Death, features and articles | Educational Science

Mar 23, 2014

Summer Deaths Could Increase with Higher Temps, UK Study Says

People living in southern England could see about 1,500 additional deaths if there is a 4-degree-Fahrenheit (2-degrees-Celsius) increase in the summer temperature there, while those living in the north of the country may not see an increase in deaths due to a warmer climate, a new study finds. Researchers looked...

Apr 11, 2014

Thinking About Death Can Make You Value Life More

This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Go ahead and contemplate your own mortality. How does it feel? Would you be surprised to learn that it can potentially improve your mental health to think about your...

Apr 13, 2014

Death Isn’t Taboo, We’re Just Not Encouraged To Talk About It (Op-Ed)

This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Contrary to the popular wisdom that it’s a taboo subject, we love discussing death. Dead bodies fascinate us and some of our favourite television shows have been about death...

May 1, 2014

Up to 40% of Deaths from Leading Causes Are Preventable

Each year, nearly 900,000 Americans die early from the five leading causes of deaths, but between 20 and 40 percent of the deaths from each of these causes could be prevented, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The five leading causes of death...

Jun 19, 2014

Clinically Dead? The Blurred Line Between Life and Death

Sometimes, the line between life and death can seem blurred. In one recent case, a woman was erroneously declared dead after having a heart attack and wound up freezing to death in a body bag in the morgue. Another woman gave birth to a baby three months after she technically...

Jul 1, 2014

80% of Deaths Before Age 30 Caused by Injuries

Nearly 80 percent of young people in the United States who die are killed by injuries, and more than half of these injuries are unintentional, such as those sustained in car crashes, falls or fires, according to a new report. Researchers looked at all people ages 1 to 30 in...

Aug 12, 2014

Could Death Obsession Explain 'Harry Potter' and 'The Hunger Games’ Craze?

WASHINGTON — Why are young adults so obsessed with The Hunger Games, Harry Potter and Twilight fantasy series? Maybe it's because they're obsessed with death, some psychologists say. There's been a trend among some of these books to include dark themes, such as death, Lance Garmon, a psychologist at Salisbury...

Aug 27, 2014

High-Tech Sleuthing Cracks Mystery of Death Valley's Moving Rocks

The first witnesses to an enduring natural mystery are an engineer, a biologist and a planetary scientist who met thanks to a remote weather station. This odd group has captured the first video footage of Death Valley's sailing stones creeping across Racetrack Playa. For a century, these eerie rocks and...

Aug 27, 2014

Image Gallery: How Ice Drives Death Valley's Sailing Stones

Natural mystery (Image credit: Mike Hartmann)In Death Valley's Racetrack Playa, rocks seem to slide across the flat lakebed under their own power. Now, scientists have solved the mystery. Geologic puzzle (Image credit: NASA/GSFC/Cynthia Cheung.)The trails are the only evidence the rocks move. Some stretch twice the length of a football...

Sep 1, 2014

The Mystery of the Sailing Stones in Death Valley

California's remote, beautiful, and foreboding Death Valley has held a mystery for almost a century: it has stones that seem to move on their own, when no one is looking. It happens at Racetrack Playa, a dry lakebed known for its sailing stones. This effect occurs at a few other...

Oct 28, 2014

What Happens to a Dead Body in the Ocean?

When a dead body decomposes in the ocean, scientists know little about what happens to it. To find out, some researchers performed an unusual experiment that involved dropping pig carcasses into the sea and watching them on video. Lots of human bodies end up in the sea, whether due to...

Dec 2, 2014

Drug Overdose-Related Deaths Double from 1999 to 2012

The number of yearly deaths from drug overdoses in the United States more than doubled between 1999 and 2012, according to a new report. In 2012, more than 41,000 people died of drug overdoses in the United States, compared with about 17,000 in 1999, according to the report released today...

Dec 16, 2014

Sorry, Mufasa: Cartoon Murders Outnumber Deaths in Adults Dramas

Children's cartoons, often seen as innocent films about royalty and furry animals, are rife with on-screen death and murder, a new study finds. The significant characters in kids' animated films are 2.5 times more likely to die than those in adult dramas, researchers found. And the victims of those deaths...

Mar 3, 2015

Heroin Overdose Deaths Nearly Quadruple in 13 Years

In a worsening trend, deaths from heroin overdose in the United States increased even more dramatically in recent years than they did over the previous decade, according to a new report. The results show the rate of death from heroin overdose nearly quadrupled, from 0.7 deaths per 100,000 people in...

May 14, 2015

Death in Your State: Map Shows 'Most Distinctive' Causes

The most common killers in the United States are well known — heart disease and cancer. But there are other, less common causes of death that are actually much more typical in certain states compared with the nation as a whole. Now, a new map shows these so-called most distinctive...