Ecology

Hurricane Melissa hits Cuba as category 3 but remains dangerous: the impressive satellite images

Hurricane Melissa hits Cuba as category 3 but remains dangerous: the impressive satellite images

Hurricane Melissa after landfall on Cuba. Credit: NOAA After devastating Jamaica, theHurricane Melissa hit Cuba: the landfall it occurred today, Wednesday 29 October, in Chivirico, in the province of Santiago de Cuba, at 03:10 local time (08:10 in Italy): the Atlantic cyclone hit the Caribbean island after weakening to a category 3 hurricane, but still remains dangerous due to sustained ...

Smells and tastes are connected: a new study reveals how they are united in our brain

Smells and tastes are connected: a new study reveals how they are united in our brain

Have you ever had the nose completely stuck due to a cold and discover that your favorite dish has become tastelessalmost like sawdust? This illusion of “loss of taste” reveals to us that what we call flavor is a symphony complex, where the taste perceived on the tongue via the taste buds and the perceived aroma retronasally they come together ...

The 5 oldest subways in the world: from London to Budapest, a UNESCO heritage site

The 5 oldest subways in the world: from London to Budapest, a UNESCO heritage site

The metropolitan today they are not just means of transport, but true urban icons that have marked the history of cities: from London to Chicago, from Budapest to Boston, these underground or elevated systems have revolutionized urban mobility, allowing millions of people to move every day. The first lines, born between the mid and late nineteenth centuryhave introduced extraordinary technological ...

35% of Italian adults are functionally illiterate: Italy is at the bottom of the ranking

35% of Italian adults are functionally illiterate: Italy is at the bottom of the ranking

In Italy, over one in three adults is unable to understand and analyze complex texts. This is one of the results of the new survey on adult skills carried out as part of the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) of the OECD, which measures the skills of adults between 16 and 65 years in 31 countries ...

What is the ISBN code and what is the numerical code that we see on all books for

What is the ISBN code and what is the numerical code that we see on all books for

The ISBN code – International Standard Book Number – it’s a 13 digit number standardized internationally that identifies one specific book, paper or digital: even an ebook publication has a different code than the same paper publication, since they are different book types. ISBNs are sold to publishing houses by designated bodies, in Italy specifically by the Italian Publishers Association. ...

The secret Commodus Passage of the Colosseum opened for the first time: what the ancient corridor was and photos

The secret Commodus Passage of the Colosseum opened for the first time: what the ancient corridor was and photos

The passage of Commodus. Credit: Colosseum Archaeological Park. The direction of Colosseum Archaeological Park announced that, starting from the end of October, the so-called “Commodus Passage”a sort of corridor in the underground of the large amphitheater which has not been visited until now. The restoration and accessibility works, which lasted from October 2024 to September 2025, were conducted by Dr. ...

Hurricane Melissa hits Jamaica and heads towards Cuba: it is the most violent landfall in the history of the Atlantic

Hurricane Melissa hits Jamaica and heads towards Cuba: it is the most violent landfall in the history of the Atlantic

A satellite image of Hurricane Melissa. Credit: NOAA Hurricane Melissa of category 5 hit the coast of Jamaica near New Hope with sustained winds up to 295 km/has reported by National Hurricane Center. The landfall by Melissa is probably the most violent recorded in the Atlantic Oceanleaving 240,000 people without electricity and threatening around one and a half million people ...

Mini-hydroelectric power plants: how they work and how much they produce

Mini-hydroelectric power plants: how they work and how much they produce

THE’hydroelectric energy it is one of the oldest and cleanest forms of electricity production: it exploits the force of water to generate renewable, constant and emission-free energy. But how does a hydroelectric plant really work? To find out and understand step by step how water becomes electricity, we entered inside a real mini hydroelectric power plant in Piedmont, along the ...

Who was the witches' familiar and why did it often look like a black cat

Who was the witches’ familiar and why did it often look like a black cat

Credits: Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons The world of witches it is made up not only of potions and spells, but also of silent black, winged or furry companions: i families. But what does this evocative word really mean and why has it always been associated with witches? The term derives from the Latin familiaris ...