See images of solar eruptions on the sun in unprecedented detail
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
17 minutes ago
- Yahoo
YAHOO POLL: Should Astronomer CEO Andy Byron have resigned?
Unless you've been living under a rock with no access to social media, then you're probably aware that there's a tech company called Astronomer whose CEO recently got caught snuggling with a woman who was not his wife at a recent Coldplay concert in Boston. Astronomer chief Andy Byron is holding his company's chief people officer, Kristin Cabot, in his arms when footage of their embrace is beamed up onto the stadium's jumbotron. Coldplay frontman Chris Martin says 'Oh look at these two" which prompts Cabot to quickly cover her face while Byron ducks to avoid the cameras. "Either they're having an affair or they're very shy," Coldplay's Martin accurately notes. Of course, someone was filming the entire awkward exchange and decided it would be best to blast the clip on social media. The video went viral and it didn't take internet sleuths long to identify who the couple were and create rumours of an alleged affair. The woman behind the viral video says she wasn't trying to cause any trouble when she posted it – but at the same time she's not exactly apologetic either. "Play stupid games... win stupid prizes," she was quoted as saying in an interview. Other polls YAHOO POLL: Does cutting public holidays help boost the economy? YAHOO POLL: Do you neglect your health for your career? YAHOO POLL: Is it fair to ban cyclists from pedestrian-only paths? Astronomer launched an investigation at the weekend and it was announced shortly afterwards that Byron had resigned from his role. As of press time, there was no update on Cabot's position. 'As stated previously, Astronomer is committed to the values and culture that have guided us since our founding. Our leaders are expected to set the standard in both conduct and accountability, and recently, that standard was not met,' the company's statement released Saturday reads. "Andy Byron has tendered his resignation, and the Board of Directors has accepted. The Board will begin a search for our next Chief Executive as Cofounder and Chief Product Officer Pete DeJoy continues to serve as interim CEO." While the whole episode was not been the kind of attention Astronomer would have wanted, some public relations experts have said the newfound fame could, ultimately, benefit the firm. So, we want to know: Should Astronomer CEO Andy Byron have resigned? Related A CEO was caught hugging his chief people officer during a Coldplay concert—and people are furious 'Do your makeup now!' Chris Martin jokes about Coldplay's 'kiss cam' chaos after viral 'affair' clip Woman Who Exposed AI CEO's Affair on Jumbotron Responds to Controversy Astronomer CEO Andy Byron resigns after Coldplay 'kiss cam' scandal, company confirms in statement All publicity is good publicity: How Astronomer's viral moment could be a 'blessing in disguise'
Washington Post
19 minutes ago
- Washington Post
Allergies seem nearly impossible to avoid — unless you're Amish
Whether triggered by pollen, pet dander or peanuts, allergies in this day and age seem nearly impossible to avoid. But one group appears virtually immune, a mystery to experts who study allergies. Despite the increasing rate of allergic diseases, both in industrialized and in developing countries, the Amish remain exceptionally — and bafflingly — resistant. Only 7 percent of Amish children had a positive response to one or more common allergens in a skin prick test, compared with more than half of the general U.S. population. Even children from other traditional farming families, who still have lower rates of allergic disease than nonfarm children, are more allergic than the Amish. In fact, one Amish community living in northern Indiana is considered one of the least allergic populations ever measured in the developed world. 'Generally, across the country, about 8 to 10 percent of kids have asthma. In the Amish kids, it's probably 1 to 2 percent,' said Carole Ober, chair of human genetics at the University of Chicago. 'A few of them do have allergies, but at much, much lower rates compared to the general population.' Now, Ober and other researchers are trying to discover what makes Amish and other traditional farming communities unique, in the hopes of developing a protective treatment that could be given to young children. For instance, a probiotic or essential oil that contains substances found in farm dust, such as microbes and the molecules they produce, could stimulate children's immune systems in a way that prevents allergic disease. 'Certain kinds of farming practices, particularly the very traditional ones, have this extraordinary protective effect in the sense that, in these communities, asthma and allergies are virtually unknown,' said Donata Vercelli, a professor of cellular and molecular medicine at the University of Arizona. 