The question “how old is the universe?” has been pondered for decades. Thanks to our ever-improving science, our estimates of the age of the universe have become more and more accurate as time goes by. Astronomers before 1999 estimated the age of the universe between 7 billion to 20 billion years. In 2013, another calculation was made, and astronomers stated that the universe is around 13.7 billion years old. Fast forward to this day, where a new team has decided to take a shot at computing the age of the universe.

Using known distances of 50 galaxies from Earth to refine calculations in Hubble's constant, a research team led by a University of Oregon astronomer estimates the age of the universe at 12.6 billion years.

Learn more about this calculation, and how the age of the universe is determined, over at ScienceDaily.

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We know that pollution can affect our health negatively. It can increase risk of heart attacks, as well as cause lung diseases such as asthma. But those are not the only things that pollution can do: it can also affect brain development as well. These recent studies from USC show how air pollution affects the brains of children and older women.

The first study, published in Environment International, found that these fine particles — known as PM2.5 — may alter the size of a child’s developing brain, which may ultimately increase the risk for cognitive and emotional problems later in adolescence.

“At this young age, the neurons in children’s brains are expanding and pruning at an incredible rate. As your brain develops, it wants to create efficient pathways,” said lead author Megan Herting, an assistant professor at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. “If these pathways are altered by PM2.5 exposure, and different parts of the brain are maturing and making connections at different rates, that might set you up for individual differences later on.”

The other research, on the other hand, shows that older women who are more exposed to pollution have smaller white matter in their brain, which could be an early sign of Alzheimer’s disease.

Learn more details about these studies over at Neuroscience News.

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Soccer is one of those games that you will have a really difficult time trying to score a point. This is why scoring a goal, or successfully defending a goal, is very much celebrated. And since scoring a goal can be an occasional event in this game, celebrating too early can have fatal consequences.

In this game (possibly a local game) posted by Reddit user one_percentage, the player in blue can be seen attempting to score a penalty. Unfortunately, he miscalculates, and the ball hits the metal and bounces high up in the air off camera. Seeing this, the goalkeeper from the opposing team gets back up immediately and runs towards his teammates, while the player bows his head to the ground looking defeated. However, something unexpected happens: the ball appears again on camera and bounces back on the ground, with just enough spin to send itself back on the goal, and this time it goes by its own and is unhindered. The goalkeeper tries to chase it, but is too late.

Watch the video on Reddit.

(Image Credit: u/one_percentage/ Reddit)

If you want to have a great stargazing experience, free from atmospheric turbulence (which makes stars seem to twinkle), then you might consider going to the place scientists say is the best spot for watching these celestial bodies. It might be a bit far from your home, however, and it’s cold there as well, as it’s located near the South Pole.

The hotspot (or cold spot, in this case) is called Dome A, and is located on a plateau near central Antarctica, roughly 2.5 miles, (4 kilometers) above sea-level. In a new study published July 29 in the journal Nature, researchers found that the conditions at Dome A are positively perfect for staring at the cosmos with minimal interference from Earth's atmosphere.

In particular, the stars above Dome A actually twinkle less than they do elsewhere around the world, the researchers found. That's because of a phenomenon called atmospheric turbulence. Basically, as wind blows across uneven terrain, like mountains or valleys, it creates turbulent eddies in the atmosphere that can warp the appearance of light reaching Earth from distant stars.

Learn more about this place and why scientists claim that this is the perfect place to stargaze, over at Live Science.

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For years, astronomers have thought that the heliosphere (the “bubble” that protects the planets inside our Solar System from interstellar radiation) is shaped like a comet. Data from one of NASA’s satellites, however, seems to contradict that suggestion.

…according to new research, its shape could look far more peculiar than that: like a “deflated croissant,” according to a NASA statement. Less comet and more like a chewed up piece of gum, or maybe something vaguely biological from the movie “Annihilation.”

