Different from All Other Nights
Last night marked the beginning of the Jewish holiday of Passover, which commemorates the Hebrews’ liberation from slavery in Egypt and the “passing over” of the forces of destruction, or the sparing of the firstborn of the Israelites, on the eve of Exodus. This year’s celebration occurs against a backdrop of conflict—today also marks the 200th day in the Israel-Hamas War—and heightened concerns of rising anti-Semitism.
What Is Passover, and How Is It Celebrated?
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Interactive: The Symbolism of Every Dish at a Seder
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The Jewish Religious Calendar, Starting With Passover
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Animals in the News
The animal world has been abuzz with news lately, from the discovery of a gigantic ancient serpent to the memories of tiny frozen roundworms.
Great snakes!
Paleontologists recently unearthed what may be the largest snake that ever lived. The giant snake, dubbed Vasuki indicus, lived during the Eocene Epoch and may have grown as long as 15 meters (nearly 50 feet). The first fossil of the extinct species was uncovered in 2005, in a coal mine in western India, leading to the eventual excavation of 27 vertebrae. The find was announced in Scientific Reports last Thursday.
Bubble bees
Bumblebees can survive underwater for up to seven days, researchers at the University of Guelph in Canada recently (and accidentally) discovered. The scientists mistakenly submerged a few queen bees in water, and when they discovered the error some days later, were surprised to find the bees had survived. They then tried it out on 143 bumblebee queens and found that those submerged up to seven days similarly survived.
Frozen in time
Some organisms, such as the roundworm, can survive being cryogenically frozen—but do their memories also survive? A study done on the common roundworm found that certain learned behaviors do indeed survive the cryogenic process.
© Ed Reschke—Stone/Getty Images
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