Water is the most abundant yet least understood liquid in nature. It exhibits many strange behaviors that scientists still struggle to explain. While most liquids get denser as they get colder, water is most dense at 39 degrees Fahrenheit, just above its freezing point. This is why ice floats to the top of a drinking glass […]

Imagine you are asked to rank the counties in Pennsylvania in terms of number of COVID-19 infections. Or you may be asked to rank the following cities in Pennsylvania based on their populations: Harrisburg, Allentown, Erie and State College. What would your answer be? How do you think others would answer these questions? A new […]

A new luminescent sensor can detect terbium, a valuable rare earth element, from complex environmental samples like acid mine waste. The sensor, developed by researchers at Penn State, takes advantage of a protein that very specifically binds to rare earth elements and could be harnessed to help develop a domestic supply of these metals, which […]

Your commute to work may seem like a mundane thing, but it is a great example of the complicated tasks our brains must carry out on a daily basis: navigation, memory, decision-making, sensory processing, and so on. Researchers often use animal models, such as mice, to study the neural processes underlying these behaviors. However, many […]

Researchers at Tel Aviv University have found that exposure to ultraviolet radiation from sunlight enhances romantic passion in humans. In the study both men and women were exposed to UVB (ultraviolet radiation type B) under controlled conditions, and the findings were unequivocal: increased levels of romantic passion in both genders. The study revealed that exposure […]

A Mediterranean diet is associated with improvements in erectile dysfunction, according to research presented at ESC Congress 2021. Men with hypertension are twice as likely to have erectile dysfunction as their peers with normal blood pressure. Erectile dysfunction is primarily considered a disorder of the small arteries, which lose the ability to dilate and augment […]

Steep declines in delta variant outbreaks in India and, more recently, the U.K., are likely not due to the nations reaching “herd immunity” or viral behavior, but rather because of shifts in human behavior prompted by mounting cases and deaths, Harvard experts say. Those outbreaks appeared to follow similar courses: a rapid increase in cases […]

Our bodies are home to several bacterial species that help us maintain our health and wellbeing. Engineering these good bacteria to alter the activity of genes gone awry, either by turning them down or by activating them, is a promising approach to improve health and combat diseases. In a study published in the journal Nature Communications, researchers […]

Carnivorous animals lack key genes needed to detect and respond to infection by pathogens, a study has found. Farming large numbers of carnivores, like mink, could allow the formation of undetected ‘disease reservoirs’, in which a pathogen could spread to many animals and mutate to become a risk to human health. Research led by the […]

Anew study from the University of Central Florida suggests that masks and a good ventilation system are more important than social distancing for reducing the airborne spread of COVID-19 in classrooms. The research, published recently in the journal Physics of Fluids, comes at a critical time when schools and universities are considering returning to more in-person […]