'The studies that have been done in these farming populations are critical because they tell us that protection is an attainable goal.' The Amish are members of a Christian group who practice traditional farming — many live on single-family dairy farms — and use horses for fieldwork and transportation. As of 2024, around 395,000 Amish live in the United States, concentrated mostly in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana. Over the past century, the incidence of allergic diseases — including hay fever (allergic rhinitis), asthma, food allergies and eczema — has increased dramatically. Hay fever, or an allergic reaction to tree, grass and weed pollens, emerged as the first recognized allergic disease in the early 1800s, climbing to epidemic levels in Europe and North America by 1900. The 1960s saw a sharp increase in the prevalence of pediatric asthma, a condition in which the airways tighten when breathing in an allergen. From the 1990s onward, there has been an upswing in the developed world in food allergies, including cow's milk, peanut and egg allergies. Urbanization, air pollution, dietary changes and an indoor lifestyle are often cited as possible factors. The 'hygiene hypothesis' — first proposed in a 1989 study by American immunologist David Strachan — suggests that early childhood exposure to microbes protects against allergic diseases by contributing to the development of a healthy immune system. The study found that hay fever and eczema were less common among children born into larger families. Strachan wondered whether unhygienic contact with older siblings served as a protection against allergies. Subsequent findings have given support to the hygiene hypothesis, such as that children who grow up with more household pets are less likely to develop asthma, hay fever or eczema. Perhaps even more beneficial than having older siblings or pets, however, is growing up on a farm. (More than 150 years ago, hay fever was known as an 'aristocratic disease,' almost wholly confined to the upper classes of society. Farmers appeared relatively immune.) This 'farm effect' has been confirmed by studies on agricultural populations around the world, including in the United States, Europe, Asia and South America. But even among farming communities, the most pronounced effect appears to be in the Amish. In a study of 60 schoolchildren by Ober, Vercelli and their colleagues, the prevalence of asthma was four times lower in the Amish as compared with the Hutterites, another U.S. farming community with a similar genetic ancestry and lifestyle. The prevalence of allergic sensitization — the development of antibodies to allergens and the first step to developing an allergy — was six times higher in the Hutterites. The researchers first ruled out a genetic cause; in fact, an analysis showed that the Amish and Hutterite children were remarkably similar in their ancestral roots. Instead, the main difference between these two populations seemed to be the amount of exposure as young children to farm animals or barns. 'The Hutterite kids and pregnant moms don't go into the animal barns. Kids aren't really exposed to the animal barns until they're like 12 or so, when they start learning how to do the work on the farm,' Ober said. 'The Amish kids are in and out of the cow barns all day long from an early age.' When analyzing samples of Amish and Hutterite house dust, they found a microbial load almost seven times higher in Amish homes. Later experiments showed that the airways of mice that inhaled Amish dust had dramatically reduced asthmalike symptoms when exposed to allergens. Mice that inhaled Hutterite dust did not receive the same benefit. Now, Ober and Vercelli are beginning to identify the protective agents in Amish dust that prevent allergic asthma. In 2023, their analysis of farm dust found proteins that act like delivery trucks, loaded with molecules produced by microbes and plants. When these transport proteins deliver their cargo to the mucus that lines the respiratory tract, it creates a protective environment that regulates airway responses and prevents inflammation. 'We don't really talk about the hygiene hypothesis as much anymore because we now understand that it's not really about how hygienic you're living,' said Kirsi Järvinen-Seppo, director of the Center for Food Allergy at the University of Rochester Medical Center. 'It's more like a microbial hypothesis, since beneficial bacteria that colonize the gut and other mucosal surfaces play a significant role.' During the first year or two of life, a baby's immune system is rapidly developing and highly malleable by environmental stimuli, such as bacteria. Some experts believe that exposing young children to certain types of beneficial bacteria can engage and shape the growing immune system in a way that reduces the risk of allergic diseases later in life. Farm dust contains a hodgepodge of bacteria shed from livestock and animal feed that isn't harmful enough to cause illness, but does effectively train the immune system to become less responsive to allergens later in life. In 2021, Järvinen-Seppo and her colleagues compared the gut microbiomes of 65 Old Order Mennonite infants from a rural community in New York with 39 urban/suburban infants from nearby Rochester. Like the Amish, the Old Order Mennonites follow a traditional agrarian lifestyle. Almost three-fourths of Mennonite infants in the study were colonized with B. infantis, a bacterium associated with lower rates of allergic diseases, in contrast to 21 percent of Rochester infants. 'The colonization rate is very low in the United States and other Western countries, compared to very high rates in Mennonite communities, similar to some developing countries,' Järvinen-Seppo said. 'This mirrors the rates of autoimmune and allergic diseases.' These clues about the origin of the farm effect represent a step toward the prevention of allergic diseases, Järvinen-Seppo says. Whatever form the treatment takes, the impact on prevention of allergic diseases, which affect millions of people worldwide and reduce quality of life, could be enormous, experts say. 'I don't know that we can give every family a cow. … But we are learning from these time-honored and very stable environments what type of substances and exposures are needed,' Vercelli said. 'Once we know that, I don't think there will be any impediment to creating protective strategies along these lines.'
