Wiping out all life on Earth is hard, but causing mass extinctions is easy. Five major extinction events have occurred since the Cambrian explosion, each eradicating over 60% of terrestrial species. At least five extraterrestrial scenarios are capable of wiping humanity out.
Even if we don’t destroy ourselves, we always have the Universe to contend with.
The link between heart disease and depression could be inflammation, research suggests.
The two conditions have been heavily linked to each other for years but scientists have struggled to explain why this is.
Now experts have found inflammation — the body’s first line of defence — could be to blame.
Semen frozen back in 1968 has been used to impregnate dozens of Merino ewes, resulting in healthy lambs. The Australian scientists who made it happen say it’s the oldest sperm ever used to produce offspring.
A research team led by Simon de Graaf from the Sydney Institute of Agriculture and School of Life and Environmental Sciences impregnated 34 Merino ewes with the thawed out 50-year-old ram sperm, according to a University of Sydney press release. Incredibly, the sperm resulted in birth rates comparable to semen frozen for 12 months.
Following SpaceX’s successful debut launch, rendezvous, and recovery of Crew Dragon, NASA has published official photos documenting the scorched spacecraft’s Atlantic Ocean splashdown, GO Searcher’s recovery, and the duo’s return to Port Canaveral shortly thereafter.
Aside from offering a number of spectacularly detailed views of Crew Dragon after its inaugural orbital reentry, NASA’s photos also provide an exceptionally rare glimpse of the spacecraft’s PICA-X v3 heat shield, revealing a tiled layout that is quite a bit different from Cargo Dragon’s own shield. A step further, CEO Elon Musk offered updates on March 17th about progress being made towards a new, metallic heat shield technology meant to make ablative shields like those on Dragon outdated, serving as a striking bit of contrast to SpaceX’s newest spacecraft, potentially just a dozen or two months away from already becoming anachronistic.
A common calcium-channel blocking heart medication has been tentatively linked to increased risk of sudden cardiac arrest. The research comes from the European Sudden Cardiac Arrest network (ESCAPE-NET), though additional work is needed to determine whether the findings can be replicated. At the heart of the study were medications amlodipine and nifedipine, which are prescribed for high blood pressure and chest pain called angina.
