Science

Physicians have long been interested in approaches to chronic pain management that are less prone to abuse than traditionally prescribed medications. But the ongoing opioid crisis in America has shone a light on how a combination of increased heroin use, dubious prescription and pharmaceutical practices, and the increased amount of …

If your lower back hurts, you’re in good company. Back pain inflicts itself on almost everyone during their lives. But there are some unlucky folk who get injured, or have a degenerative disorder or neuropathic condition that leaves them in chronic pain. And for people who have pain doctors can’t …

In a paper published in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics (arXiv.org preprint), German physicists investigate the effects due to Universe’s extra dimensions — the existence of which is a critical but as yet unproven element of string theory — on ‘ripples’ in the fabric of space and time …

Three carved skull fragments uncovered at Göbekli Tepe, a Neolithic site in southeast Turkey known for its impressive megalithic architecture with characteristic T-shaped pillars, feature modifications not seen before among human remains of the time. The finds could indicate a new, previously undocumented variation of ‘skull cult’ in the Early …

According to a team of researchers from the Medical University of Vienna, Austria, a variety of organ systems, including liver and spleen, are involved in the co-ordination of the organism’s response to a heart attack, a medical emergency in which the supply of blood to the heart is suddenly and …

Several human studies on consumption of mango (Mangifera indica) have found multiple health benefits associated with the fruit including improved blood pressure, blood sugar control, and gut health. The findings were published recently in the FASEB Journal and presented at the 2017 Experimental Biology Conference. New research investigated the impact …

A new species of parrot has been discovered in the tropical forests of the Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico. Male (right) and female paratypes of the blue-winged amazon (Amazona gomezgarzai). Image credit: T. Silva et al, doi: 10.7717/peerj.3475. The colorful bird was first sighted in 2014 by Mexican veterinarian and ornithologist Dr. …

A new paper published in the Astronomical Journal suggests that the unusual tilt of some Kuiper Belt objects could be explained by a Mars-sized planet lurking in the outer solar system. To be clear, this hypothetical planet-sized mass is not the same thing as the hypothesized Planet 9 that we’ve …

A previously unknown mass extinction may have killed up to a third of large marine animals 2-3 million years ago, according to an international team of paleontologists. Carcharocles megalodon pursuing two prehistoric whales. Image credit: Karen Carr / CC BY 3.0. The team, led by Dr. Catalina Pimiento of the …

A Stockholm University-led team of physicists has discovered two low-temperature phases of liquid water with large differences in structure and density. An artist’s impression of the two forms of ultra-viscous liquid water with different density; on the background is depicted the X-ray speckle pattern taken from actual data of high-density …