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The neural activity and physical behavior of mice recovering from several stressful encounters may illustrate alternative ways that mammals respond to traumatic events. Researchers at the University of Texas (U.T.) Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas noticed that mice used two primary methods to cope with defeat after being repeatedly pummeled by larger, more aggressive foes: Some of the weaker members withdrew, avoiding all types of social interaction for more than a month, whereas others rolled with the punches, so to speak, quickly bouncing back to their normal behavior....

People with middle-class incomes are the biggest adopters of rooftop solar in states with the largest markets, a study said yesterday. In Arizona, California and New Jersey, installations are “overwhelmingly” in neighborhoods where median incomes range from $40,000 to $90,000, the Center for American Progress (CAP) analysis said. “Middle-class homeowners are overwhelmingly taking advantage of rooftop solar,” said Mari Hernandez, research associate at CAP. “It really is becoming more of a middle-class tool and a middle-class energy resource....

Scientists have long known of dissimilarities in anatomy and activity between the brains of women and men—now a rodent study shows that even individual neurons behave differently depending on sex. Robert Clark of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and his colleagues found that cultured neurons from female rats and mice survived longer than did neurons from their male counterparts when facing starvation. Such sex differences had been evident for decades in other body tissues, but so far no one had looked at brain cells, Clark says....

Space exploration is entering a new era. Dozens of aerospace companies have emerged in recent years, all with the goal of commercializing space as never before. From serving NASA’s cargo needs to sending tourists on space vacations to mining asteroids for profit, this next generation of entrepreneurs, and not NASA, may be the ones who transform space into our backyard, possibly creating the first-ever trillionaires. Watch live at 7:30 p....

The U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to support sweeping legislation that will reshape the way the Food and Drug Administration approves new medicines. It will also provide funding for cancer and Alzheimer’s research, help fight the opioid epidemic, expand access to mental health treatment and advance research into precision medicine. Two years in the making, the 21st Century Cures Act was passed last week by the House of Representatives and will now go to President Barack Obama to sign into law....

The environmental community’s reviews of Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine (D) as presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s pick for vice president are in, and they range from “awesome” to “meh.” The mixed reviews appear to reflect a mixed record. Kaine supports offshore oil drilling and fast-tracking natural gas export terminals, but he was also considered instrumental in the battle against the Keystone XL oil pipeline. When he was governor of Virginia, his administration backed one of the last coal plants built in the country....

Even as population geneticists battle over the meaning of race, cline and “biogeographical ancestry,” a small industry has emerged out of the quest to understand human migration and identity. At least 11 companies offer individuals the ability to trace their African, Native American, Asian or European roots through DNA markers. One, Oxford Ancestors, will even help men learn if they carry the “heroic Y chromosome that flowed through the veins of the High Kings of Ireland” or inherited it “directly from Gen-ghis Khan....

Quick: Rate how much you agree with each of these items on a scale of 1 (“not me at all”) to 5 (“this is so me”): It is important to me that people who hurt me acknowledge that an injustice has been done to me. I think I am much more conscientious and moral in my relations with other people compared to their treatment of me. When people who are close to me feel hurt by my actions, it is very important for me to clarify that justice is on my side....

Unity Kinkaid finds it harder and harder to stay awake. She now sleeps for almost 20 hours a day. She used to dream; to shift in her sleep, muttering and sighing, locked in half-remembered fantasies … Now she lies unmoving, breath shallow and silent, lost to the world. Unity sleeps. —Neil Gaiman, The Sandman: Preludes & Nocturnes, 1991 In the above-cited comic, a necromancer imprisons Morpheus, an immortal who is master of sleep and dreams....

Robert Smith is professor emeritus and founding director of the department of family medicine at the University of Cincinnati and the founder of the University of Cincinnati Headache Center. He provides the following explanation: Ice cream headache is a fairly common condition and has been commented on in the medical literature since the 1850s. The cause is still a matter of some debate, however. Holding ice or a large amount of ice cream in the mouth, or swallowing a mouthful of cold food or drink, may cause discomfort or pain in the palate and throat....

