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Israeli scientists said they found “striking” differences in the chances of getting seriously ill from COVID-19 when they compared patients who had sufficient vitamin D levels prior to contracting the disease, with those who didn’t. A study published Thursday in research journal PLOS One found that about half of people who were vitamin D deficient before getting COVID-19 … Read more
The trillions of bacteria in and on our bodies can bolster our health and contribute to disease, but just which microbes are the key actors has been elusive. Now, a study involving thousands of people in Finland has identified a potential microbial culprit in some cases of depression. The finding, which emerged from a study … Read more
By Michael Le Page, Clare Wilson, Jessica Hamzelou, Sam Wong, Graham Lawton, Adam Vaughan, Conrad Quilty-Harper, Jason Arunn Murugesu, Layal Liverpool, Carissa Wong and Alex Wilkins People register to undergo PCR testing in Wong Tai Sin, Hong Kong, China, 5 February, 2022 Marc Fernandes/NurPhoto/Shutterstock Latest coronavirus news as of 12pm on 7 February Even with … Read more
Earth’s oceans were once home to an absolutely fearsome predator. We know it only from teeth and vertebrae in the fossil record, but these tell us that megalodon (Otodus megalodon) was absolutely colossal. Many of those teeth are as big as your hand. Megalodon, we can only conclude, was the largest shark ever to swim … Read more
At a point some 12,800 years ago, a tenth of Earth’s surface suddenly became covered in roaring fires. The firestorm rivalled the one that wiped out the dinosaurs, and it was likely caused by fragments of a comet that would have measured around 100 kilometers (62 miles) across. As dust clouds smothered Earth, they … Read more
About 40 beheaded skeletons were among 425 bodies found in a late Roman cemetery uncovered by archeologists in southern England. The team of around 50 archeologists made the discovery during an excavation at Fleet Marston, near Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, on the route of the multi-billion pound high-speed rail link that is currently under construction, HS2 said. … Read more
When young stars coalesce out of a cloud of molecular hydrogen, a disk of leftover material called a protoplanetary disk surrounds them. This disk is where planets form, and astronomers are getting better at peering into those veiled environments and watching embryonic worlds take shape. But young stars aren’t the only stars with disks of … Read more
Jupiter’s auroras – the lights that dance around its poles – are the most distinct in our solar system and over a thousand times brighter than Earth’s aurora. Now, a new study confirms that these otherworldly polar lights come from a unique source: space lava. Jupiter‘s moon Io is the most volcanically active world in the solar … Read more
The climate crisis enveloping Earth impacts the lowest depths of the sea and the most remote parts of the planet. And new research shows that it’s also causing change at the highest points of the world. Scientists studying South Col – Mount Everest’s highest glacier – have reported that rapid ice loss is occurring … Read more
Humans’ sense of smell may indeed be gradually fading, according to a study that has found people carry different versions of two scent receptors for musk and body odor. Olfactory receptors detect airborne chemicals that waft into our noses, but smell receptors vary immensely from one person to the next. Any two people, on … Read more