A Moment of Science

[com.hannonhill.cascade.api.adapters.PageAPIAdapter@38494154] [com.hannonhill.cascade.api.adapters.PageAPIAdapter@23a1e514, com.hannonhill.cascade.api.adapters.PageAPIAdapter@43c5e4fb, com.hannonhill.cascade.api.adapters.PageAPIAdapter@1a015868, com.hannonhill.cascade.api.adapters.PageAPIAdapter@6830e99d, com.hannonhill.cascade.api.adapters.PageAPIAdapter@441538ca, com.hannonhill.cascade.api.adapters.PageAPIAdapter@281bee8f, com.hannonhill.cascade.api.adapters.PageAPIAdapter@384921fc, com.hannonhill.cascade.api.adapters.PageAPIAdapter@575a5b69, com.hannonhill.cascade.api.adapters.PageAPIAdapter@3a64ea20, com.hannonhill.cascade.api.adapters.PageAPIAdapter@4d7c0475, com.hannonhill.cascade.api.adapters.PageAPIAdapter@3c4b9ae7, com.hannonhill.cascade.api.adapters.PageAPIAdapter@394f1f14, com.hannonhill.cascade.api.adapters.PageAPIAdapter@24e7c7f7, com.hannonhill.cascade.api.adapters.PageAPIAdapter@99520b2, com.hannonhill.cascade.api.adapters.PageAPIAdapter@69e90fc5, com.hannonhill.cascade.api.adapters.PageAPIAdapter@281f0a53, com.hannonhill.cascade.api.adapters.PageAPIAdapter@325da8d8, com.hannonhill.cascade.api.adapters.PageAPIAdapter@12ed9e91, com.hannonhill.cascade.api.adapters.PageAPIAdapter@335b3c2e, com.hannonhill.cascade.api.adapters.PageAPIAdapter@63c6f584, com.hannonhill.cascade.api.adapters.PageAPIAdapter@3c828a4c, com.hannonhill.cascade.api.adapters.PageAPIAdapter@4265825b, com.hannonhill.cascade.api.adapters.PageAPIAdapter@28b56c75, com.hannonhill.cascade.api.adapters.PageAPIAdapter@7c8bc632, com.hannonhill.cascade.api.adapters.PageAPIAdapter@5473e305, com.hannonhill.cascade.api.adapters.PageAPIAdapter@3aead48a, com.hannonhill.cascade.api.adapters.PageAPIAdapter@393fc166, com.hannonhill.cascade.api.adapters.PageAPIAdapter@1b272a25, com.hannonhill.cascade.api.adapters.PageAPIAdapter@5007998f, com.hannonhill.cascade.api.adapters.PageAPIAdapter@3c254981, com.hannonhill.cascade.api.adapters.PageAPIAdapter@7bd69b92, com.hannonhill.cascade.api.adapters.PageAPIAdapter@5902e0cf]

How To Heave Your Guts

We've often heard the phrase "heaving your guts," but are humans the only ones who can do so? Read More »

Recent Audio Podcasts

The Chemistry Of Line-Dried Laundry

There's nothing quite like the smell of fresh laundry. Some chemists were curious, what exactly is that smell?

Why does eating bad food feel so good? Our evolutionary history might tell us more.

Sometimes it can feel like tears spring to your eyes. What exactly are reflex tears, and how can they be beneficial?

People often project human emotions onto their pets, but humans and animals might be more similar in how we experience pain than previously thought.

How did ants get to be so strong? The answer might lay in their evolution.

Older stories »

A Moment of Science Blog

Ancient Science Part 2b - The History Of Quarantine

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.

In March of 1947, Mohammed ed-dib, a member of the Ta’amireh Bedouin tribe came to Bethlehem and showed three old scrolls to various antiquities dealers. He had found the scrolls inside a cave in the desert, stuffed inside large jars.