Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. Monotheism is simply defined as the belief in one god and is usually positioned as the polar opposite of polytheism, the belief in many gods. However, the word monotheism is a relatively modern one that was coined in the mid-17th century CE by the British philosopher Henry More (1614-1687 CE)....
Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. Pets were very important to the ancient Egyptians and considered gifts from the gods to be cared for until their death when they were expected to be returned to the divine realm from which they had come. In life, pets were well cared for and, at their death, were often mummified in the same way as people....
Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. The Sanctuary of Fortuna Primigenia at Palestrina (ancient Praeneste) in Italy was built in the 2nd century BCE to honor the goddess Isis and the goddess Fortuna. The massive site spans a mountainside, built with Roman cement or pozzolana, and remains a rare example of an intact pagan temple complex....
Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. The most important cultural value in ancient Egypt was harmony; known to the Egyptians as ma’at. Ma’at was the concept of universal, communal, and personal balance which allowed for the world to function as it should according to the will of the gods. Throughout most of Egypt’s history this belief served the culture well....
Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. The pyramids are the most famous monuments of ancient Egypt and still fascinate people in the present day. These enormous tributes to the memory of the Egyptian kings have become synonymous with the country even though other cultures (such as the Chinese and Mayan) also built pyramids. The evolution of the pyramid form has been written about and debated for centuries but there is no question that, as far as Egypt is concerned, it began with one monument to one king designed by one brilliant architect: the Step Pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara....
Genetically engineered mosquitoes developed by British biotech firm Oxitec as an approach to controlling dengue fever have been caught up in controversy since 6,000 of them were deliberately released to an uninhabited forest in Malaysia in a trial in December 2010. The move took many local people and international observers by surprise. For the most part, the problem was not that the mosquitoes were GM or ineffective—previous trials in the Cayman Islands were very successful....
Beneath the waves, swelling levels of carbon dioxide could be boosting some species to ecological dominance while dooming others. A study published yesterday in Current Biology suggests ocean acidification is driving a cascading set of behavioral and environmental changes that drains oceans’ biodiversity. Niche species and intermediate predators suffer at the expense of a handful of aggressive species. Sea-level rise and coral bleaching often dominate discussions about how climate change affects the ocean, but a host of more subtle—and harder to research—trends also play a role in reshaping the world’s marine ecosystems....
The Great Recession changed the way many people live—and its repercussions appear to be altering how some people choose to die. At least two prominent tissue banks have seen an increase in the number of individuals who are interested in donating their bodies to research in exchange for a break in funeral costs. The Banner Sun Health Research Institute near Phoenix typically receives some 1,000 inquiries every year about making donations....
Most people gradually recover from trauma, but a small fraction of individuals develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) — prompting scientists to look for the biological underpinnings of this extreme response to traumatic situations such as warfare, car accidents and natural disasters. Research published on 11 August in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences identifies up to 334 genes that may be involved in vulnerability to post-traumatic stress in rats. Most animal studies of stress use intense stimuli such as electric shocks, designed to produce large, group differences between exposed and unexposed animals....
Dear EarthTalk: Are any major brands of disposable tissues, paper towels, napkins and toilet paper yet using recycled content and chlorine-free bleaching? – Sylvia Comstock, Montpelier, VT Not many. In fact, some of the biggest names in disposable paper products are the worst offenders. According to the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), forests at home and abroad are being destroyed to make toilet paper, facial tissues, paper towels and other disposable paper products....
At R. James Woolsey’s farm in southern Maryland, solar panels on the roof of his house send electricity back to the utility grid when his family is not using much power. And he drives a Toyota Prius hybrid with a conversion kit that enables him to recharge the car’s battery pack using an extension cord and household current. Woolsey isn’t the average citizen who has gone green. As the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 1993 to 1995, Woolsey warns that the U....
By Katherine Rowland of Nature magazineCarnivorous plants catch their prey in pools, glue and snap traps. But researchers have now discovered the first species known to trap and digest worms underground, using adhesive leaves–and it is part of a family not believed to be carnivorous at all.Native to the tropical savannah of the Brazilian Cerrado, the Philcoxia genus, part of the family Plantaginaceae, was first formally described in 20001. It consists of three species–P....
By Aaron Sheldrick and Issei Kato TOKYO/SATSUMASENDAI (Reuters) - Japan switched on a nuclear reactor for the first time in nearly two years on Tuesday, as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe seeks to reassure a nervous public that tougher standards mean the sector is now safe after the Fukushima disaster in 2011. Abe and much of Japanese industry want reactors to be restarted to cut fuel imports, but opinion polls show a majority of the public oppose the move after the nuclear crisis triggered by the earthquake and tsunami in March 2011....
Some major apparel and digital technology companies will set goals to cut their greenhouse emissions based on climate science, they announced today. Brand-name businesses—including clothing companies Nike Inc., Gap Inc., Guess and Levi Strauss & Co., and tech firms Adobe Systems, Nokia Corp. and HP Inc.—are setting the goals as part of a partnership launched by the United Nations and environmental groups. The initiative, Science Based Targets, prods companies to establish plans to slash heat-trapping gases from their operations to help stave off devastating global warming....
“It feels like the entire universe is within a sphere that is maybe within a couple meters’ radius,” says topologist Henry Segerman at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater. He is describing, not an LSD trip, but his experience of exploring a curved universe in which the ordinary rules of geometry do not apply. Segerman and his collaborators have released software allowing anyone with a virtual-reality (VR) headset to wander through this warped world, which they previewed last month in two papers on the arXiv....
Although the physician who first wanted to open blocked blood vessels was described as “something of a radical” by his colleagues, even he might have been surprised by the idea of a tiny plastic scaffold that holds open an artery and then dissolves. When Charles Dotter of Oregon Health & Science University proposed in 1969 his “coil-spring endarterial tube” to accompany what is now known as angioplasty, he envisioned a tube or coil made of metal, known as a stent, that lasts forever....
Dear EarthTalk: Are there any flea and tick products out there that don’t contain toxic chemicals? –Ewan Locke, Madison, WI Harmful pesticides in mainstream flea and tick products are indeed hazardous to more than insects. The active substance in most of these products is likely one of seven common organophosphate insecticides (OPs), which work by interfering with the transmission of nerve signals in the brains and nervous systems of not just insects—most of whom die on the spot—but to a lesser degree in pets and humans as well....
Last month the Senate Committee on the Judiciary held a hearing on the Equality Act, a bill that would extend civil rights protection to LGBTQ people throughout the U.S. It is supported by 70 percent of Americans and recently passed the House of Representatives. But some politicians are hell-bent on making sure it doesn’t pass. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina recently noted he will use the filibuster to make sure federal protections aren’t extended to LGBTQ people....
Even if world manages to limit global warming to 2°C — the target number for current climate negotiations — sea levels may still rise at least 6 meters (20 feet) above their current heights, radically reshaping the world’s coastline and affecting millions in the process. That finding comes from a new paper published on Thursday in Science that shows how high sea levels rose the last time carbon dioxide levels were this high....
From The Chimp and the River: How AIDS Emerged from an African Forest, by David Quammen. Copyright © 2015, 2012 by David Quammen with permission of the publisher, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. All rights reserved. But what about HIV-1? Where did the great killer come from? That was a larger mystery that took somewhat longer to solve. The logical inference was that HIV-1 must be zoonotic in origin also....
