|  World Will Get More Religious by 2050 The world is becoming more religious, as the number of agnostics and others who don't affiliate with a certain religion shrinks as a percentage of the global population. By 2050, just 13 percent of people in the world will say they are unaffiliated, compared with 16 percent who said the same in 2010, according to a new Pew Research Group survey. The United States is an exception, where more Americans are expected to flee organized religion. Islam will grow faster than any other major religion, and at a higher rate than the world population balloons, the survey found. Read More » Shortest Total Lunar Eclipse of the Century Visible Early Saturday  | Don't forget to look skyward in the early hours of Saturday morning (April 4), to catch a glimpse of the shortest total lunar eclipse of the century. The moon will be completely swallowed by Earth's shadow for just 4 minutes and 43 seconds on Saturday morning, according to NASA officials. The total eclipse begins at 6:16 a.m. EDT (1016 GMT). "For early humans, [a lunar eclipse] was a time when they were concerned that life might end, because the moon became blood red and the light that the moon provided at night might have been taken away permanently," Mitzi Adams, an astronomer at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, said during a news conference today (April 3).
| Read More » Easter Science: 5 Odd Facts About Eggs  | For instance, kiwi eggs take up about 25 percent of the mother's body, making it the largest egg of any bird, relative to its mother's body size, according to researchers at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York City. "If you try to push one of those eggs, because it's so heavy at one end, it will actually spin in a circle," said Paul Sweet, the ornithology collection manager at AMNH. Eggshells are largely made of calcium carbonate, which looks white to the human eye, according to "The Book of Eggs" (University of Chicago Press, 2014).
| Read More » 2011 Japan Tsunami Unleashed Ozone-Destroying Chemicals  | The 2011 tsunami that struck Japan released thousands of tons of ozone-destroying chemicals and greenhouse gases into the air, a new study shows. The damaged insulation, refrigerators, air conditioners and electrical equipment unleashed 7,275 tons (6,600 metric tons) of halocarbons, the study reported. Halocarbon emissions rose by 91 percent over typical levels in the year following the earthquake, said Takuya Saito, lead study author and senior researcher at the National Institute for Environmental Studies in Tsukuba, Japan. The six halocarbons measured in the study are a group of chemicals that attack the Earth's protective ozone layer and can also contribute to global warming.
| Read More » Amped-Up Atom Smasher Will Restart This Weekend  | It's a great day for particle physics fans: The world's largest atom smasher has been cleared to start running again as early as this weekend. After a two-year hiatus, researchers and engineers planned to restart the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) last week, but an electrical short delayed the process. Scientists quickly found the glitch: a small piece of metal lodged in the wiring of one of the LHC's powerful electromagnets. "It's a bit like deliberately blowing a fuse," Paul Collier, head of beams at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), which manages the LHC, told Nature News.
| Read More » Bizarre Syndrome Makes Visitors to Jerusalem Go Crazy  | As Christians and Jews around the world prepare to celebrate the holidays of Easter and Passover, many will flock to the city of Jerusalem. Some psychiatrists have dubbed this condition "Jerusalem syndrome," and say it happens in people who have no prior history of mental illness. "I'd never heard of it before," admitted Simon Rego, director of psychology training at Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center in New York City. Jerusalem syndrome was first identified in 2000.
| Read More » For Some Kids, Easter Egg Hunts Pose Allergy Risk Several children in Florida experienced allergic reactions after they secretly ate chocolate during an Easter egg hunt, without their parents realizing it, according to a new report of the cases. The four children — two boys and two girls, ages 4 to 7 years old — had all previously been diagnosed with a nickel allergy, a condition in which people experience skin rashes when they come in contact with the metal. In each child's case, their symptoms had improved for two to five months, but then they all wound up at the doctor with flare-ups about two to five days after that year's Easter Sunday. "They all came in on the same two-day period," said Dr. Sharon Jacob, a dermatologist who treated the children at the University of Miami. Read More » | |
