The holidays will soon be here, and many of us will be traveling to see family and friends for Thanksgiving and Christmas. We’ve begun to dread those TSA lines that involve the scan and the pat down, being exposed to X-rays, and taking off our shoes (NOTE: Subscribers can still listen to this show).read more
If you didn’t do well in math, it may be because crunching numbers literally hurts your brain.
When neuroscientists look at a human brain under an fMRI machine, while they give them a math problem to do, the pain centers in some people’s brains light up. In one such test, the parts of the brain that perceive pain and bodily threats reacted as if the subject’s hand had been burned on a hot stove.
On the National Geographic website, Jeremy Berlin quotes researcher Ian Lyons as saying, "The anxiety occurred only during anticipation. When they actually did the math problems, they didn’t seem to experience pain. That suggests it’s not the math itself that hurts; it’s the thought of it that’s painful.
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You’d think that astronomers would be searching for new planets, but what they’re REALLY interested in is MOONS. They suspect that if life really does exist elsewhere in the universe, the moon of another planet might be a good place to find it.
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Meat lovers living in the central and southern regions of the country might be opting for a vegetarian lifestyle if meat comes with an unwanted side of a life-threatening allergic reaction. The Texas tick inhabiting these regions is the primary reason for a dangerous allergic reaction to a substance called "alpha gal" in meat.
"Alpha-gal" is a sugar carbohydrate found in red meats such as beef, pork and lamb. Positive alpha-gal rates are 32% higher in lone star tick population areas as compared to other regions. The central and southern regions of the United States have the highest rates of alpha-gal sensitization.
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