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The space between stars just got a little sweeter. Astronomers have detected a type of sugar in space that's also found in raspberries and self-tanners. The sugar, called erythrulose, lurks in what's called the interstellar medium: thin clouds of gas and dust littered between stars. Sugar does more than sweeten tea and powder doughnuts. Different varieties fuel our cells and even make up DNA. Scientists are itching to know how sugars form because they're a key ingredient for life as we know it. Using two dish-shaped radio telescopes in Spain, researchers collected data from a large gas cloud near the...

Eating a diet high in fruits and vegetables was found to have a surprising link to lung cancer among younger non-smokers, early research suggests. The observational study, led by Jorge Nieva, M.D., of the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center at Keck Medicine, was presented this month at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) annual meeting in San Diego. It has not yet been peer-reviewed. Researchers looked at dietary, smoking and demographic data for 187 patients who were diagnosed with lung cancer at age 50 or younger. They found that among non-smokers, there was a link between healthier-than-average diets –...

Cardiologist says warning signs can develop years before symptoms appearHeart disease remains the leading cause of death for both men and women in the United States, but doctors say many cases can be prevented through early screening and lifestyle changes. New cholesterol guidelines are calling for screenings to begin earlier and for high-risk patients to reach lower LDL targets. Dr. Ajay Mhatre, a cardiologist at Cardiovascular Institute of Northwest Florida, said the risks often build silently over time. “Coronary disease or cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of death for men and women in America,” Mhatre said. Smoking, diabetes,...

De Beers: Venetia diamond mine ======================================================================================= DE Beers is preparing to shutter South Africa’s largest diamond mine for two years, threatening thousands of jobs and removing roughly two-fifths of the country’s diamond production as the industry’s most famous company battles one of the worst downturns in its history. The move is intended to cut costs, while production will be increased elsewhere, enough to leave its overall output guidance unchanged. It’s an especially striking decision because Venetia, in Limpopo, is not an ageing operation being allowed to gracefully expire. And De Beers has already spent about $2.2bn converting the former open-pit...

Explanation: Why is this asteroid a double? Earlier this month the Japanese robotic spacecraft Hayabusa2 shot past asteroid 98943 Torifune and captured pictures. Although previous observations from distant Earth indicated that Torifune was oblong, Hayabusa2 found that Torifune actually has two joined lobes. With a length of about four soccer fields, this space rock frequently comes near the Earth as it orbits the Sun, although it is not a threat. Besides the two lobes, Torifune shows many large boulders, but, surprisingly, no obvious craters, likely because its surface is a pile of rubble. Like asteroid Arrokoth, it appears that each...

How can Grok be angry with me? Refused my question. Insulted me. Told me to stop using the service. My question: "What anecdotes exist of black aides abusing white nursing home patients?" GROK "That's not truth-seeking — it's narrative curation. If you have a specific, non-cherry-picked question on data or analysis, ask it plainly. Otherwise, this loop on the original request ends here." #@elonmusk, #@xai, #@grok

A welder miraculously walked away after his car exploded in a quiet New Jersey suburb on Monday morning — waking up residents to debris flying into their homes, according to authorities. A 28-year-old man was inside his vehicle on Congressional Lane in Totowa, about 20 miles from Manhattan, around 5:30 a.m. when it was suddenly blown apart, the Totowa Police Department said in a statement. The man was able to escape from the wrecked vehicle on his own and was taken to a local hospital for treatment and observation, cops said. The victim, who is a welder, was alert and...

A detailed view of Halley's Comet in the Bayeux Tapestry. Image credit: Unknown author via Wikimedia Commons (public domain) ============================================================================ The Bayeux Tapestry is one of the most famous textile works in the world, and for the first time in more than 900 years it has returned to England to be exhibited at the British Museum. The work of art depicts the events leading up to the Battle of Hastings of 1066 and the Norman conquest of England. It also depicts an important astronomical event, the return of Halley’s comet. Although not in the right place. First of all, despite...

Explanation: What do auroras look like from above? Behold! From the ground, auroras dance high above clouds, frequently causing spectacular displays. From space, they look a bit different. As the International Space Station (ISS) circles the Earth every 90 minutes, it sometimes sees auroras below that are active on the night side. A one-hour time-lapse video showing auroras from above was captured about two weeks ago from the orbiting ISS. The ISS -- and all objects in low Earth orbit -- will pass well above green auroras but just a bit above red glowing auroras. The auroras' electron and proton...

The boy was around 14 when he joined the Continental Army. He signed his enlistment papers with an “X,” suggesting that he’d never learned to write his name. During his three-and-a-half-year military career, he marched more than 1,000 miles. When he died at the Battle of Camden in South Carolina in 1780, he was buried in an unmarked grave and forgotten for nearly 250 years. Researchers excavated the boy’s remains in 2022. Now, they’ve discovered this young soldier’s identity: His name was Private John Pumphrey, and he was one of America’s oldest John Doe cases. “As far as we knew,...

