Explorers add 8 miles to world's longest known cave system

Pfizer says its COVID-19 vaccine is safe and effective for younger kids | Mass grave of slaughtered Crusaders discovered in Lebanon | Firefighters race to save the world’s largest tree as wildfires rage Created for {EMAIL} | [Web Version]( September 20, 2021 CONNECT WITH LIVESCIENCE  [Facebook]( [Twitter](  [LIVESCIENCE]( [LIVESCIENCE]( Amazing science every day [SIGN UP]( ⋅ [WEBSITE](  [] Top Science News [] [Pfizer says its COVID-19 vaccine is safe and effective for younger kids]( [Pfizer says its COVID-19 vaccine is safe and effective for younger kids]( (Shutterstock) A lower dose of Pfizer-BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine was safe and effective for children ages of 5 and 11, the companies announced today. Pfizer and BioNTech plan to submit the data for approval to regulatory agencies in the U.S. and around the world as soon as possible, the companies announced in a statement. Their findings, which haven't yet been peer-reviewed, come from a clinical trial of 2,268 children ages 5 to 11. The young participants were given a lower dose of the vaccine (10 µg, 21 days apart) than the dose given to people 12 years and older (30 µg, 21 days apart). Full Story: [LiveScience]( (9/20) [LinkedIn]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Email]( [] History & Archaeology [] [Mass grave of slaughtered Crusaders discovered in Lebanon]( [Mass grave of slaughtered Crusaders discovered in Lebanon]( (Claude Doumet-Serhal) Archaeologists digging near a Middle Eastern castle have unearthed two mass graves containing the grisly remains of Christian soldiers vanquished during the medieval Crusades — and some of them could have even been personally buried by a king. The chipped and charred bones of at least 25 young men and teenage boys were found inside the dry moat of the ruins of St. Louis Castle in Sidon, Lebanon. Radiocarbon dating suggests they were among the many Europeans who, between the 11th and the 13th centuries, were spurred by priests and rulers to take up arms in a doomed effort to reconquer the Holy Land. Much like many who came to fight and plunder before them, the soldiers’ long and arduous journeys ended with their deaths — all as a result of wounds they received in battle. But despite the widespread casualties, mass graves from this bloody period of history are incredibly difficult to find. Full Story: [LiveScience]( (9/17) [LinkedIn]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Email]( [] Natural Disasters [] [Firefighters race to save the world’s largest tree as wildfires rage]( [Firefighters race to save the world’s largest tree as wildfires rage]( (Ron Cobb/St. Louis Post-Dispatch/Tribune News Service via Getty Images) California firefighters have wrapped the bases of the world's largest trees in fire-resistant aluminum blankets to protect them from a wildfire that is raging nearby, according to recent news reports. The Paradise and Colony fires, collectively called the KNP Complex Fire, have been burning, uncontained, in California's Sequoia National Park since Sept. 10, according to the National Wildfire Coordinating Group. By Friday (Sept. 17), the fire, which was caused by a lightning storm, had spread across 11,365 acres (4,599 hectares) of the park and had come dangerously close to the"Giant Forest," which is home to many of the planet's most massive trees. The Giant Forest contains the world's largest tree by volume, the General Sherman, a 2,200-year-old sequoia that stands 275 feet (83 meters) and is over 36 feet (11 m) in diameter, according to the National Park Service. Full Story: [LiveScience]( (9/17) [LinkedIn]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Email]( [] Amazing Earth [] [Explorers add 8 miles to world's longest known cave system]( [Explorers add 8 miles to world's longest known cave system]( (NPS) The world's longest known cave system just set a new record after surveyors spent hours mapping an additional 8 miles (13 kilometers) of the passageways at Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky. The corridors at Mammoth Cave now measure a whopping 420 miles (676 km) in length, according to the National Park Service (NPS). That's about the distance between New York City and Raleigh, North Carolina. Mapping the cave system was a huge undertaking, carried out by volunteers at the Cave Research Foundation (CRF), a Kentucky-based nonprofit group, and other locals, including those from the Central Kentucky Karst Coalition. Full Story: [LiveScience]( (9/17) [LinkedIn]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Email]( [] Life’s Little Mysteries [] [Are left-handed people smarter?]( [Are left-handed people smarter?]