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This simple puzzle recently appeared in a members-only newsletter. Think you can crack it? You have two ropes coated in oil to help them burn. Each rope will take exactly one hour to burn all the way through. However, the ropes don’t burn at constant rates; there are spots where they burn a bit faster and spots where they burn a bit slower, but it always takes one hour to finish the job. With a lighter to ignite the ropes, how can you measure exactly 45 minutes?

Explanation: This shadowy landscape of majestic mountains and icy plains stretches toward the horizon on a small, distant world. It was captured from a range of about 18,000 kilometers when New Horizons looked back toward Pluto, 15 minutes after the spacecraft's closest approach on July 14, 2015. The dramatic, low-angle, near-twilight scene follows rugged mountains formally known as Norgay Montes from foreground left, and Hillary Montes along the horizon, giving way to smooth Sputnik Planum at right. Layers of Pluto's tenuous atmosphere are also revealed in the backlit view. With a strangely familiar appearance, the frigid terrain likely includes ices...

Discover Rome's little-known, grand sister city, right in the middle of Europe. 🏟🏛️ Autun is a small town in Burgundy. But not even 2000 years ago, it was France’s second largest city. Known as, "Augustodunum," after Augustus, the famous Roman emperor, it was twice as big as Paris, and the oldest center of Christianity in France, with far reaching influence. Considered a "sister" to Rome, Autun was miraculously built in just a few decades to replace the ancient, mythical capital of the Aedui: Bibracte. Rome's Mirror Sister: The Hidden Legacy of Autun - Full Documentary | 52:20 Easy Documentary |...

Pad B is crossing a major milestone: the Orbital Launch Mount has arrived! With Ship 35 doing another static fire and the launch window fast approaching, how close is Flight 9? And how about the Starship future? SpaceX is radically redesigning major parts of Starship! Meanwhile, Rocket Lab is getting closer to pulling off a move even SpaceX hasn’t accomplished yet. Ready For Flight 9? SpaceX Starship- MASSIVE Progress In One Single Day!! | 21:12 What about it!? | 595K subscribers | 281,558 views | May 13, 2025

Scientists have discovered a promising new therapy for resistant high blood pressure, leading to a 15-point drop in systolic levels. Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have identified a potential new treatment for individuals with uncontrolled or treatment-resistant hypertension, a condition commonly referred to as high blood pressure. The investigational drug, lorundrostat, showed encouraging results in a recent clinical trial. Published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the study found that participants who received lorundrostat experienced an average 15-point reduction in systolic blood pressure, the upper number in a blood pressure reading, compared to...

On Tuesday, astronomers watched as a vast 'bird wing' eruption sent waves of superheated plasma surging across the sun's northern hemisphere. At over 600,000 miles long (one million km), the filament of solar material was more than twice as long as the distance from the Earth to the moon. Now, scientists predict that part of this filament eruption could hit Earth tomorrow. In a post on X, formerly Twitter, aurora chaser Jure Atanackov predicted that the full force of this eruption could trigger a severe or even extreme geomagnetic storm, the highest level on official rating systems. Stunning video recorded...

Starfish Prime was a high-altitude nuclear test conducted on July 9, 1962 as part of a group of tests collectively known as Operation Fishbowl. While Starfish Prime was not the first high-altitude test, it was the largest nuclear test ever conducted by the United States in space. The test led to the discovery and understanding of the nuclear electromagnetic pulse (EMP) effect and a mapping of seasonal mixing rates of tropical and polar air masses. Key Takeaways: Starfish Prime Starfish Prime was a high-altitude nuclear test conducted by the United States on July 9, 1962. It was part of Operation...

The first 100+ days of the second Trump administration (it’s now actually 113 days) have seen a near total abandonment of the fantasy that this one country’s government can change the weather and “save the planet” by suppressing use of hydrocarbon fuels and impoverishing the people. Biden administration “climate” and energy policies amounting to thousands of pages in regulations and hundreds of billions of dollars in grants and subsidies to uneconomic energy projects have been swiftly reversed. Examples in just the past few weeks include: - The announcement by the Department of Energy just yesterday (May 12) of no fewer...

Explanation: This pretty nebula lies some 1,500 light-years away, its shape and color in this telescopic view reminiscent of a robin's egg. The cosmic cloud spans about 3 light-years, nestled securely within the boundaries of the southern constellation of the Furnace (Fornax). Recognized as a planetary nebula, egg-shaped NGC 1360 doesn't represent a beginning, though. Instead, it corresponds to a brief and final phase in the evolution of an aging star. In fact, visible at the center of the nebula, the central star of NGC 1360 is known to be a binary star system likely consisting of two evolved white...

If you’ve cut salt, eased up on caffeine, and tried to stress less, and your blood pressure still won’t budge, perhaps a golden spice in your kitchen cabinet can ease your efforts.Curcumin is found in the root of the turmeric plant, giving it its distinctive golden hue and earthy flavor. It belongs to a group of plant-based substances called polyphenols, known for their antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects.These effects may help explain why curcumin—turmeric’s most active compound—is being studied for its potential to support healthy blood pressure.A Natural Ally for Blood Pressure ControlThe most convenient and widely available source of curcumin...