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Monday night SpaceX rocket launch from Florida: Where to watch in Sebastian, Vero Beach
Can a rocket launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, be seen farther south, in Treasure Coast skies? If the conditions are right, yes! Though rockets here launch from NASA's Kennedy Space Center near Merritt Island, Florida, or Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, people from the Treasure Coast can sometimes see this phenomenon. Weather permitting and depending on cloud cover, a rocket launch from Florida's Space Coast could be visible as far north as Jacksonville Beach and Daytona Beach and as far south as Vero Beach or West Palm Beach. When there's a nighttime launch window or very early morning, there's an opportunity for unique photos — the rocket lights up the dark sky and the contrail after makes for a great photo. Below is more information on rocket launches in Florida and suggestions on where to watch them from the Treasure Coast. Is there a launch today? Upcoming SpaceX, NASA, ULA rocket launch schedule at Cape Canaveral For questions or comments, email FLORIDA TODAY Space Reporter Rick Neale at rneale@ or Space Reporter Brooke Edwards at bedwards@ For more space news from the USA TODAY Network, visit When is the next SpaceX rocket launch in Florida? No earlier than Monday, July 21: SpaceX O3B mPOWER 9 and 10 Mission: SpaceX will launch a Falcon 9 rocket and deploy the Boeing-built ninth and 10th O3B mPOWER satellites into medium-Earth orbit, SES reported. Launch window: 5 p.m. to 8:13 p.m. ET Location: Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Trajectory: Due east. Sonic booms: No. Live coverage starts 90 minutes before liftoff at : You can watch live rocket launch coverage from USA TODAY Network's Space Team, which consists of FLORIDA TODAY space reporters Rick Neale and Brooke Edwards and visuals journalists Craig Bailey, Malcolm Denemark and Tim Shortt. Our Space Team will provide up-to-the-minute updates in a mobile-friendly live blog, complete with a countdown clock, at starting 90 minutes before liftoff. You can download the free FLORIDA TODAY app, which is available in the App Store or Google Play, or type into your browser. Dinner with a view: Treasure Coast restaurants with views of the ocean or river — and a rocket launch Where to watch a rocket launch in Indian River County, Florida Sebastian Inlet State Park, 9700 S. State Road A1A, Melbourne Beach, Florida (cost to enter) Wabasso Beach Park, 1808 Wabasso Beach Road, Wabasso, Florida Ambersands Beach Park, 12566 N. SR A1A, Vero Beach, Florida (free parking) South Beach Park, 1700 Ocean Drive, Vero Beach, Florida (free parking) Merrill Barber Bridge in Vero Beach, Florida Alma Lee Loy Bridge in Vero Beach, Florida Where to watch a rocket launch in St. Lucie County, Florida Fort Pierce Inlet State Park, 905 Shorewinds Drive, Fort Pierce, Florida Blind Creek Beachside North and South, 5460 S. Ocean Drive, Fort Pierce, Florida Blue Heron Beach, 2101 Blue Heron Blvd., Fort Pierce, Florida Frederick Douglass Memorial Park, 3600 S. Ocean Drive, Fort Pierce, Florida Dollman Park Beachside, 9200 S. Ocean Drive, Jensen Beach, Florida Herman's Bay Beach, 7880 S. Ocean Drive, Jensen Beach, Florida John Brooks Park Beachside, 3300 S. Ocean Drive, Fort Pierce, Florida Middle Cove Beach, 4600 S. Ocean Drive, Fort Pierce, Florida Normandy Beach in Jensen Beach, Florida Pepper Park Beachside, 3302 N. SR A1A, Fort Pierce, Florida Walton Rocks Beach, 6700 S. Ocean Drive, Jensen Beach, Florida (dog park) Waveland Beach, 10350 S. Ocean Drive, Jensen Beach, Florida Where to watch a rocket launch in Martin County, Florida State Road A1A causeway in Stuart, Florida House of Refuge and beach, 301 S.E. MacArthur Blvd., Stuart, Florida This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: SpaceX rocket launch: Best places to see from Ft Pierce, Jensen Beach Solve the daily Crossword
