Common Over-The-Counter Painkillers Can Be an Unexpected Source of Too Much Sodium

Dissolvable painkillers might bring rapid relief, but researchers are warning many of them also come with a hidden and hearty dose of salt. For each half a gram of paracetamol, or acetaminophen, that comes in a dissolvable tablet, you may also swallow around 0.4 grams of sodium, one of the main components of salt.   … Read more

Mysterious Repeating Fast Radio Burst Traced to Very Unexpected Location

A recently discovered repeating fast radio burst (FRB) named FRB 20200120E is deepening the mystery of these already deeply mysterious space signals. Astronomers have tracked its location to a galaxy 11.7 million light-years away, which makes it the closest known extragalactic fast radio burst, 40 times closer than the next-closest extragalactic signal.   But it … Read more

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

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

There Was a Major Unexpected Benefit to James Webb’s Christmas Launch

After a detailed analysis of where the James Webb Space Telescope is now (29 December 2021) and how it got there, NASA determined the observatory should have enough propellant to operate in space for significantly more than 10 years in space.   Webb’s mission lifetime was designed to be at least 5-1/2 years, and mission … Read more

Earth’s Tilted Magnetic Field 41,000 Years Ago Pushed The Auroras to Unexpected Places

If you want to be dazzled by a spectacular northern lights display, your best bet is to skywatch near the North Pole. But that wasn’t the case 41,000 years ago, when a disruption of Earth’s magnetic field sent auroras wandering toward the equator.   During this geomagnetic disturbance, known as the Laschamp event or the Laschamp excursion, … Read more

Covid booster shots: Third vaccine doses are pushing protection to unexpected heights

Evidence suggests that vaccine booster programmes can take people’s covid-19 protection to unexpectedly high levels, but we don’t yet know how effective existing vaccines will be against the omicron variant Health 30 November 2021 By Clare Wilson A road sign in Buckinghamshire, UK, in mid-November Maureen McLean/Shutterstock While the emergence of the omicron variant has caused concern worldwide, … Read more

Planets: An unexpected gas giant is orbiting a massive pair of stars

We thought that planets couldn’t form around stars with more than three times the mass of the sun, but planet b Cen (AB)b challenges the idea Space 8 December 2021 By Chen Ly The twin stars of the most massive planet-hosting star system to date, b Centauri, and its giant planet b Cen (AB)b ESO/Janson … Read more