To construct the model, a team of astronomers took a closer look at data collected by NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX). The mission analyzed energetic neutral atoms as cosmic rays travel from the Sun and outwards towards the heliopause, the theoretical boundary past which solar winds can’t penetrate, some ten billion miles from Earth.

More information about how the astronomers came up with this model over at Futurism.

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For a long time, scientists have dreamed of developing the ultimate cancer-screening test, one that can detect malignancy early, a phase before tumor cells are able to spread and treatments are more effective. Now, thanks to their hard work, we are a step closer into achieving that dream.

By using a blood test, the international team was able to diagnose cancer long before symptoms appeared in nearly all the people it tested who went on to develop cancer.

“What we showed is: up to four years before these people walk into the hospital, there are already signatures in their blood that show they have cancer,” says Kun Zhang, a bioengineer at the University of California, San Diego, and a co-author of the study. “That’s never been done before.”

This method is said to be an “essential first step” in creating a cancer-screening product.

Learn more about this over at Scientific American.

There is much hope for the future.

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Ozzy Man warns us of these people who we don’t want to cross paths with, from a dude who you shouldn’t judge by his physical appearance, a one-legged warrior, a ballet and swordmaster, to a kid with nunchucks who has more muscles than you.

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For decades, humans have been using light-emitting devices such as flashlights in order to hunt for prey. Apparently, sudden light causes confusion to animals and makes them freeze. In the past, however, flashlights with incandescent bulbs quickly run out of power, which makes it a costly tool for the hunter. It also makes hunting more difficult. But with the current LED technology, which can emit the same light with less power, hunters have found it easier to hunt. There is a downside, however.

Cheap, powerful flashlights are allowing hunters in tropical jungles around the world to more easily kill nocturnal animals, including endangered species such as pangolins, according to a new study. Scientists warn the new technology threatens to further damage ecosystems already strained by overhunting.

But for forest ecologist Robert Nasi, the problem is not the LED flashlights; it is how people use them.

For example, Gabonese hunters working at night in the vast forests of the Congo reported killing threatened species, including the giant pangolin (Smutsia gigantea) and various small antelopes known as duikers. LEDs could fuel intensive hunting of the sort that can take a toll on jungle ecosystems, Nasi says. But for people hunting to feed themselves, the lights could save time, freeing them up to do other things like fish or tend crops.

What are your thoughts about this one?

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We all have regrets in our lives. It might be regret in choosing the wrong degree program at our university, regret in making a financial decision that resulted in a huge loss, or regret in a relationship that should have been ended way earlier before things got worse. Regrets come with a lot of “what if” questions and “I should have done this” statements, as well as pain that could either cause us to grow and move forward, or to shrink and stay stuck. Of course, all of us want to grow, but how do we do it properly?

Psychology professor Shawn M. Burn gives us advice on how to deal with our regrets. See her tips over at Psychology Today.

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Jesse Dunietz was surprised as he attended the 58th Annual Meeting of the Association of Computational Linguistics. For decades, natural-language processing (NLP), the AI branch that specializes in creating systems that analyze the human language, has been measuring the ability of these systems through benchmark data sets.

Much of today’s reading comprehension research entails carefully tweaking models to eke out a few more percentage points on the latest data sets. “State of the art” has practically become a proper noun: “We beat SOTA on SQuAD by 2.4 points!”

But during this year’s meeting, Dunietz felt something different.

Attendees’ conversations were unusually introspective about the core methods and objectives of natural-language processing (NLP), the branch of AI focused on creating systems that analyze or generate human language. Papers in this year’s new “Theme” track asked questions like: Are current methods really enough to achieve the field’s ultimate goals? What even are those goals?

For Dunietz and his colleagues, the field needs a “ transformation, not just in system design, but in a less glamorous area: evaluation.”

More details about this over at Technology Review.

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Found in the border between Peru and Bolivia in the Andes Mountains is one of the largest lakes in South America: Lake Titicaca. For the Inca and the Tiwanaku (the people that lived there before the Inca), the lake, which is home to still and reflective waters, is a sacred lake. Currently, the lake is filled with “sunken sacrifices from centuries ago.”

