Tag Archives: ScienceAlert

Walk through any trendy suburb and you might find a new “wellness” studio offering ice baths or “contrast therapy” (a sauna and ice bath combo). Scroll social media, and you’re likely to come across influencers preaching the cold plunge gospel with cult-like zeal. Ice baths have gone mainstream. Initially practised mainly among high-performance athletes, cold water immersion is now a …

An extinct genus of ray-finned fish that lived during the Jurassic period seems to have had quite the penchant for overreaching. A new analysis of fossilized Tharsis fish reveals that the carnivorous marine animals seem to have frequently met their end with large cephalopods known as belemnites lodged quite fatally in their gullets. According to paleontologists Martin Ebert and Martina …

The second half of July and the early days of August are the perfect time to get outside and look at the night sky. That’s when three of the year’s best meteor showers peak, each with their own special idiosyncrasies. For the Northern Hemisphere, the balmy temperatures of summer will make meteor-spotting the perfect activity, while in the south, longer …

The blue shark (Prionace glauca) might be more than its name. Scientists investigating the sleek ocean predator’s skin discovered nanostructures that not only produce its signature hue, but also potentially let it change color like a chameleon. Animals produce their colors in various ways. Some rely on pigmented cells that reflect a color by selectively removing wavelengths from ambient light, …

Protoplanetary disks made of gas and dust form around young stars, and this is where planets from. These disks don’t last forever. Eventually, the star’s energetic output dissipates the disk through photoevaporation, the material gets taken up in planets, and the planet-forming process ceases. All young stars are expected to have protoplanetary disks, and these dusty environments make it difficult …

The effects of climate change could awaken hundreds of volcanoes worldwide – which in turn could worsen the effects of climate change. According to recent models predicting changes in the magma beneath Patagonia’s glaciers, the retreat of ice has the power to shake subglacial volcanoes out of their slumber. The world isn’t at imminent risk of volcanic bombardment, but the …

We celebrate our birthdays on the same day each year, but the truth is that different parts of our bodies are aging at different speeds. New research suggests brain age could be a strong predictor for lifespan. This comes from a team from Stanford University, who applied a blood analysis technique on records of 44,498 individuals in a UK health …

Want to remember things better as you get older? The secret might be surprisingly simple: focus on feeling good. Recent research involving over 10,000 people aged 50 and above has found that people with higher wellbeing perform better on memory tests as they age. The study, which followed participants for 16 years, checked their wellbeing and memory every two years. …