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2 weeks ago | 
snexplores.org | McKenzie Prillaman
aerial: Of or taking place in the air. Arctic: A region that falls within the Arctic Circle. The edge of that circle is defined as the northernmost point at which the sun is visible on the northern winter solstice and the southernmost point at which the midnight sun can be seen on the northern summer solstice. The high Arctic is that most northerly third of this region. It’s a region dominated by snow cover much of the year.
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3 weeks ago | 
sciencenews.org | McKenzie Prillaman
Fermenting foods in space could provide a new culinary frontier. When fermented aboard the International Space Station, the Japanese condiment miso tasted nuttier than two earthbound versions, researchers report April 2 in iScience. The finding not only reveals that fermentation is possible for a food orbiting Earth, it also characterizes a space environment’s influence on a food.
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3 weeks ago | 
sciencenews.org | McKenzie Prillaman
For the first time, high-resolution time-lapse videos of tiny bits of living plants show how they assemble their protective cell walls, researchers report March 21 in Science Advances. The image sequences provide new insights into how this cell structure forms, which could lead to innovations in plant-derived products such as renewable biofuels. Cell walls are made mostly of cellulose, a chain of sugar molecules.
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1 month ago | 
sciencenews.org | McKenzie Prillaman
Gray seals may possess a secret sense that helps them survive at sea. The marine mammals adjusted their time spent underwater based on the amount of oxygen in the air they breathed before diving, researchers report in the March 21 Science. The finding suggests gray seals (Halichoerus grypus) perceive their own blood oxygen levels, an ability that prevents them from drowning on dives that can last up to an hour. Mammals need oxygen to live. But they usually can’t detect its presence in their blood.
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1 month ago | 
sciencenews.org | McKenzie Prillaman
After spending more than nine months orbiting Earth, two U.S. astronauts finally returned home on March 18, splashing down at 5:57 p.m. EDT off the coast of Tallahassee, Fla. Now they’ll undergo a battery of tests to find out how the longer-than-expected space stay has impacted their health. Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore left on June 5 for what was supposed to be an eight-day mission to the International Space Station.
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1 month ago | 
sciencenews.org | McKenzie Prillaman |Tina Saey
As measles cases surge in the United States, leading to the country’s first two measles-related deaths in a decade, questions, worries and misinformation about the infectious disease are swirling. More than 220 measles cases have been reported this year as of March 6, largely associated with an outbreak at the border between Texas and New Mexico, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Unvaccinated children make up the majority of confirmed cases.
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1 month ago | 
sciencenews.org | McKenzie Prillaman
Narwhals wield their iconic tusks in surprising ways — possibly even to play with newfound toys. Aerial videos showed the Arctic whales swinging their “horns” to thwack fish prior to eating them, and in one case, gingerly prodding and flipping a fish. The gentler movements may have been part of a narwhal play session, researchers report February 28 in Frontiers in Marine Science. It’s the first reported evidence of narwhals (Monodon monoceros) likely amusing themselves for fun.
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1 month ago | 
sciencenews.org | McKenzie Prillaman
Raising children may help your brain stay young. A study of almost 38,000 adults finds that the more kids they had, the more synchronized the activity between certain brain regions became. The strongest association between the number of children and functional connectivity turned up in a brain network believed to aid in inferring others’ thoughts, researchers report in the March 4 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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1 month ago | 
sciencenews.org | McKenzie Prillaman
Five years ago, on March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic. Whether it still is depends on who you ask. There are no clear criteria to mark the end of a pandemic, and the virus that causes the disease — SARS-CoV-2 — continues evolving and infecting people worldwide. “Whether the pandemic ended or not is an intellectual debate,” says clinical epidemiologist and long COVID researcher Ziyad Al-Aly of Washington University in St. Louis.
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1 month ago | 
snexplores.org | McKenzie Prillaman
cell: (in biology) The smallest structural and functional unit of an organism. Typically too small to see with the unaided eye, it consists of a watery fluid surrounded by a membrane or wall. Depending on their size, animals are made of anywhere from thousands to trillions of cells. epilepsy: (adj. epileptic) A neurological disorder characterized by seizures. link: A connection between two people or things.