According to an Associated Press report, construction workers renovating a soccer field in the Simmering neighborhood of Vienna uncovered an ancient mass grave containing as many as 150 bodies, probably those of soldiers killed during a violent clash between the Roman army and Germanic tribes. It is the earliest evidence of fighting between the two groups along the Roman Empire's northern frontier. At least one skeleton was confirmed to belong to a Roman soldier and further testing is slated to determine the identities of the other combatants. All of the individuals, who were male and between the ages of 20...

Explanation: What does our Milky Way Galaxy look like from the top? Because we are on the inside, humanity can’t get an actual picture. Recently, however, just such a map has been made using location data for over a billion stars from ESA’s Gaia mission. The resulting featured illustration shows that just like many other spiral galaxies, our Milky Way has distinct spiral arms. Our Sun and most of the bright stars we see at night are in just one arm: Orion. Gaia data bolsters previous indications that our Milky Way has more than two spiral arms. Our Galaxy's center...

It looks like the universe may end much sooner than anticipated. Dutch researchers have looked into the initial theories about when the universe is likely to cease to exist. The team from Radboud University in the Netherlands put their heads together and used Hawking radiation to come to a conclusion. This theory is named after the late Stephen Hawking, who came up with the idea that black holes leak radiation and they eventually evaporate. Scientists at the university then used this theory on other objects in the universe — neutron stars and white dwarfs, for example — and discovered that...

Bilaterian animals such as arthropods and annelids have paired appendages and are among the most diverse animals today and in the geological past. They are often assumed to have appeared and radiated suddenly during the "Cambrian Explosion" about 541-510 million years ago, although it has long been suspected that their evolutionary ancestry was rooted in the Ediacaran Period. Until the current discovery, however, no fossil record of animal appendages had been found in the Ediacaran Period.Researchers from the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Virginia Tech in the United States studied trackways and...

When a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, Dr John Clauser, labels the claims about greenhouse gases warming the Earth as “pseudoscience” and describes them as “a dangerous corruption of science,” I urge you to take notice. He further stated that “the IPCC is one of the worst sources of dangerous misinformation,” and remarked that climate science has “metastasized into massive shock-journalistic pseudoscience.”Similarly, Professor Harold (Hal) Lewis, a distinguished physicist, called such claims “the biggest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud” he had encountered in his lifetime. Another German physicist expressed outrage upon discovering that much of what the IPCC and the media presented...

“Why is it that man ever chooses to sin? The answer is that man has fallen away from God (and) his whole nature has become perverted and sinful. Man’s whole bias is away from God. By nature he hates God and feels that God is opposed to him. His god is himself…his own abilities and powers and desires (Man) likes and covets the things which God prohibits, and dislikes the things and kind of life to which God calls him. These are no mere dogmatic statements. They are facts (that) alone explain the moral muddle and the ugliness that characterize...

Your spice rack’s secret weapon could complicate your body’s ability to metabolize drugs, a new study suggests.-High doses of cinnamon, especially in supplements or oils, may interfere with how the body metabolizes medications by activating or inhibiting liver enzymes. -These interactions could make medications less effective or increase side effects, particularly for drugs like blood thinners, antidepressants, NSAIDs, and some hormonal treatments. -Culinary use of ground cinnamon is generally considered safe, but experts advise caution with concentrated forms and recommend consulting a doctor if you’re on medication. If cinnamon is a staple in your spice cabinet, welcome to the...

Autism, or autism spectrum disorder, has been a topic in the news a lot recently, yet the complex neurological condition remains widely misunderstood. Autism is a difference in how someone’s brain works that shapes how they interact with the world. Clinically, it’s a disorder that affects brain development and causes social communication and behavioral differences. With such a wide range of traits, autism truly is a spectrum. Gaining a deeper understanding of these nuances is key. We address some common myths and offer guidance on supporting children and families after a diagnosis. What causes autism? There is no single known...

Conceptual image depicting end of the universe by generative AI (© The 2R Artificiality - stock.adobe.com) In a nutshell * Scientists discovered that neutron stars and white dwarfs are slowly evaporating, shortening the universe’s expected lifespan from 10^1100 years to 10^78 years. * All massive objects lose energy through a process similar to how black holes evaporate, with denser objects deteriorating faster. Despite this “earlier” end, the universe’s death is still inconceivably far in the future—neutron stars will last 10^68 years and white dwarfs about 10^78 years. ================================================================================ NIJMEGEN, Netherlands — Scientists have just calculated that our universe will end...

Explanation: What does our Milky Way Galaxy look like from the side? Because we are on the inside, humanity can’t get an actual picture. Recently, however, just such a map has been made using location data for over a billion stars from ESA’s Gaia mission. The resulting featured illustration shows that just like many other spiral galaxies, our Milky Way has a very thin central disk. Our Sun and all the stars we see at night are in this disk. Although hypothesized before, perhaps more surprising is that the disk appears curved at the outer edges. The colors of our...