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People turn to religion for comfort and hope in times of crisis and uncertainty, and March 2020 was one of those times. Americans experienced a spike in distress during this tumultuous period, but is it possible that religion could have spared some Americans from that distress? To measure the impact of religion during the early days of the COVID pandemic in the United States, I analyzed data from about 12,000 Americans surveyed March 19–24, shortly after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global health pandemic....

At Sanofi Pasteur, we believe in a world in which no one suffers or dies from a vaccine-preventable disease. As the world’s leading manufacturer of influenza vaccines, we know influenza is still one of the most devastating, yet under-appreciated, diseases of modern society, despite the availability of effective vaccines. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), seasonal influenza epidemics are estimated to result in 3 to 5 million cases of severe illness worldwide and 290,000 to 650,000 deaths annually1....

Dear EarthTalk: Coastal areas here in the U.S. have taken a real beating in recent years due to natural disasters that many would argue are due to changing climate. What’s being done to safeguard these communities for when, say, the next Katrina hits?—Helen Kelman, Troy, N.Y. Coastal regions in the U.S. are more popular—and more heavily populated—than ever. But even before the effects of global warming started to kick in, reports the non-profit World Resources Institute, more than half of the coastal ecosystems of the world—including the vast majority of America’s coastlines—were reeling from threats including habitat destruction, sewage outflows, industrial pollution and the impacts of non-native species introductions....

A new sentry is on guard atop the Haleakala volcano in Hawaii, scanning the skies for potentially threatening asteroids and comets. The first of four telescopes planned for the Pan-STARRS project, short for Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System, began a dedicated survey of the sky May 13. Pan-STARRS 1 (PS1) is a modest-size telescope, just 1.8 meters in diameter, but it has an extremely wide field of view, making it an ideal instrument for surveying....

When people say they can smell a storm coming, they’re right. Weather patterns produce distinctive odors that sensitive noses sniff out. This year’s peculiar weather patterns—such as drought in the Midwest and a “super derecho” of thunderstorms earlier this summer—are no exception. In fact, as the rains return after a dryspell, many of these odors are stronger than ever. So, what are the scents of a summer storm? Here’s a breakdown of three common odors:...

Like most birds, the great tit is (mostly) monogamous. Every winter pairs of the stunning yellow-breasted songbirds (above) reunite for the upcoming breeding season and spend the bulk of their time together—staking out territory, building nests and even foraging. The strength of their bond is palpable, but what would happen if the birds were forced to choose between love and food? To find out, University of Oxford zoologist Josh A. Firth and his colleagues arranged a set of feeders in a forest near the English countryside....

Reprinted with permission from The Man of Numbers: Fibonacci’s Arithmetic Revolution, by Keith Devlin. Copyright © 2011, by Bloomsbury Publishing. Your days are numbered Try to imagine a day without numbers. Never mind a day, try to imagine getting through the first hour without numbers: no alarm clock, no time, no date, no TV or radio, no stock market report or sports results in the newspapers, no bank account to check....

J. Scott Yaruss, associate professor in communication science and disorders at the University of Pittsburgh School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences and co-director of the Stuttering Center of Western Pennsylvania, explains. Stuttering is a communication disorder generally characterized by involuntary disruptions in the flow of speech. These disfluencies can take many forms, such as repetitions of parts of words (li-li-like this) and moments when a sound or a period of silence is prolonged (lllllike this or l—–ike this)....

Last night, British-born actress Natasha Richardson, 45, was rushed from Montreal to New York City in critical condition after a seemingly minor fall on a Quebec ski slope apparently led to bleeding in her brain. Richardson, who won a Tony for her role in the Broadway play Cabaret and has also starred in a string of films including The Parent Trap and Maid in Manhattan, is the daughter of actress Vanessa Redgrave and the wife of actor Liam Neeson, 56, with whom she has two sons, ages 12 and 13....

A climate deal between the United States and China could spur new regulations on vehicle-efficiency standards, refrigerant pollutants and methane emissions from the oil and gas sector, launching a new round of executive action that is sure to raise objections from a Republican-dominated Congress. President Obama agreed Tuesday to cut greenhouse gas emissions between 26 and 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025, effectively doubling the U.S. pace for reductions, according to the White House....

