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4 articles from ScienceNOW
Light pollution is drowning the starry night sky faster than thought
The star pattern Western astronomers call Orion has long drawn our eyes to the night skies. Some
Ki’che’ Maya
people see it as a cosmic hearth. For the Khoisan people of southern Africa, it’s an archer confronting zebras and a lion. Meanwhile the Carib people of South America see a one-legged hunter named Epietembo. But future generations might wonder what all the...
News at a glance: Global warming, China’s COVID-19 deaths, and JWST’s exoplanet investigations
CLIMATE SCIENCE
In 2022, Earth set new records for warming
Temperatures continued to rise at an alarming pace in 2022, which became the fifth- or sixth-hottest year in modern history, U.S. and European science agencies reported last week. Earth’s average recorded surface temperatures were some 1.2°C warmer than preindustrial times. Nearly 30...
Study links viral infections to Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s—with many caveats
A massive data mining study has found numerous associations between common viruses like the flu and devastating neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease). The findings expand on previous research linking individual viruses to neurological diseases. But experts caution that...
Unlucky numbers: Fighting murder convictions that rest on shoddy stats
Statistician Richard Gill has helped exonerate nurses accused of killing multiple patients