News
This week's record-breaking heat has human fingerprints all over it
(Article by Jeremy Deato from popsci.com)
Soaring temperatures shattered records from Ottawa to Oman this week, as the Northern Hemisphere endured an oppressive hot spell. A heat dome cooked much of the eastern United States and parts of Canada, setting all-time temperature records in New Hampshire, Vermont, and Montreal, where extreme heat took the lives of dozens of people in the city and the surrounding areas.
The scorcher is an urgent reminder that climate change is already fueling dangerous heat, and that rising temperatures will imperil a growing a number of people in the years to...
Six Science-Based Reasons Why Laughter Is The Best Medicine
(Article by David DiSalvo from Forbes.com)
Intuitively we know that laughter is one of the best tools we have for dealing with stress, and science backs that up. In fact, research into laughter goes even further, revealing that it's a potent drug with the contagious power of a virus that conveys a slew of benefits for the mind and body. Below are six findings that should keep us wanting to laugh it up.
Laughter is a potent endorphin releaser. One of the most recent studies on laughter shows that laughing with others releases endorphins in the brain—our homegrown feel-good chemicals—via opioid...
Everything you need to know about the explosive science of fireworks
Well, we’re here to arm you with some fun facts about the most patriotic science: pyrotechnics, the chemistry of...
Dinosaurs Could Barely Use Their Tongues
(David Grossman from Popular mechanics)
So many initial perceptions of what dinosaurs looked like have proved to be wrong, and now another can be added to the pile. Many dinosaurs, including the famed T. Rex according to a new study, couldn't stick their tongues out.
That's a notable difference from how dinos are typically portrayed, movies like Jurassic World are often keen to show velociraptors and others with fully functioning tongues. Even though...
NASA's Opportunity rover is sleeping through a massive dust storm on Mars
(Article from posci.com, Mary Beth Griggs)
The storm appeared on June 1—a haze of dust kicked up by winds blowing across the surface of Mars, visible in images sent back by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. That’s not that unusual. Large dust storms happen on the planet every year, often lasting for weeks. But this storm was headed right for Opportunity, a determined solar powered rover that’s been roaming around the surface for almost 15 years.
By June 6, the dust hung thick enough in the sky to draw a veil...
