Scientists transform water into shiny, golden metal
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Look up! Saturn shines bright, shows off rings as it reaches opposition.
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(Pixabay)
Gear up for Saturn's annual show in the night sky!
Starting Monday (Aug. 2), you can find Saturn shining in the sky as part of a celestial phenomenon called opposition. Earth and the ringed planet will be on the same side of the sun and connected with our star by an invisible line, allowing skygazers on Earth to see a fully illuminated Saturn. Saturn reaches this brightest point at about 2 a.m. EDT (0600 GMT) on Monday, according to the website EarthSky.org. It will be highest in the sky around midnight local time and located in the constellation Capricornus. Skywatchers will be able to spot several gems, the most obvious being Saturn's rings.
Full Story: LiveScience (8/1)
How 350 vaccinated people caught COVID-19 in huge Cape Cod outbreak
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(Barry Chin/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
A large COVID-19 outbreak in a Cape Cod town has changed health officials' understanding of the coronavirus delta variant, and played a key role in the decision to recommend masks indoors even for people fully vaccinated against the virus.
The outbreak occurred in Provincetown, Massachusetts, after July 4 celebrations, and has led to nearly 900 COVID-19 infections, according to local news outlet WHDH. Health officials soon realized that many of the infected people were fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Such "breakthrough cases" were previously thought to be rare.
Full Story: LiveScience (7/30)
Beat-up duck-billed dinosaur had cracked tailbones and 'cauliflower' tumor.
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(José Antonio Peñas (SINC))
A dinosaur that lived about 70 million years ago suffered from fractured tailbones and a "cauliflower-like" foot tumor, a new fossil analysis shows. But despite these painful maladies, the dinosaur survived for some time after it was hurt.
When late paleontologist Jaime Eduardo Powell discovered the skeleton in Argentina's Río Negro Province in the 1980s, he observed that one of the feet was injured, and he described the injury as a possible fracture. However, when researchers recently reexamined the fossil, they found that the foot deformity was instead caused by a large, possibly cancerous tumor.
Full Story: LiveScience (7/30)
What does the edge of the solar system look like?
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(MARK GARLICK/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY via Getty Images)
Earth is the sixth planet from the edge of the solar system, meaning we're none too near this cold and inhospitable frontier. But we've sent out various spacecraft over the years, so do we have any idea what the edge of the solar system looks like?
The answer is yes, but it's a work in progress. One of the latest developments, a 3D map of the solar system's edge that took 13 years to create, revealed a few more secrets about this mysterious boundary, called the outer heliosphere.
Full Story: LiveScience (8/2)
Why did the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima leave shadows of people etched on sidewalks?
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(Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Black shadows of humans and objects, like bicycles, were found scattered across the sidewalks and buildings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, two of the largest cities in Japan, in the wake of the atomic blast detonated over each city on Aug. 6 and 9, 1945, respectively.
It's hard to fathom that these shadows likely encapsulated each person's last moments. But how did these shadows come to be?
Full StoryScience (8/1)
What's the hottest temperature the human body can endure?
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(Uwe Krejci via Getty Images)
With climate change causing temperatures to rise across the globe, extreme heat is becoming more and more of a health threat. The human body is resilient, but it can only handle so much. So what is the highest temperature people can endure?
Full Story: LiveScience (7/31)
Scientists transform water into shiny, golden metal
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(HZB)
In a mind-mending experiment, scientists transformed purified water into metal for a few fleeting seconds, thus allowing the liquid to conduct electricity.
Unfiltered water can already conduct electricity — meaning negatively charged electrons can easily flow between its molecules — because unfiltered water contains salts, according to a statement about the new study. However, purified water contains only water molecules, whose outermost electrons remain bound to their designated atoms, and thus, they can't flow freely through the water.
Theoretically, if one applied enough pressure to pure water, the water molecules would squish together and their valence shells, the outermost ring of electrons surrounding each atom, would overlap. This would allow the electrons to flow freely between each molecule and would technically turn the water into a metal.
Full Story: LiveScience (7/30)
Astronomers catch fizzled-out gamma-ray burst from supernova
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(International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/J. da Silva/M. Zamani (NSF's NOIRLab))
A fizzled example of a gamma-ray burst, the most powerful kind of explosion known in the universe, suggests these outbursts may not always work the way that scientists thought, and that versions of these flares can be surprisingly brief, researchers say.
A typical gamma-ray burst unleashes more energy in a few milliseconds to minutes than the sun is expected to emit during its entire 10-billion-year lifetime. Astronomers classify gamma-ray bursts as long or short based on whether the outbursts lasts for more or less than two seconds. Previous research suggested that short gamma-ray bursts result from the mergers of two neutron stars and long gamma-ray bursts are linked to a catastrophic explosion known as a supernova. Now scientists have discovered a short gamma-ray burst that formed the same way that long gamma-ray bursts are normally thought to, from a single giant star's demise.
Full Story: LiveScience (8/2)
What's happening inside Simone Biles' brain when the 'twisties' set in?
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(Getty/ MARTIN BUREAU / Contributor)
American gymnast Simone Biles withdrew from several Olympic events this week, including the latest withdrawal from the vault and uneven bars finals, after experiencing a case of "the twisties" — what gymnasts describe as losing control of their body mid-trick and losing sense of where they are in the air. The sensation is not only disorienting, it's dangerous and can lead to serious injury.
So what's happening when a case of the twisties strikes? Live Science asked experts to find out.
Full Story: LiveScience (7/31)
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