Seven planets will soon align in the sky. Plus, annual dementia cases are expected to double by 2060
Discover Magazine
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This week, we discovered that seven planets will soon create a planet parade in the sky, that methylated multivitamins may be easier for some people to absorb, that NASA’s LEXI will take images of Earth’s magnetic field, that starch evidence indicates early hominids were processing plants to eat, that dementia cases will likely double by 2060, and that a 2-mile long ice core contains 1.2 million years of climate history.
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Seven Planets Will Soon Align, Creating a Planet Parade in the Sky
In February 2025, the seven planets joining Earth in our solar system will be visible all at once in the night sky as they get arranged in an extraordinary pattern called a “great planetary alignment," or in a more celebratory expression, a "planet parade." Eager astronomers will have their telescopes ready around the evening of February 28, when Saturn, Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Mars, Uranus, and Neptune will all begin to show up in the sky.?
This event has piqued the interest of people across the world, but as anticipation grows, it’s important to recognize common misconceptions surrounding planetary alignment.?
Methylated Multivitamins May Be Easier to Absorb for Some People
Approximately one-third of American adults take a multivitamin in an effort to address nutritional deficiencies or specific dietary needs. While they are an option to replace nutrients you may not be getting from food, it is worth mentioning that multivitamins vary in quality and dosage amounts.?
However, not everyone is able to receive the maximum benefit regular multivitamins offer. For a variety of reasons, a better option may be methylated multivitamins.
NASA's LEXI Shoots to the Moon to Take First Full Images of Earth's Magnetic Field
To get a global view of Earth’s magnetosphere, NASA’s Lunar Environment Heliospheric X-ray Imager (LEXI) is set for a trip to the moon. Scheduled to take off from the Kennedy Space Center in or after mid-January, the instrument will take the first full images of the magnetic field around Earth, which will help researchers reveal how the field fends off solar winds and weather.
“We’re trying to get this big picture of Earth’s space environment,” said Boston University physicist and LEXI’s principal investigator Brian Walsh in a press release. “A lot of physics can be esoteric or difficult to follow without years of specific training, but this will be science that you can see.”
Starch Traces on Stone Tools Push Back Evidence of Hominid Plant Prep by 400,000 Years
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Sometimes it’s good not to wash the dishes. Food preparation tools recovered from an Israel archeological excavation that started in 1989 have pushed back evidence of ancient hominid plant processing by about 400,000 years — all because they weren’t cleaned.
Starch residue on flat basalt anvils and small, round pounding rocks also add grist to the argument that the Paleo Diet included heavy portions of plants, rather than the meat-dominant version many people have now adopted as a weight-loss strategy. The paper detailing these findings was recently published in PNAS.
Annual Dementia Cases Are Anticipated to Double in the U.S. by 2060
A new study published in Nature Medicine, suggests that the risk of developing dementia in the U.S. is more than double than described in previous studies, sitting at around 42 percent for adults above age 55.
If accurate, that risk will result in a rise in annual cases, which will increase from a half million new cases in 2025 to a million new cases in 2060. According to the study authors, this anticipated increase in cases is a product of the age of the population in the U.S., where around 58 million adults are currently above age 65.
Record 2-Mile-Long Ice Core Represents 1.2 Million Years of Earth’s Climate History
The history of Earth’s climate is written within ice. Drilling vertically into ice and extracting a core is akin to measuring how old a tree is by counting a stump’s rings. But ice contains more information than just age.
Scientists can deduce a particle time period's temperature. They can also measure trapped gases like CO2 and methane to see how they may have contributed to warming periods.
Scientists have now retrieved the longest such documentation — an ice core nearly 2 miles long that captures about 1.2 million years of climate information. This record can help us better understand Earth’s climate changes over time — and may provide hints of what’s to come.
What was your favorite story of the week? Let us know in the comments.?
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