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How does virtual-reality therapy for PTSD work? Robert N. McLay, author of At War with PTSD: Battling Post Traumatic Stress Disorder with Virtual Reality, responds: post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can appear after someone has survived a horrific experience, such as war or sexual assault. A person with PTSD often experiences ongoing nightmares, edginess and extreme emotional changes and may view anything that evokes the traumatic situation as a threat. Although medications and talk therapy can help calm the symptoms of PTSD, the most effective therapies often require confronting the trauma, as with virtual-reality-based treatments....

The following is excerpted from the e-book Bloomberg’s Hidden Legacy, by Katherine Bagley and Maria Gallucci. InsideClimate News, November 2013. In the fall of 2006, Michael Bloomberg was comfortably installed in New York City Hall, a two-century-old building near the mouth of the Brooklyn Bridge, just blocks from Wall Street. He was a year into his second term as mayor and his approval ratings hovered above 70 percent. The economy was flourishing....

The first interstellar asteroid ever discovered in our solar system remains silent, at least for now. An initial search for artificial signals coming from ‘Oumuamua, the needle-shaped interloper that zoomed past Earth two months ago, have come up empty, scientists with the $100 million Breakthrough Listen project announced today (Dec. 14). But researchers aren’t done analyzing the data that came in from the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia yesterday (Dec....

I have seen the future, and it is now. Those words came to mind again as I recently listened to Craig Venter, one of those leading the new areas of synthetic genomics and synthetic biology. Every time I hear a talk on this subject, it seems a new threshold in the artificial manipulation and, ultimately, creation of life has been passed. Consider just some of the progress associated with the J....

The Solar System just got a lot more far-flung. Astronomers have discovered a probable dwarf planet that orbits the Sun far beyond Pluto, in the most distant trajectory known. Together with Sedna, a similar extreme object discovered a decade ago, the find is reshaping ideas about how the Solar System came to be. “It goes to show that there’s something we don’t know about our Solar System, and it’s something important,” says co-discoverer Chad Trujillo, an astronomer at Gemini Observatory in Hilo, Hawaii....

Red lights are flashing, but Ben Johnson pays them no mind. The long, lean, weathered engineer rests against a counter lined with computer monitors, describing life in the tar sands mines of Alberta, Canada. His task is to take a mud made of ore and water and “liberate the bitumen,” a tarlike oil that can be refined into conventional crude oil. He and two colleagues man a monitoring station that sits near the base of a cone-shaped structure the size of a three-story building....

NASA wants to visit Mars in the 2030s. In pursuit of that goal it first plans to launch a space tug with a daunting mission: catch an asteroid and relocate it to orbit the moon. Astronauts would then travel to the asteroid as a test run for missions of longer distances, but controversy surrounds the program and its fate may be sealed before it can begin. For those staying on Earth, geologists reconstructed the ancient topography of the American West from an unexpected resource: the signatures of rain that fell millions of years ago....

Plastic’s durability helped to make it a popular miracle material in the early 20th century. Its omnipresence, however, may now be disrupting ecosystems in some surprising ways. A new study by researchers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif., shows that the concentration of plastic has increased by 100 times over the past 40 years in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre—an enormous calm spot in the middle of a clockwise rotation of ocean currents that falls between East Asia and the West Coast of the U....

Imagine giving birth and caring for a newborn without support. During the coronavirus pandemic, mothers are doing exactly this amid changing hospital policies and social distancing guidelines. The experience is even more harrowing for women of color, particularly non-Hispanic Black women, who are more than three times as likely to experience maternal death as compared with non-Hispanic white women. The postpartum period is filled with newborn snuggles but also sleep deprivation and hours of infant screams—two methods used to train Navy SEALs to withstand torture....

Those trying to get a glimpse of what the future holds for the global climate may want to dig into the past. The earth’s last major warm period probably witnessed relatively high concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere–similar to the upper limit of concentrations we might expect in the coming century–according to an analysis of ancient mineral deposits. The clues come from the period of time between 49 and 56 million years ago, called the Eocene....

In the fall of 2004 a dozen conservation biologists gathered on a ranch in New Mexico to ponder a bold plan. The scientists, trained in a variety of disciplines, ranged from the grand old men of the field to those of us earlier in our careers. The idea we were mulling over was the reintroduction of large vertebrates–megafauna–to North America. Most of these animals, such as mammoths and cheetahs, died out roughly 13,000 years ago, when humans from Eurasia began migrating to the continent....

Veteran campers and hikers know the drill, especially those in areas where mountain lions roam. And anyone who doesn’t need only consult the Web site of the California Department of Fish and Game for the best tack to take if he or she happens upon a big cat while communing with nature: “Do not run from a lion,” the site advises, warning that “running may stimulate a mountain lion’s instinct to chase....

By Reuters Staff GENEVA (Reuters) - Adults and children must cut the amount of sugar they consume by as much as half in North America and Western Europe and even more in other areas to lower risk of obesity and tooth decay, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday. New guidelines meant people should reduce the amount to less than 10% of their daily energy intake - or to about 50 grams or 12 teaspoons of sugar for adults, experts at the U....

Editor’s Note: The following is an excerpt from the introduction of the new book Ordinary Geniuses: Max Delbrück, George Gamow and the Origins of Genomics and Big Bang Cosmology by Gino Segrè. Copyright (c) 2011 by Gino Segrè. “I decided to choose myself a corner where nobody was doing anything, so I chose nuclear physics.” –George Gamow “Don’t do fashionable research.” –Max Delbrück A freshman in my Introductory Physics class recently asked me what I thought were the most exciting areas in science today....

One afternoon in the mid-1980s I was sitting in a park on a blanket beside my dog when a Frisbee rolled up and hit me in the back. I turned around and spotted two guys standing a short distance away with hopeful looks. After standing to return their Frisbee, I moved to sit back down, when, to my surprise, the two strangers threw the disk back to me—an invitation. We formed a triangle on the grass, beginning a spontaneous game of three-way toss....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. Alure (Wall Walk) The walkway along the higher and interior part of a wall which often gives access to the higher floors of towers within the wall. Typically protected by battlements. Apse A semicircular projecting part of a building, usually vaulted. Advertisement Arcade An area of columned arches....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. The Cycladic islands of the Aegean were first inhabited by voyagers from Asia Minor around 3000 BCE and a certain prosperity was achieved thanks to the wealth of natural resources on the islands such as gold, silver, copper, obsidian and marble. This prosperity allowed for a flourishing of the arts and the uniqueness of Cycladic art is perhaps best illustrated by their clean-lined and minimalistic sculpture which is amongst the most distinctive art produced throughout the Bronze Age Aegean....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. As the cradle of European Civilization and a meeting place of diverse cultures, Crete is a magical island that stands apart in the heart of the Mediterranean sea. Its prominent place in world history dates back to the mysterious and fascinating Bronze Age civilization of the Minoans, who were building lavish labyrinth-like palaces at a time when Athens was just a village....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. History (from the Greek ἱστορία, meaning ‘a learning or knowing by inquiry’) can be broadly taken to indicate the past in general but is usually defined as the study of the past from the point at which there were written sources onwards. There are obstacles that make it so we do not have a crystal clear, uninterrupted view of the past....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. In 2017 CE, Uppsala University archaeologist Charlotte Hedenstierna-Jonson published her study of a Viking grave discovered in Birka, Sweden in the 1800’s CE which she and her team had revisited. She claimed that what was formerly understood as a Viking warrior’s grave was that of a woman, confirmed by DNA tests, and that this proved that female Viking warriors existed during the Viking Age (c....