Research shows there may be an entire world underneath Antarctica’s ice-free Dry Valleys, which on the surface may seem hostile to life. Below the surface lies rivers of liquid salt water which flow into subsurface lakes, every drop of which could be swarming with microbial life. One of Antarctica’s most unique features, the briny, rusty-red colored Blood Falls, could possibly […]
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As the world’s largest land mammals, elephants should suffer one of the highest cancer rates—they simply have far more cells that could potentially mutate and become malignant. But new research reveals that elephants rarely get cancer—and the reason why may help in the search for human treatments. Only about 4.8 percent of elephants die from cancer, compared with up to […]
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Why do chimpanzees kill one another? For years, many studies have shown that chimps that were observed killing one another had become more aggressive only when humans encroached on their environment. But new studies have lent weight to an alternative theory: Chimpanzees are, like humans, natural-born killers who use violence as a means of expanding their territory and increasing their […]
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A huge virus discovered in sediment on the Chilean coast and another in an Australian pond are not only the largest scientists have ever seen, but also among the most baffling. A single so-called pandora virus is 1,000 times the size of the influenza virus and holds 2,556 genes, compared with the flu’s 13. Only 6 percent of its genes […]
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Thanks to the Hubble space telescope, it is nearly impossible to unsee the huge glimmering region on the surface of Uranus. The cause of this blatant smear on Uranus is caused by powerful bursts of solar wind. Streams of charged particles caught in powerful magnetic fields forced into the upper atmosphere of Uranus, where their interactions with gas particles, such […]
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Just eight months ago, 6-year-old Emma Whitehead was gravely ill with leukemia and running out of options.Two rounds of chemotherapy had already failed, and a bone marrow transplant was no longer possible, The NewYorkTimes reports. So her parents opted for an experimental therapy developed at the University of Pennsylvania that aimed to enlist Emma’s own immune system in the fight […]
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Mysterious plumes of gas rising more than 150 miles above the surface of Mars have left scientists confounded. On two occasions in the spring of 2012, amateur astronomers spotted a cloud developing on the surface of the Red Planet. The plumes, which spanned about 600 miles in diameter and changed shape constantly, appeared within a few hours and remained […]
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For the first time, scientists have caught a glimpse of a black hole ejecting a hot “flare” of matter after devouring a star the size of our sun. The discovery was made thanks to the quick action of of scientists from John Hopkins University, who worked in conjunction with a team from the University of Oxford. Hubble fellow Sjoert van […]
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There’s something more frightening than the kid-sized vampires, witches, and skeletons who will prowl the streets this Halloween: the paint on their faces.Gov’t officials called out the FDA for its lax regulations regarding face paints, which have been found to contain traces of spooky chemicals. “When it comes to the kind of makeup our kids slather on at Halloween, lead, nickel, and cobalt do […]
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