It’s the longest nerve in the autonomic nervous system, stretching from the brain stem all the way down through the chest, neck, and abdomen. Its approximately 160,000 fibers connect it to multiple key organ systems, and it’s responsible for regulating many of the processes that keep us alive. It’s called the vagus nerve, and right […]
Pre-Incan Dancefloor That Sounded Like Thunder Was Used For Worshiping Lightning God
Long before the first Europeans arrived in the Americas, the ancient inhabitants of the Peruvian Andes conducted mysterious rituals upon purpose-built ceremonial platforms that rumbled and roared beneath their feet. Describing one such percussive dancefloor in a new study, archaeologist Kevin Lane from the University of Buenos Aires suggests that the platform was designed to […]
Scientist Figures Out How We Might Finally Find Missing Flight MH370: Barnacles
On March 8, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, prompting the most expensive search in the history of aviation. A few pieces of debris washed ashore, but the main body of the airplane – along with the passengers and crew – remain missing. A new study, however, has […]
New Material Is Even Better Than Diamonds For Quantum Sensors
Diamonds are not just a girl’s best friend, they have long been the best friends of quantum scientists thanks to a wide range of useful properties. They make extremely good quantum sensors, by and large outdoing the competition. But diamonds are not perfect, and now a team has worked out how to give an alternative […]
The Rumors Of A “Humanzee” Created In A 1920s Florida Lab
Ever since we parted evolutionary ways, people have dreamed of one day creating a human-chimp hybrid known as the “humanzee”. And by people, we mean weirdos, but nevertheless, there have been a few attempts. Russian biologist lya Ivanovich tried in the worst way possible, and failed due to a mix of moral repulsion and a […]
Tiny Plasma Jets Might Be The Source Of The Mysterious Solar Wind
The Sun is constantly releasing a stream of particles: the solar wind. While this can sometimes be increased by explosions and coronal mass ejections, the origin of the wind is not understood. Now, the European Space Agency’s Solar Orbiter has provided a new insight into this mystery. Observations from the spacecraft reveal the presence of […]
Devices To Help Paralyzed People Speak Achieve Record Speeds
Two new studies have showcased progress in brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), helping two patients who were unable to speak to form sentences faster than previous technology could. In one study, a patient with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) had microelectrode arrays implanted in her brain in areas related to the production of speech. The device was trained […]
Sign Up Now For CURIOUS Live – IFLScience’s Free Festival Of Science
Join us for our first-ever virtual event, CURIOUS Live! Spread across three themed “stages” – Life, Death, and Creation, y’know, the small things – we’ve got a packed line-up of speakers with exceptional knowledge on some of the most CURIOUS questions in science. Expect laughs, wows, and the occasional ewww. Taking place on October 21, […]
Has The Site Of The Dance That Killed John The Baptist Been Discovered?
An archaeologist claims to have uncovered a famous dancefloor in Machaerus in Jordan, the supposed location of one of the whackier tales of death in the Bible. John the Baptist is a major player in all of the New Testament gospels, given his role of (spoilers) baptizing Jesus. For those who aren’t religious or curious […]
How Does Space Weather Affect Us Here On Earth?
The Earth may appear to be a nice little closed system. We get energy from the Sun of course, but it seems that from the atmosphere down, all of the processes are terrestrial in source. We know that this idea is not exactly true — the Sun is also spewing a constant stream of charged […]
How Did Pompeii Victims Die? These 7 Choked To Death On Ash
When Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 CE, the ancient city of Pompeii was decimated and thousands of people died. Despite being one of the most famous, and best-preserved, natural disasters in human history, there is still much debate as to how these people perished. Now, a new analysis adds credence to the theory that some […]
India’s Rover Has Set Off To Explore The Moon’s South Pole
Yesterday, India made history, becoming the fourth nation to land on the Moon and the first to land at the lunar South Pole. Now, we’ve got the first photos of the landing site and the plucky rover Pragyan, the Moon’s newest resident, has started exploring its new home. “The Ch-3 Rover ramped down from the Lander […]
Common Household Waste Product Can Make Concrete 30 Percent Stronger
Researchers in Australia have used spent coffee grounds to make concrete 30 percent stronger. Simply by replacing a percentage of sand with waste coffee, something common to many households, it is possible to make construction more efficient and greener. As a household item, coffee grounds are everywhere. It is currently estimated that around 60 million […]
If You Don’t Label Vegan Food As Vegan, People Are More Likely To Eat It
If we want to lower our carbon emissions, persuading people to switch to a vegan diet – or at least reduce their meat consumption – is a good place to start. Vegan diets have around half the climate footprint of the average diet, and if the world was to shift to a vegan diet, food-related […]
Bronze Age Families Appear To Have Practiced Both Monogamy And Polygamy
A Bronze Age family that lived 3,800 years ago in the Southern Urals may have taken a flexible approach to marriage, with most men allowed just one wife while a select few enjoyed the company of multiple women. Analyzing the genomes of 32 ancient relatives who were all interred in the same burial mound, researchers […]
African Wild Dogs Could Be Facing Total Population Collapse This Century
Climate change and a global rise in temperature are often synonymous with species like polar bears, who face drastic problems due to lack of sea ice at the temperature extremes in the poles. However, a new study by experts at the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) has placed African wild dogs on the brink of a […]
Glitter In Our Waters Is Seriously Impacting The Growth Of Vital Organisms
Glitter is everywhere: clothing, holiday decorations, and bodily crevices that aren’t appropriate to mention. Inevitably, it’s made its way into waterways, where new research suggests it impairs the growth of key aquatic bacteria. Some scientists have already called for glitter to be banned, as it’s made up of non-biodegradable microplastics. Too small to be filtered […]
Would It Be Safe To Drink The Fukushima Release Water?
Japan has announced it will begin releasing the treated water from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant later this week. The water, which was originally contaminated after the 2011 earthquake destroyed the reactor, is scheduled for release on Thursday, August 24, 2023, and will be the first step in a phased process that has become […]
Chia Seeds Confirm Alan Turing’s Predictions On Patterns In Nature
We often think of patterns and visualize something with geometric regularity, but those are not the only patterns that exist. There are plenty of patterns in nature that are hardly geometrical but are clearly distinctive – think of the spots on a giraffe (although they now come in plain too!). We might not instinctively understand […]
The Human Y Chromosome Has Just Been Sequenced For The Very First Time
It’s among the smallest of human chromosomes, but the complex structure of the Y chromosome has made it notoriously resistant to efforts to fully decipher it. Now, the first-ever complete sequence of the Y chromosome has been revealed, bringing us one step closer to solving a plethora of unanswered questions. “Now that we have this […]