( (Westend61 via Getty Images) Left-handed people comprise only around 10% of the global population, but a quick glance reveals that many key movers and shakers are lefties. For instance, three out of the last six American presidents were lefties: George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Plus, an eclectic slew of outliers who've rocked the world in one way or another had dominant left hands: Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Paul McCartney, David Bowie, Jimi Hendrix, James {NAME}, Nikola Tesla, Oprah Winfrey, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, according to a 2019 report and The New York Times. It's an impressive roster, but what does the data say? Are left-handed people smarter than righties? Full Story: [LiveScience]( (9/20) [LinkedIn]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Email]( [] [Why do the planets in the solar system orbit on the same plane?]( [Why do the planets in the solar system orbit on the same plane?]( (Mark Garlick/science Photo Library via Getty Images) If you've ever gazed at a model of the solar system, you've likely noticed that the sun, planets, moons and asteroids sit roughly on the same plane. But why is that? To answer this question, we have to travel to the very beginning of the solar system, about 4.5 billion years ago. Back then, the solar system was just a massive, spinning cloud of dust and gas, Nader Haghighipour, an astronomer at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa, told Live Science. That massive cloud measured 12,000 astronomical units (AU) across; 1 AU is the average distance between Earth and the sun, or about 93 million miles (150 million kilometers). That cloud became so big, that even though it was just filled with dust and gas molecules, the cloud itself started to collapse and shrink under its own mass, Haghighipour said. Full Story: [LiveScience]( (9/19) [LinkedIn]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Email]( [] Space Exploration [] [SpaceX Inspiration4 astronauts return to Earth with historic splashdown off Florida coast]( [SpaceX Inspiration4 astronauts return to Earth with historic splashdown off Florida coast]( (SpaceX) CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — After three days in space, SpaceX's first all-civilian crew returned to Earth on Sept. 18, splashing down off the Florida coast to end a historic mission. The SpaceX Crew Dragon Resilience gently landed in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Cape Canaveral, Florida on Sept. 18 at 7:06 p.m. EDT (2306 GMT) marking the end of the Inspiration4 mission, a private spaceflight that launched four civilians into orbit earlier this week. The flight was part of a massive fundraising effort for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Jared Isaacman, billionaire and four of Shift4 Payments, purchased the flight from SpaceX in order to raise $200 million for childhood cancer research. Full Story: [LiveScience]( (9/18) [LinkedIn]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Email]( [] Curious Creatures [] [Soggy rodents tangle their tails in one big knot in horrifying 'rat king' video]( [Soggy rodents tangle their tails in one big knot in horrifying 'rat king' video]( (@__alibulat__rasulov__/Instagram) When a Russian farmer's field flooded recently, he discovered an unexpected "royal" visitor among the puddles: a so-called rat king. This grandiose term describes a group of rats whose tails become knotted together so that the rats can't free themselves — a rare (and horrific) phenomenon that has inspired myths and legends for centuries. Alibulat Rasulov, a landowner in the Stavropol region in southwestern Russia, found one such rat king in his field. On Aug. 21, Rasulov shared two videos on Instagram that showed five small, bedraggled rats with their tails hopelessly tangled. He titled them (in Russian) "The Rat King is found alive. Part one" and "The Rat King was found alive for the first time. Part two" in the Instagram posts, which have since collected more than 30,000 views. Full Story: [LiveScience]( (9/20) [LinkedIn]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Email]( [] Daily Quiz [] POLL QUESTION: In 1991 a 5,300-year-old mummy was found in the Alps on the Italian-Austrian border. What did the press name him? (Learn the answer [here]() [Vote]( [The Snowman]( [Vote]( [Otzi the Iceman]( [Vote]( [Yeti]( [Vote]( [Jack Frost](   [Sign Up]( | [Update Profile]( | [Unsubscribe]( [Privacy Policy]( | [Cookies Policy]( | [Terms and Conditions]( CONTACT US: [FEEDBACK](mailto:livescience@smartbrief.com) | [ADVERTISE]( © Future US, Inc. 555 11th ST NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC 20004