Brazilian Navy says it will sink ‘ghost’ aircraft carrier at high sea | CNN

Brasilia Reuters  —  A decommissioned aircraft carrier from the 1960s that has been floating offshore for three months since Turkey refused it entry to be scrapped there will be sunk in the Atlantic Ocean in waters under Brazil’s jurisdiction, the Brazilian Navy said on Wednesday. The 32,000-ton Sao Paulo carrier…

Wildfires are increasingly burning California’s snowy landscapes and colliding with winter droughts to shrink California’s snowpack: A new study shows that midwinter dry spells lead to dramatic losses of winter snowpack in burned areas

The early pandemic years overlapped with some of California’s worst wildfires on record, creating haunting, orange-tinted skies and wide swathes of burned landscape. Some of the impacts of these fires are well known, including drastic declines in air quality, and now a new study shows how these wildfires combined with…

Antidepressants used for chronic pain on the rise, but are they effective? Some anti-depressants can’t be deemed effective in treating chronic pain conditions

New research has found some antidepressants may be effective in treating certain chronic pain conditions, but others lack convincing evidence on their effectiveness. Many people are unaware that some antidepressants (medications used to treat people living with depression) are also being prescribed to treat certain chronic pain conditions. Chronic pain…

Does lifetime exposure to estrogen affect risk of stroke?

People with a higher cumulative estrogen exposure throughout their life may have a lower risk of stroke, according to a new study published in the February 1, 2023, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The lower risk was found for both ischemic stroke…

Far from Bakhmut, an intense fight in trenches and minefields | CNN

Krasnohorivka, Ukraine CNN  —  In the town of Krasnohorivka, grim Soviet-era apartment buildings stand nearly but not quite empty, with only a few residents remaining. Blocks on the southern edges of town are burned shells, windows shattered and awnings dangling in the winter breeze. Houses are largely shuttered; their tenants…

Iranian couple handed prison sentence for dancing in the streets | CNN

CNN  —  An Iranian couple, both social media influencers, have been given lengthy prison sentences after a video emerged of them dancing in a main square in the capital Tehran. In a video shared widely on social media, Astiyazh Haghighi, 21, is seen dancing without a headscarf with her fiancé…

Live updates: Tyre Nichols’ funeral service and livestream in Memphis

In this still from video released by the City of Memphis, officers attempt to detain Tyre Nichols during a traffic stop. (City of Memphis) Editor’s note: This post contains graphic descriptions of violence. The newly released videos of Tyre Nichols’ police beating captured the brutality that his family and authorities foreshadowed: He…

Brain injuries drop 20% for babies with heart defects

Recent advances in newborn heart surgery have greatly reduced brain injuries in infants with congenital heart disease, according to a 20-year study by scientists at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals and British Columbia Children’s Hospital (BCCH). The study, begun in 2001 and published this month in the Journal of the American…

The quail could be the unknown reservoir of Tuscany and Sicilian viruses

The quail could be the unknown reservoir of the Toscana virus (TOSV) and the Sandfly Fever Sicilian virus (SFSV), mosquito-borne pathogens that can infect domestic animals and also cause disease in humans. This conclusion is drawn from a study published in the journal Frontiers in Microbiology, and which is led…

Climate change may cut US forest inventory by a fifth this century

A study led by a North Carolina State University researcher found that under more severe climate warming scenarios, the inventory of trees used for timber in the continental United States could decline by as much as 23% by 2100. The largest inventory losses would occur in two of the leading…

Discovery of a circovirus involved in human hepatitis

Scientists from the Institut Pasteur, Necker-Enfants Malades Hospital (AP-HP), Inserm in the Imagine Institute, Université Paris Cité and the Alfort National Veterinary School (EnvA) have identified a previously unknown species of circovirus, provisionally named human circovirus 1 (HCirV-1). Circoviruses are a family of small, highly resistant DNA viruses that were…

Protected areas fail to safeguard more than 75% of global insect species

Insects play crucial roles in almost every ecosystem — they pollinate more than 80% of plants and are a major source of food for thousands of vertebrate species — but insect populations are collapsing around the globe, and they continue to be overlooked by conservation efforts. Protected areas can safeguard…