A Moment of Science

The Baby Schema

Why do humans often find "awkward" features cute? Scientists looking into the baby schema provide some insight. Read More »

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Consider The Kumquat

Have you ever wanted a healthier alternative to gummy candy? Then perhaps you should consider the kumquat.

Have you ever wondered why your grape-flavored snacks never seem to really taste like grape?

We are often told "if at first you don't succeed, try try again." But are humans the only ones who think so?

When humans burn fossil fuels, some specific gases released trap the sun’s heat, and cause global climate change by the greenhouse effect. The warming climate is bringing changes to our day-to-day weather.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to speak more than one language? Would it be hard to talk without mixing up the languages?

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A Moment of Science Blog

Exercising While Under The Weather

There is an old saying that you should “sweat out a cold,” but that’s just folk wisdom, not science. If you just have a runny nose or sore throat, it may be fine to do some moderate exercise for a half hour or so. But if you're achey and have a fever, then it's better to rest.

Medieval painting of the Justinian plague.

Right now, billions of people, over half the human population on Earth, are living in areas with orders to stay at home. The scale of the current pandemic is unique, but the existence of pandemics and our use of isolation to combat them is not.

Printed edition of the Hippocratic oath.

The phrase "do no harm" famously comes from the Hippocratic Oath, a piece of writing from ancient Greece, and is still a core aspect of medical ethics today. As its name suggests, the oath was ascribed to a doctor named Hippocrates early on, along with a sizable collection of other writings called the Hippocratic corpus.

Although the coronavirus is the most serious public health concern at the moment, there has also been an increase in the number of measles cases this year. The best precaution against measles is the MMR vaccine, which can also protect against other infections over time.

While our understanding of things like epilepsy, the stars, and the shape of the Earth has changed dramatically over the centuries, ancient cultures confronted the same universe as we do. Even though their ideas about that universe are often very different from ours, there are also countless insights hidden in scientific writings from over 2,000 years ago.