexing. Neptune is a fetching shade of azure, with visible swirling storms. Uranus is more of … Read more

The first life on Earth depended on a deadly poisonous gas, study suggests

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At one time, Earth had no life. Then, it did. Whether the process was gradual or rapid, the transformation of chemistry to biochemistry on our planet was one of the most amazing developments to happen in the universe. It’s so rare that to date, we have absolutely no evidence of any form of life anywhere … Read more

Hemp-Derived Compound Offers Benefits of THC With Less Paranoia, Study Suggests

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Over the past year, you may have seen something called delta-8 THC or “delta 8” appear in convenience stores and pharmacies alongside CBD gummies, oils, and lotions. Delta-8 THC is a hemp-derived compound that’s closely related to delta-9 THC – what’s commonly called THC and which is the psychoactive component of cannabis that’s responsible for … Read more

Invisible Air Pollution in The Country May Be Just as Toxic as The Smog of The City

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It’s easy to see air pollution when it settles as smog over a city. Yet even in rural areas, where the air looks clearer, researchers have found unhealthy particles floating in the atmosphere.   That sweet country air may not be as invigorating as we once thought. Fine particulate matter less than 2.5 micrometers in … Read more