An X1.6 class solar flare flashes in the middle of the sun on Sept. 10, 2014. (credit: NASA/SDO) Dark matter is proving to be a rather frustrating topic for physicists, cosmologists, and other outward-looking scientists. All the data for dark matter is gravitational, and the lack of other evidence only draws a box on the […]
Enlarge (credit: Getty | Dmitry Rogulin ) Calendar year three into the pandemic, and vaccination coverage among pregnant people remains staggeringly low. According to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as of January 1, just over 40 percent of pregnant people in the United States between age 18 and 49 were […]
Enlarge / Martin Shkreli. (credit: Getty | Drew Angerer) A federal court on Friday banned convicted fraudster Martin Shkreli from ever working in the pharmaceutical industry again in any capacity and ordered him to pay back $64.6 million in profits from his infamous scheme that raised the price of the life-saving drug Daraprim more than […]
Enlarge / A 2, 700-year-old toilet seat made of stone revealed the poor sanitary conditions of a 7th-century Jerusalem luxury villa. (credit: Yoli Schwartz, The Israel Antiquities Authority) The particular wealthy, privileged elite of Jerusalem in the 7th century BCE were plagued by poor sanitary conditions and resulting parasitic intestinal diseases, according to a recent […]
Enlarge (credit: NASA ) Space isn’t easy on humans. Some aspects are avoidable—the vacuum, of course, and the cold, as well as some of the radiation. Astronauts can also lose bone density , thanks to a lack of gravity. NASA has even created a fun acronym for the issues: RIDGE , which stands for space […]
Enlarge / SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket is seen returning to Earth after its 10th flight to space. (credit: Trevor Mahlmann / Ars Technica) Welcome to Edition 4.28 of the Rocket Report! As I write this introduction, I’m watching Virgin Orbit’s livestream for its “Above the Clouds” mission, and the company’s LauncherOne vehicle has successfully reached […]
Enlarge / This photomicrograph depicts leukemia cells that contain Epstein Barr virus using an FA staining technique, 1972. Epstein-Barr virus, EBV, is a member of the Herpesvirus family and is one of the most common human viruses. (credit: Getty | CDC) Evidence is mounting that a garden-variety virus that sometimes causes mono in teens is […]
(credit: Getty Images) The Biden administration has made vaccine mandates central to its attempts to limit the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Or at least it has tried to; various states and other organizations have used the courts to challenge the federal government’s authority to impose these mandates. Last week, the Supreme Court heard arguments […]
Enlarge (credit: NOAA) We are still in the midst of running a dangerous experiment on Earth’s climate system, and we get to periodically check in on the results—like laboratory rats peering at the graphs on a whiteboard across the room. And it’s that time again. Every year, global temperature can be compared to the predictions […]
Enlarge / A vessel from the Wari site of Conchopata features the tree and its tell-tale seed pods sprouting from the head of the Staff God. (credit: J. Ochatoma Paravicino/M. E. Biwer et al., 2022) Lacing the beer served at their feasts with hallucinogens may have helped an ancient Peruvian people known as the Wari forge […]