Jun 29th, 2022 - NASA administrator Bill Nelson said Wednesday the agency will reveal the "deepest image of our Universe that has ever been taken" on July 12. NASA administrator Bill Nelson said Wednesday the agency will reveal the "deepest image of our Universe that has ever been taken" on July 12, thanks to the newly operational James Webb Space Telescope. "If you think about that, this is farther than humanity has ever looked before," Nelson said during a press briefing at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, the operations center for the $10 billion observatory that was launched in ... [Read More]

Jun 29th, 2022 - Wine played an important role in the history of the Roman Empire — and the Roman Empire played an important role in the history of wine. Many Romans believed you should drink wine every day , which made the drink "democratic". Wine wasn't just a drink for the aristocrats; it was enjoyed by craftsmen and slaves; men and women; urban dwellers and rural inhabitants. If you were a Roman, the odds are you drank wine at least occasionally. Without the Romans' love for wine, the drink may not be nearly as popular today. Consuming wine on this scale also meant that you had to produce and ... [Read More]

Jun 29th, 2022 - Burmese pythons have become a hugely successful invasive species in southern Florida over the past few decades. But how did these huge snakes establish themselves in this part of the United States? Burmese pythons, as the name suggests, are native to Southeast Asia. However, there are now a large number of these snakes, which can grow to lengths of 20 feet and weigh more than 250 pounds, living in the south of the Sunshine State. The exact size of the Florida Burmese python population is not known because the snakes are very hard to detect, but estimates range from the tens of thousands, to ... [Read More]

Jun 29th, 2022 - By analyzing flint tools, researchers find new evidence of an 800,000-year-old fire in northern Israel While scientists have long hypothesized that early humans started using fire about one million years ago, evidence dating back that far is difficult to come by.  Now, artificial intelligence might be able to change that. In a study published this month in the  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , researchers from the  Weizmann Institute of Science may have found the remnants of an 800,000-year-old fire in Israel. Previously, to determine whether a fire had once ... [Read More]

Jun 29th, 2022 - Fossils of early human ancestors in a cave in South Africa are a million years older than researchers previously thought, according to a study published this week that gives insight into the history of humankind. The study of fossils from the Sterkfontein Caves, which yielded the near-complete skull of a cave woman nicknamed Mrs. Ples, found they date back 3.4 million to 3.6 million years. The findings suggest hominins in South Africa existed around the same time as others in East Africa, such as the renowned 3.2-million-year-old skeleton Lucy, which was discovered in 1974 in Ethiopia. East ... [Read More]

Jun 29th, 2022 - Fauci said that when he first tested positive, he had very minimal symptoms. After testing positive for COVID-19 earlier this month, Dr. Anthony Fauci said Tuesday that he has joined a growing group of people experiencing a Paxlovid rebound, following treatment with Pfizer's antiviral. Fauci, 81, said that when he first tested positive two weeks ago, he had very minimal symptoms. However, when he began to feel worse, "given [his] age," he was prescribed Paxlovid. Other than fatigue and a bit of congestion, Fauci reported that he felt "really quite well," and after his five-day course of ... [Read More]

Jun 29th, 2022 - Norovirus lives in the gut – but mouse studies suggest it may also survive in salivary glands, and the discovery implies there are additional measures we could take to limit infections By Three gut viruses, including norovirus, can spread through saliva in mice. The discovery – coupled with the finding that norovirus can be grown in human salivary gland cells – might encourage new recommendations for minimising infections, and eventually may lead to new antiviral treatments. , rotavirus and astrovirus are known to infect the gut, where they lead to vomiting, diarrhoea and ... [Read More]

Jun 29th, 2022 - DNA study closes in on solving the mystery of where and when dogs were domesticated. More on: genome sequencing Where and when dogs were initially domesticated by our ancestors is one of the most puzzling unresolved questions of human prehistory. We know that modern dog breeds originated from the grey wolf ( Canis lupus ) and were domesticated some time during the last Ice Age – at least 15,000 years ago. But exactly where it happened, and if it were in one single location or multiple places , is still undetermined. In a new study published in Nature , researchers used the DNA of ... [Read More]