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Healthcare In Space - The First Medical Evacuation From The ISS

For the first time in 25 years of continuous crewed operations, an astronaut has been medically...

I Earned It, You're Privileged - The Paradox In How We View Achievement

The concept of “hard work v privilege”, and what either one says about someone’s social status...

Not Just The Holidays: The Hormonal Shift Of Perimenopause Could Be Causing Weight Gain

You’re in your mid-40s, eating healthy and exercising regularly. It’s the same routine that...

Anxiety For Christmas: How To Cope

Christmas can be hard. For some people, it increases loneliness, grief, hopelessness and family...

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Stand By Your Maine: Country Music's Northern Roots

Stand By Your Maine: Country Music's Northern Roots

Oct 27 2014 | comment(s)


Country music's soaring popularity in the Northeast isn't so much a novelty as it is a rebirth. Image: US Navy

By Clifford Murphy, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

4 Things Needed To Make The Perfect Cup Of Coffee

4 Things Needed To Make The Perfect Cup Of Coffee

Oct 27 2014 | comment(s)


There are four factors to making the perfect cup of coffee. Credit: Andy Ciordia/Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND

By Don Brushett

It’s hard to get a bad coffee these days.

Plenty of baristas have fine-tuned the process of making espresso, but really there are only a handful of variables they can control:

When It Comes To Ebola, How Much Risk Is Too Much?

When It Comes To Ebola, How Much Risk Is Too Much?

Oct 27 2014 | comment(s)


How much risk can health workers be asked to take on? Mike Segar/Reuters

By Catherine Womack, Bridgewater State University

Taking care of sick people has always involved personal risk.

From plague to tuberculosis to smallpox to SARS, health-care workers have put themselves in danger in the course of fulfilling their duties to care for others. Many have lost their lives doing just that.

Plants Absorb More CO2 Than We Thought, But...

Plants Absorb More CO2 Than We Thought, But...

Oct 26 2014 | comment(s)


A recent study shows plants may absorb more carbon than we thought. Jason Samfield/Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA

By Pep Canadell, CSIRO

Through burning fossil fuels, humans are rapidly driving up levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which in turn is raising global temperatures.

Germany’s Green Energy Gamble Could Really Use Some Vorsprung Durch Technik

Germany’s Green Energy Gamble Could Really Use Some Vorsprung Durch Technik

Oct 25 2014 | comment(s)


Remember the big, somewhat bulky Mercedes Benz cars of the early 1990s? 
Oldest Modern Genome From Human Bone Reveals When We Bred With Neanderthals

Oldest Modern Genome From Human Bone Reveals When We Bred With Neanderthals

Oct 24 2014 | comment(s)


The femur that led to the oldest modern human genome. Credit: Bence Viola, MPI EVA

By Daniel Zadik, University of Leicester

When a human bone was found on a gravelly riverbank by a bone-carver who was searching for mammoth ivory, little did he know it would provide the oldest modern-human genome yet sequenced.

The anatomically modern male thigh-bone, found near the town of Ust’-Ishim in south-western Siberia, has been radiocarbon-dated to around 45,000 years old.