A new Mayo Clinic research says having canine companions could actually help some people sleep better. According to the American Veterinary Association, more than 40 million American households have dogs. Of these households, 63 percent consider their canine companions to be family. Still, many draw the line at having their furry family members sleep with them for fear of sacrificing …

The caves located underneath Antarctic ice could be inhabited by yet-unknown species of plants and animals, scientists say. Researchers collected soil samples from subglacial caves in Mount Erebus as well as from three volcanoes in the Victoria Land region of Antarctica, They found moss, algae, arthropods and nematodes at the sites, but also found unknown DNA at the Mount Erebus …

A brand new radio telescope in Canada just started searching space for digitized signals that can help the instruments measure the expansion of the universe. The Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment is known as CHIME and the last piece was symbolically added today by Canada’s Science Minister Kirsty Duncan at the location near Penticton, British Columbia. CHIME employs a series of …

Lufkin, Texas, police responded to a shoplifting call at an Ulta store, chased a woman down and arrested her. But when Toscha Sponsler, 33, was handcuffed and buckled into the patrol car, something surprising happened. She stole the patrol unit. As officers went through her bags of allegedly stolen goods, Sponsler deftly removed her seat belt, slipped her cuffs and …

A blue-green algae (cyanobacteria) bloom has been identified in areas of Lac Bellevue. Residents living near the shores of this lake, as well as visitors to this lake, are advised to take the following precautions: Avoid all contact with blue-green algae (cyanobacteria) blooms. If contact occurs, wash with tap water as soon as possible. Do not swim or wade (or allow your …

SpaceX today successfully launched the US Air Force’s secretive mini-space-shuttle X-37B from the biz’s launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center on Cape Canaveral, Florida. This marked the Elon Musk-founded company’s first launch for the Air Force. The uncrewed plane is headed off on a super secret mission that’s scheduled to last 270 days, though the Air Force cryptically warned …

The Mars rover has found boron, providing further evidence that the conditions from which life might potentially have grown may have existed on ancient Mars, and independent from conditions on Earth. “Because borates may play an important role in making RNA—one of the building blocks of life—finding boron on Mars further opens the possibility that life could have once arisen …

A young boy in Turkey almost died after taking a large bite of a hot dog, and a rare heart condition is to blame. A medical report published by doctors in Istanbul states that the 9-year-old boy went into cardiac arrest and collapsed after biting into a frankfurter at school, according to HealthDay News. Luckily, the boy survived after being …

The TTC says it has handed surveillance footage over to Toronto police after a man was caught on video tossing a custodian’s bucket of mop water on a woman at Lawrence East Station. An Instagram video shows the two arguing on the platform at Lawrence East station with a transit worker standing nearby. The woman appears to reach into the …

A new research shows that the lack of Antarctic sea ice in 2016 was in part due to a unique one-two punch from atmospheric conditions both in the tropical Pacific Ocean and around the South Pole. A dramatic drop in Antarctic sea ice almost a year ago, during the Southern Hemisphere spring, brought its maximum area down to its lowest …

Scientists have identified a pulsar spinning at more than 42,000 revolutions per minute, making it the second-fastest known. A pulsar is the core of a massive star that exploded as a supernova. In this stellar remnant, also called a neutron star, the equivalent mass of half a million Earths is crushed into a magnetized, spinning ball no larger than Washington, …