State is the fifth to legalize environmentally friendly process that allows for natural reduction of human remains to soilCalifornia lawmakers have approved a new way of returning those who have died to the earth, after Gavin Newsom signed into law a bill allowing human composting on Sunday.Cremation, which accounts for more than half of burials, is an energy-intensive process that emits...
Shuffling and studying the pictures on tarot cards can be like a moment of meditationMy first attempts with tarot readings began on a camping trip with a couple of close friends and their friends. It was Christmas before the pandemic and just before the rains.The ground was so thirsty that the deepest waterholes in the creek were stagnant (and carrying some kind of parasite, we heard later)....
Findings will help build more accurate picture of how often space rocks crash into red planetResearchers have located fresh craters on Mars using shock waves caused by lumps of space rock as they tear through the sky and slam into the ground.The new scars on the face of the planet are the first impact craters ever traced from the bang and crash of hurtling meteoroids bombarding another planet. The...
The answer to today’s puzzleEarlier today I set you the following puzzle about a hypothetical new Covid variant.Just in case this is the first article you have ever read on viruses: R is the reproduction number, meaning the average number of infections caused by any infected person. Continue...
The students traveled to salt lakes to collect specimens of unknown arachnids living in the harsh environmentA pair of California scorpion species that may have crawled under the radar for tens of thousands of years have finally been exposed – thanks to the efforts of two Bay Area teenagers. And for one at-risk species, the students’ work could prove life-saving.Prakrit Jain of Los Altos and...
How would it spread?The UK’s autumn Covid-19 booster programme is underway, with approximately 26 million people eligible to receive a jab over the next few months.Today’s puzzle imagines a hypothetical new variant, and asks the solver to think about how it would spread. It was set by Professor Adam Kucharski of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, one of the UK’s leading...
Official Wu Zunyou also called for people to avoid ‘skin-to-skin contact’ with those who had been abroad recently, as well as ‘strangers’ A senior Chinese health official has advised people to avoid physical contact with foreigners to prevent possible monkeypox infection after the first known case of the virus on mainland China was reported on Friday.“To prevent possible monkeypox...