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Over 100 people were affected by a norovirus outbreak aboard the Caribbean Princess cruise, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report released Thursday. According to the report, 102 of 3,116 passengers (3.3%) and 13 of 1,131 crew members (1.2%) were reported ill, with symptoms including diarrhea and vomiting. The outbreak was reported to the CDC on May 7. The cruise voyage took place from April 28 to May 11, according to the CDC. Princess Cruises said a limited number of individuals reported mild gastrointestinal illness during the voyage. "Princess Cruises can confirm that a limited number...

For 4,200 years, the Y chromosome of a Yakutian warrior has quietly echoed in Siberia's Arctic peoples. His extraordinary Stone Age grave was discovered in Russia's far northeast near Yakutsk in 2004 by scientists. The middle-aged hunter's skeleton was found on its back with arms at its side. Dozens of elk-bone plates were laid as a shield over the chest. Analysis of the radiocarbon data hints that the person died nearly 4,000 years ago. The person is presumed to be from the Ymyyakhtakh cultural horizon. This cultural horizon contains the nomadic hunter-gatherers who used more sophisticated bone and antler weapons......

Beneath a section of Chicago, there is a hidden several mile wide impact crater. This might initially seem like a crazy claim but it is true, existing underneath the city of Des Plaines. The only reason it isn't highly visible today is due to sediments emplaced during extensive glaciers during the last 2 million years. It is for this reason that I will discuss when this crater formed, what evidence we have, and what immediate effects its formation had. Thumbnail Photo Credit: Google Earth. This image was overlaid with text, and then overlaid with GeologyHub made graphics (the image border,...

The neurotransmitter serotonin, best known for its role in regulating mood, may also influence the severity of tinnitus, new research has found. According to a mouse study by scientists in the US and China, increasing serotonin signaling in a specific brain circuit increased behaviors associated with the neurological disorder. Since serotonin is often targeted to alleviate symptoms of depression and anxiety, this finding could help guide the development of treatments that relieve these conditions without exacerbating tinnitus. "We've suspected that serotonin was involved in tinnitus, but we didn't really understand how. Now, using mice, we've found a specific brain circuit...

Explanation: Which way is Comet R3 PanSTARRS going? Not towards the star at the top of the image, because that is Rigel, which, being far in the background, is unrelated to the comet. Not through the nebula in the image middle, because that is the Witch Head Nebula and it, too, is far in the distance -- but not far from Rigel. Not into northern skies because over the past week Comet C/2025 R3 (PanSTARRS) has moved into southern skies and is now best visible in Earth's Southern Hemisphere toward the west after sunset. Angularly, Comet R3 PanSTARRS is slowly...

A man went out on a morning walk in southwest Norway and stumbled upon a surprise: an elite warrior's sword scabbard that was purposefully buried 1,500 years ago. The rare gold object, which was richly decorated with serpentine animals, was probably an offering to the gods at a time of famine and societal turmoil, researchers say...The sixth-century gold artifact, which is about 2.4 inches (6 centimeters) long and weighs 1.2 ounces (33 grams), once adorned the scabbard of an elite warrior's sword. Only 17 others have been discovered to date in Northern Europe, and most were found in hoards with...

Manned Circumnavigation of the Inner Solar System Posted on April 27, 2026 by Kirk Sorensen In 1969, a Bellcomm engineer named A. A. VanderVeen published a paper describing a family of trajectories so elegant they seem almost accidental. Fifty-five years later, the most attractive instance of that trajectory family departs Earth in August 2034. This post is about what it would mean to fly it. Back in February 2009, I opened a thread on the NASASpaceFlight.com forum with what I thought was a simple thought experiment: what interplanetary mission might be within reach of an extremely wealthy private individual —...

During the 4th-century, a remarkable artifact was produced by Roman artisans that exhibits optical qualities so unique they have baffled scholars for centuries. Known as the Lycurgus Cup, it is one of the most unusual examples of glassworking ever produced by the Roman Empire, as it is made from dichroic glass—a material that appears to exhibit an entirely different coloration when light passes through it—causing it to look green when illuminated from the front but appearing a striking amber-red when illuminated from behind. The artifact’s unique name refers to its depiction of King Lycurgus, who, according to mythology, attempted to...

…Most other nations dutifully adopted SI, changing road signs and packaging and teaching the metric system in schools. Even the United Kingdom, which had lagged for years, mostly embraced the system in an effort to keep pace with other European Union nations. (Since the U.K. left the EU, metric opponents there have argued the nation should stop using metric units, a controversial proposition that has yet to be adopted.) Despite international adoption and increasing federal policy encouraging the use of metric units, the U.S. continued to drag its feet. Resistance was fueled in part by industrialists who argued the system...

Explanation: A long time ago, in a distant galaxy, a massive star was destroyed in a supernova explosion. The light of this event travelled for tens of millions of years and reached Earth last week as Supernova 2026kid. The featured video shows a time-lapse over three nights of the host galaxy NGC 5907, an edge-on spiral also known as the Splinter or Knife Edge Galaxy, as the supernova appears and becomes brighter. (The occasional streaks are satellites in Earth orbit.) At its brightest, a supernova can outshine the sum of all other stars in its galaxy. Supernova 2026kid appears relatively...

