Ecology

If we spend a sleepless night, the brain "disconnects" while we are awake: the new study

If we spend a sleepless night, the brain “disconnects” while we are awake: the new study

Miss a single night’s sleepwe know, can have catastrophic effects on ours Attention. A new study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), released on Nature Neurosciencehighlights the neurological mechanisms underlying the disaster of cognitive abilities in sleep deprivation, revealing that the brain activates processes that resemble the non-REM sleep even while awake, making us have those collapses of attention ...

The meaning and origins of applause, the gesture of clapping

The meaning and origins of applause, the gesture of clapping

Clapping is a universal gesture which tells the story of humanity: from the instinctive call of primates to the sacredness of ancient rites, from the theater of Dionysus to Roman politics, up to today’s stadiums and social media. From the sacred ritual of theantiquity from the stages of modern theatre, to contemporary stadiums and squares, applause tells how human beings ...

Comet Lemmon reaches perihelion, how to observe the show and where to see it

Comet Lemmon reaches perihelion, how to observe the show and where to see it

Comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) imaged from Italy. Credit: La Spezia Amateur Astronomers Association, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons There comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) it was certainly the most spectacular of the year as well as the brightest of 2025, having been above the naked eye visibility threshold in our skies for over 20 days with a suggestive green foliage. ...

Why we say "good luck" and answer "crepi": origin and meaning of the expression

Why we say “good luck” and answer “crepi”: origin and meaning of the expression

“Good luck” is the most common wish to say “good luck” for example before a competition, an interview or an exam, to which one replies “Crepe il wolf” or just “die” to make sure that fate is truly favorable. The origin of the saying it is uncertainbut the most plausible explanations connect it to the world of hunting, to maritime ...

Are we really happier when we are younger? What the study tells us about global well-being

Are we really happier when we are younger? What the study tells us about global well-being

Although there are conflicting opinions, most studies on happiness in recent decades agreed on one point: happiness happiness it tends to be very high in youth, decline during middle age and then rise again in later life. A trend to “U” shapeIn short. The problem today is that we are observing a change in the trend of happiness. The research ...

origine terremoti campi flegrei

Earthquakes in the Campi Flegrei, a new study lays the foundations for predicting the strongest tremors

The Campi Flegrei caldera seen from satellite. Credit: Jesse Allen and Robert Simmon, via Wikimedia Commons The main earthquakes that occur near the Caldera of the Campi Flegrei due to the volcanic phenomenon of bradyseism are anticipated by a preparatory phase made up of precursor signals significant. To document it, in a study in the magazine JGR Solid Earthare researchers ...

150 years ago X-rays were discovered by Wilhelm Röntgen, the man who changed science

150 years ago X-rays were discovered by Wilhelm Röntgen, the man who changed science

On the right Wilhelm Röntgen, on the left one of the first photos he took with X-rays. It was the evening ofNovember 8, 1895 when, in a laboratory at the University of Würzburg, the physicist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen he randomly observed something extraordinary: a mysterious fluorescence that seemed to pass through matter. The next day, November 9, he began to ...

Almost one death a day from bicycle accidents in Italy: more than half are over 65

Almost one death a day from bicycle accidents in Italy: more than half are over 65

Every day in Italy more than 40 cyclists are involved in a road accident. The accidents that involve bicycles represent the 10% of the total of road accidents, but in absolute numbers, this means over 164 thousand accidents in ten years, with more than 3000 dead and over 150 thousand injured, of which 17 thousand seriously in 2023 alone. These ...

WhatsApp is testing a feature to make profiles more secure

WhatsApp is testing a feature to make profiles more secure

WhatsApp is testing a new feature designed to make profiles more secure and to offer greater control over the management of unknown contacts, unwanted messages and attempted cyber attacks. In the past, the app had begun to introduce tools capable of automatically blocking messages from unsaved numbers that send a large amount of content in a short time, with the ...

The Habsburg treasure resurfaces after 100 years in Canada: story of disappearance and discovery

The Habsburg treasure resurfaces after 100 years in Canada: story of disappearance and discovery

The Florentine Diamond, official photograph of the jeweler AE Köchert. Credit: Der Spiegel The was found treasure of the Habsburgsconsisting of some very precious jewels including the famous and very precious “Florentine Diamond”stored in a vault in Canada for over 100 years. The treasure had been hidden by order of Charles I in 1918 immediately before he abdicated and fled: ...