Recently, while out walking my dog Jack, I encountered a blond woman pushing a toddler in a stroller while walking her dog. I stopped to chat, asking her how old her son was now, and she responded amiably. About a year and a half ago, three women on our block gave birth within a month of each other. One woman has blond hair and two have dark hair. They all have dogs....

Imagine that you’re at a summer barbeque, catching up with some friends, when you hear the sound of fire truck sirens going off in the distance. You might wonder whether there’s danger nearby, but you and your friends keep talking anyway, slightly louder now that you have to be heard over the noise. A few minutes later, the truck gets closer, and the sirens become so loud that trying to maintain conversation becomes futile....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. The ancient Egyptians had a great reverence for life in all its forms. Life had been given by the gods and reverence for it extended beyond human beings to all living things. Although the Egyptians did occasionally eat meat, and their royalty certainly engaged in the hunt, the Egyptian diet was primarily vegetarian or pescatarian, and this reflected the understanding of the sacred nature of all existence....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. The book of Jonah is the fifth book in the Christian canons and the Jewish Tanakh. It is one of ‘Trei Asar’ (The Twelve) prophets in the tanakh, and in Christian tradition as ‘oi dodeka prophetai’ or ’ton dodekapropheton’ , Greek for “The twelve prophets.” It is an important book to both religious traditions (Christianity and Jewish) because of its message of doom upon Israel’s long-time enemy - Assyria, whose capital was Nineveh....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. The Myth of Adapa (also known as Adapa and the Food of Life) is the Mesopotamian story of the Fall of Man in that it explains why human beings are mortal. The god of wisdom, Ea, creates the first man, Adapa, and endows him with great intelligence and wisdom but not with immortality, and when immortality is offered Adapa by the great god Anu, Ea tricks Adapa into refusing the gift....

The world’s military expenditure has nearly doubled since 2000. It now amounts to about $2 trillion per year, more than half of which is from NATO countries. Now, with the war raging in Ukraine, countries are rushing to increase their budgets even more; Germany, for instance, recently announced a roughly 30 percent increase of its military spending, with an additional €100 billion going into a special fund for its armed forces....

By Cassandra WillyardA family of proteins that pump molecules across the cell membrane may help to explain why yeast cells, and perhaps the cells of other organisms, are not able to go on producing copies of themselves forever. The same proteins may also partly explain how stem and cancer cells keep dividing.Yeast cells, much like our own cells, have a finite ability to reproduce themselves. A “mother” cell can only produce 20 to 30 “daughters” before it loses the ability to replicate and dies....

The most comprehensive survey yet completed of glaciers in the Antarctic has discovered widespread movement, especially in the past five years. The findings, published today in the journal Science, indicate that the rate of sea-level rise could increase if ice shelves in the area continue their retreat. Scientists with the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) analyzed data collected from studies of 244 marine glaciers on the Antarctic Peninsula over the past 50 years....

Twitchell Island, Sacramento County, California — Steve Deverel gazes out over a levee on the San Joaquin River to a buoy where half a dozen sea lions are barking. It’s a loud reminder that even here, 50 miles inland, some of California’s most productive farmland lies perilously close to the Pacific Ocean. At any moment, a weak spot in the more than 1,000 miles of earthen levees protecting islands in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta could unleash a salty deluge, threatening not just crops, but the drinking water for as many as 27 million Californians....

An extraordinary set of fossils recovered from Cretaceous period rocks in western India has offered a rare glimpse into a baby dinosaur’s first—and last—day on Earth about 67 million years ago. The frightful scene, fossilized by a rapid flow of debris, reveals a titanosaur hatchling’s unlikely predator—a snake. “The new fossils provide the first evidence, to our knowledge, of snake predation on hatchling dinosaurs and a rare example of non-dinosaurian predation on dinosaurs,” says Jeff Wilson, a paleontologist from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and the lead author of the study, published March 1 in PLoS Biology....