Stanford scientists have found that chronically low levels of oxygen throughout the oceans hampered the recovery of life after the Permian-Triassic extinction, the most catastrophic die-off in our planet’s history. Also known as the “Great Dying,” global ecosystems collapsed as some 90 percent of species perished in this extinction event 250 million years ago. The new findings, published this week […]
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The brain develops faster during early childhood and more than any other time in our life. In children, it is a magnificent thinking machine that learns and grows by interacting with the world. Not surprisingly, experts say that the foods kids eat not only fuel their bodies but their minds as well. Research shows that healthy eating can improve children’s […]
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Coffee is one of the most popular beverages in the world for lots of reasons, including that it gives people a pleasant lift in the morning. New research shows that it also helps their memory. Researchers had 160 people who were not regular coffee drinkers look at pictures of objects; five minutes later they gave them either a placebo or […]
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“Colony collapse disorder” the mysterious, decade-long die-off among honeybees, is getting worse. A survey of about 5,000 beekeepers in the U.S. has found that they’ve lost about 42 percent of their colonies over just the past year. Even more alarming is the fact that honeybee deaths spiked in the summer, when bees are usually healthiest. “What we’re seeing with this […]
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Here’s a novel idea for putting the brakes on global warming: Ask everyone in the world to paint their roofs white. U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu raised the idea last week at a conference in London, noting that the proposal, first put forth by researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, would reflect enormous amounts of sunlight off the […]
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Beijing Mass arrests: In one of the biggest crackdowns on civil society groups in decades, Chinese authorities have detained and questioned at least 238 lawyers and human rights activists over the past two weeks. At least 20 activists remain incarcerated, and the whereabouts of six of them are unclear. Maya Wang, a researcher with Human Rights. Watch, said those still […]
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Meditation doesn’t just improve mental and physical health in the present. It also slows the aging process, and can help meditators stay mentally sharp into old age, a new study has found. Once people reach their mid- to late 20s, their brains begin to lose volume and weight, which can eventually result in the loss of some functional ability. But […]
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Ocean temperatures first collected during one of the great 19th-century voyages of exploration confirm one of the consequences of climate change: humans have managed to warm even the deepest parts of the ocean. A new study in Nature Climate Change calculates that the amount of heat absorbed by the ocean has doubled in the last 18 years. A third of […]
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Training for a marathon and other extreme workouts may be more harmful than healthy. After reviewing over 50 studies, researchers at the Mayo Clinic found that more than an hour of intense aerobic activity per day put runners and cyclists at heightened risk of serious heart problems, including an irregular heartbeat, clogged arteries, and scarring. Habitual marathon runners and professional […]
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For the first time, a mission designed to set its eyes on black holes and other objects far from our solar system has turned its gaze back closer to home, capturing images of our sun. NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, has taken its first picture of the sun, producing the most sensitive solar portrait ever taken in high-energy […]
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