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COVID is still killing 1,000 Americans per week while hospitalizations rise, CDC reports

Dec 6, 2023 |

Recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) clearly indicates the COVID-19 pandemic is not done with us, as almost all metrics related to the SARS-CoV-2 virus (test positivity, ER visits, hospitalizations and wastewater signal) have been steadily rising for weeks. Deaths, which typically lag behind these statistics anyway, have stayed unchanged over the past week, but have still averaged over 1,000 deaths weekly for the last several weeks....

Originally posted on salon.com

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“No science”: Head of COP28 denies the core truths behind climate change

Dec 4, 2023 |

The 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as COP28, is underway, and is already generating significant controversy. Sultan Al Jaber of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the president of COP28, came under fire Sunday for recent comments that denied the basic scientific realities of climate change. The controversy began when Jaber was being interviewed by Mary Robinson, a former UN special envoy for climate change, for the She Changes Climate event....

Originally posted on salon.com

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Constantly on the nod, chinstrap penguins catch seconds-long bursts of sleep 10,000 times per day

Dec 4, 2023 |

Nearly all animals need some form of sleep to survive, but not all of them sleep in the same ways as humans. Take chinstrap penguins (Pygoscelis antarcticus), the adorable two-foot-plus waddling birds named for the distinctive and dignified black stripes at the bottoms of their heads, which are indigenous to the islands and shores of the Southern Pacific and Antarctic Oceans....

Originally posted on salon.com

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New tech simulates having an octopus arm

Dec 1, 2023 |

The eldritch, alien movements of octopus arms have captivated people for generations. These underwater cephalopods don’t have just one brain but nine, with each of their arms able to act semi-independently. These movements are technically called “bend propagation,” a flexible motion that travels like a wave through to the tip before wrapping around the octopus’ prey....

Originally posted on salon.com

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Wolverines listed as threatened species as climate change melts their habitat

Nov 30, 2023 |

Scientists have known for years that wolverines are threatened by climate change. They usually reside in Arctic and subarctic latitudes — and, when venturing south, they stick to high altitudes — because they rely on snowfall to survive. Female wolverines will only dig dens for their kits in the snow, and their bodies are acclimated to snowy environments....

Originally posted on salon.com

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Puzzling new planet is too big for its sun, challenging dominant theories of planet formation

Nov 30, 2023 |

It’s difficult to fathom how much bigger the Sun is than our little planet. Even though it’s just an average-sized star, you could squeeze 1.3 million Earths inside it. But planets in other solar systems don’t always have such a massive size difference, as detailed in an intriguing new report in the journal Science, which describes the discovery of a planet named LHS 3154b....

Originally posted on salon.com

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Most dinosaurs were killed by climate change, not a meteorite, new study suggests

Nov 29, 2023 |

Perhaps the most famous thing about the dinosaurs is the giant space rock that seemingly killed them. Also known as the Chicxulub impact, or the K-Pg event, most people are familiar with the major crash roughly 66 million years ago after a comet or asteroid collided with our planet.

It was one of the most violent upheavals in Earth’s entire 4 billion year history....

Originally posted on salon.com

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Three-body solution: These massive blue stars may not be duos, but threesomes instead

Nov 28, 2023 |

Be stars are weird. They are rapidly rotating stars about 4 to 18 times larger than the sun, but a pleasing blue color surrounded by discs of gas, not unlike the rings of Saturn. They spin so fast that they approach “critical velocity” or the point where they would otherwise blast apart due to centrifugal force overpowering the star’s gravity....

Originally posted on salon.com

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