Oct 28, 2023 | Salon.com
The last few months have seen major strides in chimpanzee-related research, from a study that figured out how chimpanzees form rudimentary languages to a study that examined how they reacted to being pranked with fake snakes. Now a study in the journal Science reveals there is evidence that chimpanzees can experience menopause — a phenomenon previously thought was only experienced by humans and certain species of toothed whales....
Originally posted on salon.com
Oct 27, 2023 | Salon.com
The 2021 film “My Octopus Teacher” swept the world with its touching story of a South African man who befriends a wild octopus while free diving in a kelp forest. Millions of filmgoers were charmed and moved by the wild octopus’ adventures and antics — yet that wild octopus was a lucky one....
Originally posted on salon.com
Oct 25, 2023 | Salon.com
Last week the Bureau of Land Management announced protections for a quartet of rare plants in the San Bernardino National Forest in Southern California. The four plants exist in a part of the forest known as the Carbonate Habitat Management Area because it exists in carbonate rich soil over ancient coral reefs....
Originally posted on salon.com
Oct 25, 2023 | Salon.com
Imagine a future in which sea level rise is so severe that apocalyptic floods are a regular occurrence. Hundreds of millions are displaced as their coastal regions become uninhabitable, and as humanity struggles to survive, the map of the Earth’s southernmost region gets radically redrawn. According to a recent study by the British Antarctic Society, climate change has passed a crucial tipping point for the West Antarctic Ice Sheet....
Originally posted on salon.com
Oct 24, 2023 | Salon.com
2023 has been a bad year for emperor penguins. In August, a study in the journal Communications Earth & Environment found that the loss of polar ice in Antarctica is likely to lead to a “catastrophic breeding failure” for penguins throughout Antarctica, eventually causing them to be unable to naturally sustain their own species by the end of the century....
Originally posted on salon.com
Oct 24, 2023 | Salon.com
Imagine a radio emission so powerful that it released as much energy in a fraction of a second as our Sun releases over 30 years. Yet unlike our massive and nearby Sun, this radio emission known as FRB 20220610A is tiny and comes from 8 billion light years away, as detailed in the journal Science....
Originally posted on salon.com
Oct 24, 2023 | Salon.com
When people hear of a helium leak, they likely imagine a comical scenario involving party balloons and high-pitched voices. Yet scientists from the California Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution suspect that, like a human who has yet to fully burp out a gassy meal, Earth has pockets of helium from when it was formed that it has yet to fully release....
Originally posted on salon.com
Oct 23, 2023 | Salon.com
It was a hot summer night in 1980, and the 45-year-old Australian builder was so exhausted he was nearly falling off scaffolding. He had sleep apnea — a condition that causes people to struggle to breathe while sleeping — and his body was barely holding itself together due to a severe lack of quality sleep....
Originally posted on salon.com
Oct 21, 2023 | Salon.com
Dr. Ramani Durvasula is a clinical psychologist who writes extensively about mental health topics, so when she uses the term “triggered,” it is not done flippantly — such as to complain that one was “triggered” by a woman’s ugly dress. She said that people who misuse the term “trigger” are “doing a disservice to people who are navigating life while managing recollections and reminders of prior traumas....
Originally posted on salon.com
Oct 19, 2023 | Salon.com
Pfizer — the American pharmaceutical company that helped manufacture the COVID-19 vaccine — announced on Wednesday that it is hiking the price of its antiviral drug Paxlovid to $1,390 per course, starting in 2024. In a story first reported by The Wall Street Journal, a company spokesman confirmed that Pfizer plans on more than doubling the $529 that the federal government paid for Paxlovid....
Originally posted on salon.com