Archaeologists uncovered the 11,000-year-old site near Saskatchewan in western Canada, saying it confirms that highly organized societies existed in the region far earlier than previously believed. Excavations uncovered stone tools, fire pits and toolmaking materials, suggesting the area was a long-term settlement rather than a temporary hunting camp. Charcoal layers also indicate that early Indigenous inhabitants practiced controlled fire management, aligning with longstanding oral traditions. The team also uncovered remains of the extinct Bison antiquus, a massive species that weighed up to 4,400lb and likely served as a key hunting target for the ancient civilization. Dr Glenn Stuart of the...

Researchers have proposed a theoretical approach that could allow messages to be sent into the past using principles from quantum mechanics. Indeed, it could be happening right now already!The concept does not enable physical travel through time but focuses on information transfer through causal loops at the quantum scale.The work, accepted for publication in Physical Review Letters, builds on ideas from general relativity and quantum entanglement. A technique inspired by the film Interstellar suggests a new way of communicating backwards in time, but it could help improve conventional communication systems as well https://t.co/FXQTvhE6uE — New Scientist (@newscientist) May 2, 2026It...

The National Park Service revealed the coyote is from Angel IslandThe origins of a coyote that drew international headlines after it was spotted swimming ashore to San Francisco’s Alcatraz Island have been revealed. Initially thought to have made the mile-and-a-quarter journey from San Francisco, which faces the southern edge of Alcatraz, the animal turned out to have made a much longer 2-mile swim from Angel Island State Park, according to new DNA evidence collected by National Park Service ecologists. The coyote’s whereabouts still remain unknown. “We are surprised by the coyote’s origin,” Park Service wildlife ecologist Bill Merkle said in...

A 12-year-old Georgia boy was left heartbroken after his therapy pig was allegedly killed by three ghoulish neighbors – who were found with the dead animal in aprons and gloves beside a boiling pot of water. Garrett Cox, who has ADHD and autism, is now struggling to cope after Bootsy, his 400-pound emotional support pig, was savagely shot dead after wandering from her pen and off the family’s Hoschton property, about 50 miles northeast of Atlanta, last week, according to multiple reports. “I miss her so much,” the young boy told WSB-TV about the award-winning pig, while clutching the ribbons...

A team of scientists in China recently demonstrated this somewhat comically idealistic solution, reporting their findings in a recent paper published in ACS Applied Polymer Materials. This new “living” plastic, as the team describes it, contains plastic-degrading microbes that activate and self-destruct on command. Although this isn’t the first time scientists have tested similar materials, the new experiment looks promising. A proof-of-concept test with a wearable plastic electrode confirmed that, as intended, the plastic degraded completely within two weeks. Scientists had consistently explored whether some bacteria known to be capable of breaking down polymers could be engineered within plastic. In...

"Any woman born in the samurai status group was a 'female samurai' even if she never picked up a weapon, just as any man born into that status group was a samurai, no matter how wimpy/untrained/etc. he may have been," Sean O'Reilly, a professor of Japan studies at Akita International University, told Live Science in an email.It's unclear how often female samurai fought in battle, however. Women who fought in battle are sometimes called "onna-musha," which translates to "women warriors.""I must say, as an historian, that onnamusha -- female warriors -- were probably not as frequent or as militarily significant...

Smart electrical panel manufacturer Span has announced a new collaboration with technology and semiconductor giant Nvidia to develop XFRA, a network of devices that convert unused electric capacity in homes and small businesses into a distributed compute cloud.

The luxury MV Hondius cruise ship at the center of a deadly suspected hantavirus outbreak has been refused permission to dock in the West African island nation of Cape Verde, officials said Monday. Roughly 150 people are currently trapped on the Dutch cruise liner off the African coast after three passengers died and others became seriously sick with symptoms. The ship, which was on a weekslong polar cruise from Argentina to Antarctica, had requested help from local health authorities on Sunday following the latest death. So far, no one has yet been allowed to disembark, the company operating the cruise...

An infection can rapidly progress and become life-threatening. Experts say it can start with symptoms including fever, chills, muscle aches and maybe a headache — much like the flu. Symptoms of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome usually show between one to six weeks, or more, after contact with an infected rodent. As the infection progresses, patients might experience tightness in the chest as the lungs fill with fluid. The other syndrome caused by hantavirus — known as hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome, which can cause bleeding, high fever, and kidney failure — usually develops within a week or two after exposure. Death...

Explanation: What does it mean for Saturn and Neptune to be in retrograde? Featured is a composite of images taken over 34 nights from May 2025 to February 2026 tracing Saturn (brighter, foreground) and Neptune (dimmer, background). Over that time, the two planets exhibited retrograde motion, meaning they appeared to move backward in the sky. This apparent backwards motion occurs when Earth overtakes the slower outer planets as they orbit the Sun. Imagine the Solar System is a running track. Earth "runs" faster along the inside of the track compared to the outer planets. As Earth approaches, aligns, and then...