A picturesque feature of many ponds is the lily pad. One glance at Monet’s famous paintings and you’ll see that water lilies are beautiful, delicate, and unusual, floating on the surface of the water. Water lilies are unique plants that have adapted to their watery environment and harness the power of surface tension to keep …
The Great Barrier Reef faces a number of challenges, many of which can be directly blamed on humans. However, the Crown-Of-Thorns Starfish is one exception – it is a sea creature that merely feeds on healthy coral, posing a threat to the reef. To deal with the problem, researchers at Queensland University of Technology initially …
New research shows that taking low-dose aspirin on a regular basis may not have as many life-saving properties as previously thought. According to one new study, taking aspirin does not help prevent first strokes or heart attacks in people at moderate risk for one. This was because the study participants had several health threats, such …
Lyme disease is one of the conditions that can stem from being bitten by an infected tick, but luckily, the number of cases appears to be dropping in New England. This is good news, seeing as the Northeast is often one of the hardest hit areas for Lyme disease and other tick-caused ailments (“Here’s one …
For athletes participating in many sports, the ability to jump higher could be the difference between getting a lot of playing time and sitting the bench. Jumping, from a physics standpoint, is more complex than these athletes realize. The action combines energy, inertia, mass, and momentum, with physiological and biomechanical factors. Understanding the science that …
Heatwaves can be tolerable for people living in the Western world, assuming they have access to shelter from the sun and cool air. However, this isn’t always the case in other parts of the world, where the temperatures are scorching and there is nowhere to seek refuge. Now, scientists believe that the number of deaths …
We’ve all heard of the various female contraceptive methods, such as The Pill, but what if the latest form of contraception came in a digital form? This is now the case, thanks to approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Recently, the FDA approved the marketing of a new form of female contraception: an …
Before geologist and oceanographer, Marie Tharp, proved them wrong, most scientists believed the ocean’s floor was a smooth, flat, unimpressive expanse. But in 1952, Tharp, a brilliant geologist who had been relocated to a cramped basement office in New York City, because of the superstition that women bring bad luck at sea, she was not …
There has been little research done about the harm of electronic cigarettes and vaping thus far, but new data suggests that there could be something to worry about, particularly when it comes to our cells. Researchers from the University of Birmingham recently conducted a study that was published in the journal Thorax, which found that …
There is plenty of information out there about the dangers of smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol during pregnancy, but what about marijuana use? For the first time, the American Academy of Pediatrics has released its guidelines for marijuana use during pregnancy and breast-feeding, and the outlook is relatively bleak. According to the guidelines, women should …