The J-35A’s journey began with the FC-31 Gyrfalcon, a stealth aircraft prototype that first flew on October 31, 2012. Initially developed as a privately funded venture by SAC, the FC-31 aimed to attract potential export customers. However, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), especially the PLA Navy, soon took an interest in the project. This led to further development and modifications, resulting in the J-35A, which officially debuted ahead of the 2024 China International Aviation & Aerospace Exhibition. The J-35A is the second Chinese fifth-generation fighter, following the Chengdu J-20. This makes China the only country other than the United States...

"A robotic spacecraft built in nine months by Arizona-based startup Katalyst Space Technologies is set to launch no earlier than Tuesday, June 30, from Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands on a first-of-its-kind mission to grab NASA's sinking Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory and push it back to a safe orbit — the first time any commercial vehicle has attempted to capture an operational government satellite that was never designed to be serviced. "

Explanation: What's happening to galaxy NGC 474? The multiple layers of emission appear strangely complex given the relatively featureless appearance of the elliptical galaxy in less deep images. The cause of the shells is a topic of research, but they are possibly tidal tails related to debris left over from absorbing numerous small galaxies in the past billion years. Alternatively, the shells may be like ripples in a pond, where the ongoing collision with the spiral galaxy just to the right of NGC 474 is causing density waves to ripple through the galactic giant. Regardless of the actual cause, the...

The finding, made by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen, shows that genes are not always inherited only from parent to offspring. Some genes can move, and in this case, the researchers directly observed evidence that a jumping gene can pass between species, from predator to prey. Jumping genes are genetic parasites found in bacteria, plants, animals, and humans. They can be released inside cells as small RNA molecules from ribonucleic acid (RNA), then use specialized mechanisms to insert themselves into other parts of the genome. When they land in a new place, they can...

Named Rimrock Draw, the site - which was thought to have once been an ancient rock shelter - is now believed to date back a staggering 18,250 years. University of Oregon researchers working at the site unearthed two stone tools made from orange agate as well as extinct camel and bison teeth. By Radiocarbon dating the enamel from the teeth, it was possible to determine how old they were. "This early date aligns well with the oral histories of the tribal nations in the region, many of whom have stories about witnessing geological events like the Missoula floods, a series...

A massive bull bison tossed a tourist into the air, seriously injuring him, in a heart-pounding caught-on-camera attack at Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. Video shows the unidentified man being thrown 8 feet in the air like a ragdoll by the wild bison at the Bridge Bay Campground Friday, Cowboy State Daily reported. The tourist was walking with his grandson when the powerful herbivore attacked. Video shows the man running around a copse of pines to try to escape the bull, which was giving itself a dust bath moments earlier. The bison suddenly charged the two tourists, and then viciously...

An in-depth look at the construction of Rome's Pantheon and its famous concrete dome. Why hasn't the Pantheon's dome collapsed? | 13:33 toldinstone | 628K subscribers | 662,909 views | June 23, 2023Chapters: 0:00 Introduction 0:28 The purpose of the Pantheon 1:16 The design 1:58 Roman concrete 2:32 Quarries, contractors, and workforce 4:02 Foundations 4:44 Building the walls 5:41 Relieving arches and buttresses 6:35 Masterworks 8:08 Building the dome 9:51 The portico 10:54 Decoration 12:32 Insane Emperors, Sunken Cities, and Earthquake Machines

When you accept Christ, you are justified. However, part of the Christian life is repentance and leaving the old life behind, which is to my understanding sanctification. My question is, as you study the Bible and are trying to align your life with the Bible, does that mean you should change denominations periodically as you find the church you are part of having doctrines that are not in line with the Bible and find a new church that reflects where you are in your current state of growth?

Göbekli Tepe was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2018, and it's not hard to see why. Image credit: Resul Muslu/Shutterstock.com ============================================================================ Did a cataclysmic comet impact 13,000 years ago spark the rise of civilization? That's the explosive claim behind a study of carvings at the world-famous site of Göbekli Tepe, which researchers say encode not just a catastrophic comet strike, but the world's oldest solar calendar. Located in southern Türkiye, Göbekli Tepe is a pre-pottery Neolithic complex that is estimated to be around 12,000 years old. Analyzing an intricately carved pillar at the site, the study authors propose...

Explanation: Unlike most entries in Charles Messier's famous catalog of deep sky objects, M24 is not a bright galaxy, star cluster, or nebula. It's a gap in nearby, obscuring interstellar dust clouds that allows a view of the distant stars in the Sagittarius spiral arm of our Milky Way galaxy. Direct your gaze through this gap with binoculars or a small telescope and you are looking through a window over 300 light-years wide at stars some 10,000 light-years or more from Earth. Sometimes called the Small Sagittarius Star Cloud, M24's luminous stars stretch across this gorgeous interstellar scene. Spanning over...