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Results 1 to 30How Scientists Work Out What Ancient Hominins Ate
2023-02-06, 20:13What did our early ancestors eat? It’s one of the central questions in palaeoanthropology. If researchers can understand the diet of ancient hominins, this in turn provides clues as to what they looked like, where they lived, and how they socialized with each other. Now, a new Perspective paper has...
Cleaner Fish Easily Recognize Their Own Faces, New Research Finds
2023-02-06, 20:13So far, the list of animals known to be able to recognize their own reflection is slim, but now it seems the unsuspecting cleaner fish (Labroides dimidiatus) could be the latest addition. A study into mirror self-recognition (MSR) has investigated the reactions of cleaner fish to images of...
What Is The Information Catastrophe, And When Is It Going To Happen?
2023-02-06, 17:30We humans produce a frankly ridiculous amount of data, whether that's your dissertationfinalfinalfinal.docx word file containing what went on to be your rough first draft of your dissertation, or an adorable video of a panda sneezing. In 2020, it was estimated that the world produced about 2.5...
Powerful "Atmospheric River" Storms Are Slowing Arctic Sea Ice Recovery
2023-02-06, 17:30Sea ice loss in the Arctic may be being made worse by powerful storms capable of shifting vast quantities of water through the air as vapor. Known as atmospheric rivers, they’re increasingly reaching the Arctic even in the freezing winter months when the sea ice is normally given a chance to recover...
"New Layer" Of Earth Oozes Gently Like Rocky Honey Under The Crust
2023-02-06, 16:54Scientists have discovered a “new layer” of Earth’s interior that’s made of partially molten rock, gently oozing around some 160 kilometers (100 miles) beneath our feet. Located just under Earth’s crust, knowledge of this zone might help to deepen our understanding of how colossal tectonic plates...
Even The Earth’s Magnetic Field Has Moon-Driven Tides
2023-02-06, 15:42“There is a tide in the affairs of men,” Shakespeare had Brutus say. The Bard was speaking metaphorically, but it turns out there are far more real tides than he knew, with the latest being found in the cold plasma that surrounds the Earth in a giant donut shape above the atmosphere. Shakespeare...
Cave Sealed For Thousands Of Years Reveals Claw Marks Of Prehistoric Bears
2023-02-06, 15:42It’s not often in life that scientists get the opportunity to explore a habitat frozen in time for millennia, but when researchers in 2015 began to suspect that a cavernous space was hiding within the rock of south-east Spain, they got a hell of a lot more than they’d bargained for. It would...
Nine-Year-Old Boy Becomes One Of The Youngest High School Graduates Ever
2023-02-06, 14:48A nine-year-old boy from Pennsylvania has become one of the youngest-ever high school graduates after receiving his diploma remotely from Reach Cyber Charter School. David Balogan, who loves science and computers, has already begun working...
Man Develops Strong Irish Accent As Incredibly Rare Complication Of Prostate Cancer
2023-02-06, 14:48A man developed foreign accent syndrome (FAS) as a rare and perhaps unique manifestation of his prostate cancer, his doctors have described in a BMJ Case report. The case describes how a man, in his 50s, was diagnosed with prostate cancer 20 months prior to his speech issues. At that point, he...
"Dead" Woman Discovered Alive And Gasping For Air In Body Bag
2023-02-06, 14:30A care home in Iowa has been fined $10,000 after wrongly declaring a patient dead. The woman, who was 66 years old, had spent almost 50 minutes zipped inside a body bag while being transported to a funeral home before staff members realized she was still alive. She was presumed dead at 6 am on...
New Earth-Sized Planet May Be Habitable, Although Half Is In Eternal Darkness
2023-02-06, 13:18Astronomers have announced the discovery of a new rare Earth-sized exoplanet. Wolf 1069 b orbits its star in the habitable zone, where water can exist as liquid, vapor, and ice. Of the 5,000 confirmed exoplanets, it's thought only around 60 might be rocky like Earth and in the habitable zone, but...
Woodpecker Fills Walls Of Home With 318 Kilograms Of Acorns
2023-02-06, 13:18A woodpecker has filled a house's walls with acorns, using the wall cavity as food storage. The owners of the house in California called pest control who cut open a hole in the wall, allowing thousands upon thousands of acorns to fall out. Nick's Extreme Pest Control posted images of the situation...
If You Want To Know Sea Level’s Future, Ask An Octopus
2023-02-06, 12:42Deep in the genome of Antarctic octopuses, marine biologists have found something odd. Although the work is still undergoing peer review, the most likely explanation is an event over 100,000 years ago with very serious implications for the Earth’s future in a warmer climate. During the 2010 football...
DNA Of Skull In Alaska Solves Mystery Of New Yorker Missing Since 1976
2023-02-06, 12:42A skull found in the Alaskan wilderness has been linked to an adventurer from New York who went missing in 1976. In a grisly surprise, investigators believe that the man most likely died after being mauled by a bear. Gary Frank Sotherden, then 25, traveled to the Arctic Circle in the mid-1970s to go...
How Closely Dogs Are Related To Wolves Can Influence If They Howl Or Bark
2023-02-06, 12:06Gazing upon the wrinkled face of a pug it can be hard to believe that all dogs are descended from wolves. We know older breeds are genetically more similar to wolves than modern ones, but are there some easy-to-spot indicators as to which is which? A new study says yes, as it found that a dog’s...