There are several serious and acute causes of low back pain, which you need to watch out for. These include trauma, urine or bowel difficulties, numbness, motor deficits, and several others. Keep reading to find out whether you should worry about low back pain. Low back pain is the 5th most common reason that drive people to the doctor ‘s office. It’s also typically a benign and self-limiting condition. However, there are some uncommon but more serious causes of low back pain....

Twenty years ago stroke doctors celebrated the arrival of a powerful new weapon: the clot-clearing drug tPA. It was hailed as a lifesaver and has proved to be one for hundreds of thousands of patients since. TPA was the first and is still the only medicine approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for treating strokes caused by clots that block blood flow to the brain. But like so many medical marvels, tPA (which stands for tissue plasminogen activator) has turned out to have serious limitations....

Dear EarthTalk: Is it true that there has been an increase in uranium mining in the U.S. due to a renewed interest in nuclear energy? What are the health and environmental ramifications of this?—Paul Raffman, New Bedford, Mass. The big boom for American uranium mining was in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and the U.S. remained the world’s leading producer of the radioactive element for many years until 1980 when U....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. Music and dance were highly valued in ancient Egyptian culture, but they were more important than is generally thought: they were integral to creation and communion with the gods and, further, were the human response to the gift of life and all the experiences of the human condition....

CLIMATEWIRE | The Dallas area is still reeling from record-breaking downpours that triggered flash floods across northeastern Texas last week. The event swamped houses, submerged vehicles and prompted hundreds of emergency rescues. At least one death has been reported so far. The sheer volume of rain was stunning, with some locations receiving more than a foot. But the deluge was all the more surprising because Dallas has been choked by severe drought for months....

Australia’s catastrophic brush fire season comes as the country continues to insist on a climate loophole that critics say would undermine the Paris Agreement’s objective of keeping global warming to relatively safe levels. The fires that began in September were the result of record heat and drought that scientists say is consistent with climate change — and likely to worsen if the world misses its chance this decade to limit warming to 1....

In the steel and Plexiglas chambers that make up Nathan McDowell’s research station near the Bandelier National Monument in New Mexico, the future of regional forests is playing out in miniature. McDowell is baking trees. Inside the chambers, temperatures climb 9 degrees Fahrenheit above the desert’s already blistering averages. Meanwhile, precipitation, never abundant in this corner of the country, is cut by half. This is the kind of climate that the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projects for the Southwest within the next half-century, as global warming drives heat and aridity in an already hot, dry region....

By Daria Sito-Sucic and Marko Djurica MAGLAJ Bosnia/KRUPANJ Serbia (Reuters) - Bosnia said on Monday that more than a quarter of its 4 million people had been affected by the worst floods to hit the Balkans in living memory, comparing the “terrifying” destruction to that of the country’s 1992-95 war. The extent of the devastation became apparent in Serbia too, as waters receded in some of the worst-hit areas to reveal homes toppled or submerged in mud, trees felled and villages strewn with the rotting corpses of livestock....

By Malia Mattoch McManus HONOLULU (Reuters) - A volcanic lava flow that threatens a subdivision on Hawaii’s Big Island has shifted slightly, potentially sparing some homes but increasing the number of residents who may be “lava-locked” if the flow overtakes a highway, a civil defense official said on Tuesday. The lava flow from the continuously erupting Kilauea volcano is moving through forested terrain toward the Kaohe Homesteads subdivision, and after a recent tack northward could reach nearby Highway 130 within 16 to 18 days, according to Hawaiian Volcano Observatory projections....

Bob Ackley may be the only person who has driven up and down every single street – 1,500 miles total – in Washington, D.C. While Ackley, a plain-speaking New Englander, enjoyed exploring the nation’s capital, which he described as “beautiful,” this was serious business. He was measuring leaks of methane, a potent greenhouse gas that is also the main component of natural gas. Measured in terms of warming the atmosphere, methane is 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide....