Smaug, the deadly dragon in J.R.R Tolkien’s “The Hobbit,” has a few living relatives. With dense, alligator-like armor, these small, real-life dragon lizards are rock-crevice recluses mostly confined to mountaintops in southern Africa. Now, herpetologists Michael Bates, a curator at South Africa’s National Museum in Bloemfontein, and Edward Stanley of the Florida Museum of Natural History have discovered a […]

Smaug, the deadly dragon in J.R.R Tolkien’s “The Hobbit,” has a few living relatives. With dense, alligator-like armor, these small, real-life dragon lizards are rock-crevice recluses mostly confined to mountaintops in southern Africa. Now, herpetologists Michael Bates, a curator at South Africa’s National Museum in Bloemfontein, and Edward Stanley of the Florida Museum of Natural History have discovered a […]

New Zealand’s largest fault is a jumble of mixed-up rocks of all shapes, sizes, compositions and origins. According to research from a global team of scientists, this motley mixture could help explain why the fault generates slow-motion earthquakes known as “slow slip events” as well as destructive, tsunami-generating tremors. “One thing that really surprised us […]

Running is great exercise but not everyone feels great doing it. In hopes of boosting physical activity – and possibly creating a new mode of transportation – engineers at Stanford University are studying devices that people could strap to their legs to make running easier. In experiments with motor-powered systems that mimic such devices – […]

A new study in The Economic Journal, published by Oxford University Press, suggests that migrating extremists can shape political developments in their destination regions for generations. Regions in Austria that witnessed an influx of Nazis fleeing the Soviets after WWII are significantly more right-leaning than other parts of the country. There were no such regional differences […]

A study from the University of Surrey has provided a comprehensive guide on which tree species are best for combatting air pollution that originates from our roads – along with suggestions for how to plant these green barriers to get the best results. In a paper published in npj Climate and Atmospheric Science, air pollution experts […]

Researchers in the cancer nanomedicine community debate whether use of tiny structures, called nanoparticles, can best deliver drug therapy to tumors passively — allowing the nanoparticles to diffuse into tumors and become held in place, or actively — adding a targeted anti-cancer molecule to bind to specific cancer cell receptors and, in theory, keep the […]

People say life gets better with age. Now research suggests this may be because older people have the wisdom and time to use mindfulness as a means to improve wellbeing. Healthy ageing researchers at Flinders University say certain characteristics of mindfulness seem more strongly evident in older people compared to younger people – and suggest […]

It’s now accepted that gut-barrier dysfunction and gut-derived chronic inflammation play a role in human aging, but how that process is regulated is still largely a mystery. A team led by Richard Hodin, MD, chief of the Division of General and Gastrointestinal Surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) has uncovered an important piece of the […]

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Until next time,

Russ Roberts

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