A Moment of Science

AI Antibiotics

Bacteria are evolving the ability to resist some of our most important antibiotics. Unless something is done, resistant strains of bacteria may kill 10 million people per year by 2050. Read More »

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The Parasite That Eavesdrops On Its Host

In 2020, an international team of researchers made an important discovery about a parasite called a dodder. Dodders are a group of over a 100 parasitic plant species, found through much of the world.

The molecular working parts of living things are complex organic molecules with a backbone of carbon atoms. Some scientists think that hot springs might have provided the special chemical environments needed to link simple molecules up to form these longer and more complicated molecules.

Cutaneous respiration is the ability to breathe through the skin, and is a common trait in amphibians, although humans can't do it.

We use money all the time, but have you ever wondered why U.S. banknotes are green? After A Moment of Science researchers did some investigating into the history of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, it turns out that there are several reasons for the green-back design.

The willows in Yellowstone National Park used to commonly grow up to 157 inches tall. But in the 1990s, most willows in the northern part of the park only grew to be 39 inches.

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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.