Category: Science

Black Hole Hunters Cast Gaze at Center of the Milky Way Galaxy

WASHINGTON—Residing at the center of our spiral-shaped Milky Way galaxy is a beast—a supermassive black hole possessing 4 million times the mass of our sun and consuming any material including gas, dust, and stars straying within its immense gravitational pull. Scientists have been using the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), a global network of observatories working…


Addressing Addiction, Australia Reconsiders Opioid Pain Relief Treatment

The Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care (ACSQHC) is encouraging Australia’s healthcare professionals to reconsider opioid treatment as it is currently administered. At least one prescription for opioids is dispensed to more than three million people annually, according to 2016-2017 statistics collected by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. However, although opioids are…


Daughter Beguiled Into Believing She Was Male, Took Hormones: Mother Discusses Her Child’s Detransition

A week before Emma* turned 18, she told her family that she was a boy. “We were really sceptical,” said her mother, Judith Hunter, “She had no history of gender dysphoria, and she was at the end of three years of very poor mental health.” Despite the family’s objection, Emma visited a gender clinic in…


The Misinformation of Medical Misinformation

I, like most OB-GYN physicians nationwide, received a very strange email from the Office of the Surgeon General through the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology. “The Office of the Surgeon General is seeking input from providers on the impact and prevalence of health-related misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Through a ‘Request for Information’ (RFI),…


Scientists Find Age-Related Vision Impairment Not Indicative of Cognitive Impairment

A study conducted by the University of South Australia has gone against the common literature relating poor eyesight to brain decline, finding that cognitive tests can misdiagnose older people with age-related vision decline with cognitive decline by up to 25 percent. “A mistaken score in cognitive tests could have devastating ramifications, leading to unnecessary changes…


‘No New Investment in Fossil Fuel Expansion’: UN Chief

Antonio Guterres, current head of the United Nations and former president of Socialist International, has asserted there must be “no new investment in fossil fuel expansion” and that private finance must totally divest from coal. “For too long, the financial services sector has enabled the world’s fossil fuel addiction. It is now time for financial…


Space Telescope in Home Stretch of Tests, Early Pics Impress

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.—NASA’s new space telescope is in the home stretch of testing, with science observations expected to begin in July, astronomers said Monday. The James Webb Space Telescope beamed back the latest test pictures of a neighboring satellite galaxy, and the results are stunning when compared with images taken by NASA’s previous infrared observatory,…


Good Neighbors Found to Be Important for Good Mental Health

Researchers from Australia have discovered through a nationally-representative survey that living in community-minded neighbourhoods can have a major impact on a person’s mental health. A survey undertaken by Australian National University (ANU) which monitored over 3000 people during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, showed that the social relationships provided within good neighbourhoods protect residents against anxiety,…


Marine Microbes Could Deliver Sustainable Nutrients for Supplements and Animal-Free Meat

South Australia’s pristine coastal waters are home to a fungus-like microbe that may be a key future ingredient in nutritional supplements, animal-free meat, medicines, and biofuels, researchers at Flinders University in South Australia have found. Medical biotechnology researcher at Flinders University’s College of Medicine and Public Health, Associate Professor Munish Puri, said in a release…


US and World Gripped by Fertilizer Crisis

“Fertilizer shortages are real now.” Uttered by USAID’s Samantha Power in a May 1 ABC interview with former Democratic advisor George Stephanopoulos, the words briefly drowned out the din of the news cycle. They were not unexpected to some. Power, who served as U.N. ambassador under Obama, mentioned fertilizer shortages after weeks of hints from…