Deadly 7.8 Magnitude Earthquake Hits Turkey And Syria
2023-02-06, 11:29A major earthquake has struck central Turkey, near the city of Gaziantep not far from the border with Syria. Both countries have been greatly affected by the seismic event which had a magnitude of 7.8 with the death toll over 1,000 and still rising. The event struck at...
Scientists Ignored Animal Clitorises For Centuries – Now We’re Discovering Just How Varied They Are
2023-02-06, 10:53The sometimes astonishing sex lives of animals are well known, especially the huge range in penis structures, evolved to increase the number of offspring that males father. For example, ducks have corkscrew-shaped penises, and echidnas (also known as spiny anteaters) have a four-headed penis. But...
What’s The Safest Seat On A Plane? We Asked An Aviation Expert
2023-02-06, 10:53When booking a flight, do you ever think about which seat will protect you the most in an emergency? Probably not. Most people book seats for comfort, such as leg room, or convenience, such as easy access to toilets. Frequent flyers (this author included) might book their seat as close as possible...
A Record-Breaking Number Of Hoodoos Can Be Found In Bryce Canyon
2023-02-05, 15:20This article first appeared in Issue 3 of our free digital magazine CURIOUS. The Grand Staircase is a 160-kilometer (100-mile) stretch of sedimentary rock that was first conceptualized by geologist Clarence Dutton in the 1870s. Dutton saw it as an immense stairway that at one end rises out of the...
Iceland’s Crystal Ice Caves Carve Walkways Deep Within A Glacier
2023-02-04, 15:16This article first appeared in Issue 2 of our free digital magazine CURIOUS. Iceland’s Vatnajökull National Park centers around the country’s largest glacier, Vatnajökull. Its biggest outlet is the Breidamerkurjökull glacier tongue, which as a piedmont glacier formed as the result of a...
Suspected Spy Craft Seen Flying Over US Is Lost Weather Balloon, Chinese Officials Say
2023-02-03, 17:20A UFO spotted over US airspace on Thursday, suspected of being a Chinese high-altitude surveillance balloon, has now been identified by Chinese officials in an explanation all too familiar with conspiracy theorists: the object is apparently a rogue weather balloon. “It is a civilian airship used for...
How To Tell If That Rock You Found Is Actually A Meteorite (And If You Can Keep It)
2023-02-03, 16:44If you’ve discovered an unusual rock you think might be a meteorite but aren’t sure where to start, try your hand at some of these identification methods. Meteorites are fragments of rock from a meteoroid, asteroid, or even a comet that passes through a planet’s atmosphere, ending up on the...
The First Chiropractor Claimed The Treatment Was Inspired By A Ghost
2023-02-03, 16:44Old Dad Chiro was the name the father of chiropractic, Daniel David Palmer, gave himself. The Canadian was a successful beekeeper, spiritualist and practitioner of magnetic medicine, and actually credited the early ideas of chiropractic to the ghost of a dead doctor he chatted with on several...
Which Material Has The Highest Melting Point? The Answer’s Complex
2023-02-03, 16:26The question of which substance has the highest melting point sounds simple, but the answer turns out to be “it depends”. Perhaps you were told the answer is tungsten in high school chemistry class, as we were, but it’s not that simple. For one thing, as chemistry teachers and textbooks really...
Site Of Ancient Egyptian "Great Revolt", Recorded On Rosetta Stone, Finally Discovered
2023-02-03, 15:51The Rosetta Stone, the ancient slab that finally allowed modern archaeologists to crack hieroglyphs, is more famous today for how its message is written than what the message actually says. But just like any historical document, it contains a wealth of information about life in Ptolemaic Egypt – the...
"Flamingo" The Rescue Pigeon Is A Reminder To Never Dye Birds
2023-02-03, 15:32A domestic king pigeon was recently discovered by a bird rescue group after it had been deliberately dyed pink and released into the wild. Flamingo, as the unlucky pigeon has been named, has it doubly rough. As a domestic bird, it’s not prepared for the realities of life in the wild, making it...
Don't Travel Without These CES-Featured Translation Earbuds
2023-02-03, 14:56The same earbuds you use to listen to music and escape the world could help you connect to it instead. Translators have come a long way since the days of Google Translate. The Mymanu CLIK S was featured at CES 2023 and can automatically translate you or another speaker into 37 different languages....
How To Tell Real Gold From Fool’s Gold
2023-02-03, 14:56If you’re in the jewelry game, or a treasure hunter, you may be familiar with the term “fool’s gold”. Referring to the mineral pyrite, fool’s gold is named as such because of its uncanny resemblance to real gold. While gold is a valuable metal, its evil twin pyrite is virtually worthless, making...
How To Know If You've Found "Floating Gold" Ambergris Or Plain Old Sewage
2023-02-03, 14:38Precious ambergris is an unusual auction item. The waxy lumps of whale waste have become a sought-after ingredient in perfumes, but their unusual appearance means people often confuse everything from fat to sewage and palm oil as being “floating gold” when it is, in fact, just pungent garbage. So,...
Does Our Sporting Future Lie Beyond Earth’s Atmosphere?
2023-02-03, 14:19This article first appeared in Issue 4 of our free digital magazine CURIOUS. For all of human history, and probably before, people have tried to put any new environment or technology to use for the purposes of food, alcohol, sex, or sport. It’s unlikely space will be any different....
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