After years of searching, archaeologists have now retrieved the first underwater offering not yet damaged or looted by opportunists: a box of volcanic rock, submerged around 500 years ago. 

Upon opening this tightly-sealed sacrifice in front of local Indigenous leaders, the research team discovered an ancient llama, carved from the shell of a spiny mollusc called a spondylus from Ecuador, and a furled sheet of gold, thought to be part of a bracelet.

If historical accounts from the invading Spanish are right, the box may have once even held the blood of children or animals, although no human remains have been found in the lake to date.

Scientists believe that boxes such as this one are lowered on the lake as some sort of sacrifice to the gods.

More details about this one over at ScienceAlert.

(Image Credit: Teddy Seguin/Université libre de Bruxelles/ ScienceAlert)

Usually found thriving inside Warp Pipes, the Piranha Plants wait for the perfect opportunity to chomp down the heroes of the Mushroom Kingdom, Mario and Luigi. But this Piranha Plant is different from all of its kind. It doesn’t bite, and it’s friendly towards people.

Paladone’s Piranha Plant lamp comes with its mouth wide open, and looks intimidating as it pokes its head out of a drain pipe. Its green stalk is poseable, so you can bend it to your whim, and aim its light where you want it. Rather than living organic matter, this Piranha Plant is made from plastic, and it’s teeth aren’t sharp enough to break skin. The plant can go anywhere too, since it runs on battery or USB power.

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Quezon City, Philippines — A man named Dino Rivera went outside of his house to buy something from the nearby store. On his way, however, he saw something that doesn’t seem to belong in the area. That something was an ostrich, and it was running fast towards the other side of the street.

Not much is known about the said flightless bird, but it is assumed that somehow, it broke free from the place where it was kept.

That, or someone played Jumanji.

What are your thoughts about this one?

(Image Credit: Dino Rivera/ GMA News/ Facebook)

Everything has an ending. Even our grand universe, despite looking majestic and eternal, will end some day. But how will our universe end? That’s what theoretical astrophysicist Katie Mack writes about in her book titled The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking). In the book, Mack enumerates some possibilities of how our universe will end. 

But far from being depressing, Mack’s account mixes a sense of reverence for the wonders of physics with an irreverent sense of humor and a disarming dose of candor.

Some potential finales are violent: If the universe’s expansion were to reverse, the cosmos collapsing inward in a Big Crunch, extremely energetic swells of radiation would ignite the surfaces of stars, exploding them. Another version of the end is quieter but no less terrifying: The universe’s expansion could continue forever. That end, Mack writes, “like immortality, only sounds good until you really think about it.” Endless expansion would beget a state known as “heat death”...

Perhaps more merciful than the purgatory of heat death is the possibility of a Big Rip, in which the universe’s expansion accelerates faster and faster, until stars and planets are torn apart, molecules are shredded and the very fabric of space is ripped apart.

Learn more about this over at ScienceNews.

(Image Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI/ Wikimedia Commons)

When we hear the word “parasite”, what comes into our minds are organisms that take advantage of their hosts and make them suffer. But while some of these parasites do cause harm to other organisms and creatures, this fact is only true for 4% of known parasites. The other parasites, meanwhile, play major ecological roles. And so, in reality, while there are some parasites that are known to be dangerous and should be eradicated, there are also some parasites which are to be protected.

About a dozen leading parasite ecologists, including University of Washington's Chelsea Wood, published a paper Aug. 1 in the journal Biological Conservation, which lays out an ambitious global conservation plan for parasites.

"Parasites are an incredibly diverse group of species, but as a society, we do not recognize this biological diversity as valuable," said Wood, an assistant professor in the UW School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences. "The point of this paper is to emphasize that we are losing parasites and the functions they serve without even recognizing it."

More details about this over at EurekAlert.

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