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Those of us in the Northern Hemisphere are firmly in the midst of cold and flu season and with that a new COVID-19 variant is making the headlines.   According to the CDC Data Tracker, there has been an uptick in reported cases involving the XEC variant.  While the variant KP 3.1.1 continues to account […]

You know those days where it feels like it just hasn’t stopped raining? Yeah, that’s got nothing on the Carnian pluvial event, otherwise known as the 1 to 2 million-year stretch of Earth’s history where a solid chance of rain was the rule, not the exception. What happened during the Carnian pluval event? It all […]

Perhaps you’re trying to grow your hair, get your skin glowing, or stop your nails from snapping all the time. A quick Google search or a scroll through TikTok, and you might be presented with biotin supplements as the magical solution. But what actually is biotin – and, most importantly, is it the miracle vitamin […]

Color blindness is a fairly common phenomenon, affecting approximately one in 12 men and one in 200 women worldwide. A much rarer condition is tetrachromacy–the total opposite of color blindness, tetrachromats might be privy to a world of color most of us can’t see. According to Healthline, the average person has the potential to perceive […]

How would you like to take a bath in Hell? It sounds like a particularly creative insult – but over in Japan, it’s actually a fairly popular tourist attraction.  Beppu, a small city in Ōita Prefecture, is an onsen town – a resort town built around the presence of hundreds of naturally occurring hot springs. […]

For humans, communication can be as easy as an eyebrow glance, a subtle cough, or even an emoji. Plants, on the other hand, don’t have eyes, ears, or the ability to use an iPhone, so how exactly do they communicate with one another? Phone a fungal friend As a plant, having the ability to warn […]

It’s dark, cold, and wet. No, we’re not talking about your winter commute to work, but the depths of the ocean – and while we might know the route to the office like the back of our hand, there’s still plenty to find out about the deep sea. Hydrothermal vents The deep ocean is a […]

There are some numbers that are just a bit special. Pi, for example. 42. Zero. And of course, 13,532,385,396,179. What’s that? You’ve not heard of the special qualities of the number thirteen trillion, five hundred and thirty-two billion, three hundred and eighty-five million, three hundred and ninety-six thousand, one hundred seventy-nine? It may look randomly chosen, but in […]

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In the Northern Hemisphere, winter is coming – and with it the usual cavalcade of respiratory viruses. COVID-19 continues to loom large with the latest XEC variant, we’re teetering on the precipice of the flu season, and there’s the perhaps lesser-known but still important respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) to contend with. Put them all together, […]

You ever looked at Oklahoma and thought, huh? What’s up with that long thin bit sitting on top of Texas like that? Or Maryland, the state that’s basically broken in two pieces – what happened there? Why does Florida go so far west despite mostly being content as America’s wang, and why does Alaska have […]

The migration of wildebeest in a massive loop around the plains of the Serengeti is undoubtedly one of the most spectacular events on Earth, but it turns out it may have a rival when it comes to the title of the largest animal migration of all.  Take a look at biomass – in this case, […]

This week on Break It Down: the Sun has entered its solar maximum bringing new auroras and geomagnetic storms, a chance find of a thylacine head in a jar could be the next step in the de-extinction of the species, microplastics have been discovered in the breath of wild dolphins for the first time, why […]

Eclipses are not exclusive to our planet. While the Moon certainly makes it spectacular, often covering the Sun completely (at least for the next 600 million years), the other natural satellites in the Solar System cast their shadows too. And on Mars, humanity is lucky to have two working robots and two moons – multiple […]

From time to time, every few hundred thousand years or so, the Earth’s magnetic poles have been known to “flip” – but why? And what does this mean for us as a species? What is a magnetic pole reversal? During a pole reversal, Earth’s magnetic poles swap locations. Essentially, the north pole is transformed into […]

Ovulation – it’s the point at which an egg cell is mature enough that it’s ready to leave its cozy home inside a fluid-filled sac within an ovary. That’s all there is to it, right? Wrong. In fact, thanks to new live imaging techniques, researchers have now showcased the process in previously unseen detail. Much […]

Throughout October early risers get to see more meteors than usual, thanks to several showers, particularly the Orionids. The Orionids are one of the longer meteor showers, being seen from October 2 to November 7; but like all showers they have a peak when the sky show is best, and that’s usually on October 21 […]

With a depth of 592 meters (1,943 feet), Crater Lake in Oregon is the deepest lake in the United States. It’s so deep that a giant could stack six Statues of Liberty on top of the other within the lake and it still wouldn’t breach the surface. As its name suggests, Crater Lake is a […]

The Antonov An-225 Mriya was the biggest plane to ever take to the skies. Unfortunately, the colossal aircraft is no longer with us as it was destroyed during the open stages of the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War. Often known simply as Mriya, which means “dream” or “inspiration” in Ukrainian, the plane had a length of 84 […]

Toxic molecules might be extremely common in both tap and bottled water in many places around the world. Analysis of drinking water from 15 countries shows the presence of Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) in over 99 percent of sampled bottled water from Asia, Europe, North America, and Oceania. PFOA and PFOS are […]