Blackpoll warblers (Setophaga striata) that breed in western North America migrate up to 12,400 miles (20,000 km) roundtrip each year, some crossing the entire North American continent before making a nonstop trans-ocean flight of up to four days to South America. A new study, published in the journal Ecology, confirms the epic migration journey that […]

A unique leaded-gunmetal disk with iconic Portuguese markings recovered from the Sodré shipwreck site in Al Hallaniyah, Oman, has been identified as an early mariner’s astrolabe, according to a paper published in the International Journal of Nautical Archaeology. Accurate digital measurements of regular scale marks on the limb of the artifact’s upper right quadrant show […]

Latent herpes viruses such as herpes-simplex-1 (HSV-1), Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), varicella-zoster virus (VZV), and cytomegalovirus (CMV) reactivate in more than half of crew aboard Space Shuttle (10-16 days) and International Space Station (over 180 days) missions, according to a study published in the journal Frontiers in Microbiology. “NASA astronauts endure weeks or even months exposed […]

An international team of neuroscientists and geoscientists from Caltech, the University of Tokyo, Princeton University and Tokyo Institute of Technology has discovered that the human brain can detect Earth-strength magnetic fields. The Earth is surrounded by a magnetic field, generated by the movement of the planet’s liquid core. At the planetary surface, this magnetic field […]

In a study published in the Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry, mice fed a diet of 2% green tea extract fared far better than those that ate a diet without it; the benefits stemmed from improved gut health, including more beneficial bacteria in the animals’ intestines and the reduced permeability of their intestinal wall. Green tea […]