Two weeks ago, a modest-looking paper was uploaded to the arXiv preprint server with the unassuming title “On the invariant subspace problem in Hilbert spaces”. The paper is just 13 pages long and its list of references contains only a single entry. The paper purports to contain the final piece of a jigsaw puzzle that […]
JWST’s Hunt For Atmosphere On Nearby “Venus Twin” Shows Something Very Different
The TRAPPIST-1 system is made of a cool, small star and seven planets orbiting in a matter of days. All the planets have a size not dissimilar to Earth or Venus, and being relatively close to us makes this system an intriguing candidate for atmospheric searches with JWST, a crucial stepping stone to the investigation […]
3,000-Year-Old Mummy Discovered Buried With Coca Leaves And Seashells In Peru
On the top of a hill just outside the capital city of Lima, Peru, is the practice field of a professional soccer club. While that might not seem that extraordinary, just next door the body of a mummy has been found surrounded with coca leaves. Remains of the mummy’s hair and skull were found first, […]
Getting Infected With Hookworms Could Become A Legit Treatment For Ulcerative Colitis
Hookworm infection with live parasites can begin full-scale trials for inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), according to a new pilot study. Focusing on patients with ulcerative colitis, it’s the first study of its kind to deploy hookworms in a controlled setting and investigate how they are tolerated as a potential therapy for the condition. Hookworms target […]
A Lyme Disease Vaccine Existed Until Antivaxxers Killed It
Almost half a million people are estimated to get Lyme disease every year in the US alone. The most common vector-borne disease in the North American country, it is carried by ticks and their bites spreading the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi to humans. It clears with a course of antibiotics to be taken for a few weeks, […]
Pendant Suggests Humans Have Depicted Dicks For 42,000 Years
At over 42,000 years old, this might just be the earliest known representation of a penis. If that interpretation is correct, it could indicate that penises were among the very first things that prehistoric humans of Eurasia decided to artistically represent. The phallus-like object was unearthed in 2016 in the Khangai Mountains of northern Mongolia. […]
Real Human Bones Were Originally Used In Disneyland’s Pirates Of The Caribbean Ride
Human remains once populated the world-famous Pirates Of The Caribbean ride at Disneyland. Now replaced with models, the story goes that the fake alternatives available back when the ride was built in 1967 weren’t up to scratch, and so the park’s “Imagineers” made do with some authentic materials. It might be shocking to consider in […]
Ground Beneath Antarctica’s Most Vulnerable Glacier Mapped For First Time
The effects of climate change are seen everywhere in the world, but the polar regions are experiencing changes unseen elsewhere. In Antarctica, glaciers melt and retreat and the most vulnerable of them all is the massive Thwaites Glacier. Now researchers have mapped the ground underneath the glacier for the first time, to see how it […]
Interactive Map Lets You Compare Penis Sizes With The World
An interactive map compiled by WorldData.info allows curious people to compare penis sizes with people from around the world. First off, it’s important to state that despite the worries of men, likely fueled by larger penises featured in pornography, penis size is not that important. It is, however, something that men tend to fixate on […]
Having A Noodle Neck Got You Decapitated Back In The Triassic, Fossils Confirm
The first evidence has been produced of savage attacks on the elongated necks of ancient marine reptiles, confirming a long-term suspicion of palaeontologists, and a favorite subject for paleoart. Long necks were much in fashion when dinosaurs ruled the Earth. On land there were the sauropods, whether small or vast. In the oceans necks got […]
Forensics Reveals Direct Evidence Paleo-Americans Killed Mastodons And Mammoths In Eastern US
The earliest people who lived in North America shared the landscape with huge animals. On any day these hunter-gatherers might encounter a giant, snarling saber-toothed cat ready to pounce, or a group of elephantlike mammoths stripping tree branches. Maybe a herd of giant bison would stampede past. Obviously, you can’t see any of these ice […]
Measuring The Speed Of Electricity By Electrocuting A Mile Of Monks
As great as things like “ethics” are for the health of volunteers and subjects, it has put an end to stories of people finding out about the effects of anesthesia by mashing each other’s testicles, or learning about the velocity of electricity by electrocuting a kilometer of monks. Jean-Antoine Nollet was a clergyman and physicist […]
Scientists Used Underground Nuclear Explosions To Study The Earth’s Core
In the 1960s and 70s, the US and Soviet Union conducted a number of nuclear tests. While devastating for the immediate environment, and causing a future where wars could trigger an ice age, there has been a surprising upside: scientists have used them to study the Earth’s core. There are of course no direct ways […]
We Inhale A Credit Card’s Worth Of Plastic Each Week – Where Does It All Go?
Microplastics are now ubiquitous on our planet – they’re found all over the place, including fresh Antarctic snow, and are also present in our bodies. We are thought to inhale 16.2 bits of microplastic every hour, the equivalent of gulping down a credit card in just a week. That’s a staggering amount of plastic, but […]
HIV Discovered Lying Dormant In The Human Brain’s Immune Cells
A new study has proven something scientists had suspected for a long time: the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is capable of lying dormant within the brain. Cells called microglia, which form part of the brain’s own specialized immune system, act as a persistent reservoir for the virus – but now that we know it’s there, […]
There Could Still Be A Ninth Planet In Our Solar System – Here’s Why
We all used to think there were nine planets. But in 2006 the Solar System was left with only eight planets, when Pluto was no longer classified as such. Is it still possible there is a planet out there beyond Neptune – possibly way beyond it? In the last 20 years, we have made significant […]
Vaginal Seeding Might Be Important For New Babies: What Is It?
There’s long been a question over whether being born via C-section means babies miss out on exposure to helpful bacteria that they would normally get from their mother’s birth canal. If it turns out these bacteria are important for a baby’s development, one solution that’s been proposed is a process called “vaginal seeding”. It’s not […]
“Exceptional” Bronze Sword Unearthed In Germany Is Still Shiny After 3,000 Years
An incredibly rare and well-preserved bronze sword, dating back to the 14th century BCE, has been unearthed in the town of Nördlingen, Bavaria. So remarkable is the preservation that the weapon hasn’t lost its luster, despite being crafted more than 3,000 years ago. The extraordinary find was made alongside the discovery of a Bronze Age […]
Why Is Earth’s Inner Core Solid When It’s Hotter Than The Sun’s Surface?
The Earth’s innermost geological layer is a solid metallic ball around 2,400 kilometers (1,500 miles) across. We’ve never sampled it – just getting to the mantle is a challenge and then there are two more layers to go – but we know something of its composition and physical conditions from the way seismic waves pass […]
Experimental Molten Salt Nuclear Reactor Gets Go-Ahead In China
China’s National Nuclear Safety Administration has issued a license to the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics (SINAP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences to operate China’s first “Thorium Molten Salt Reactor – Liquid Fuel 1″ (TMSR-LF1), which was under construction between 2018 and 2021 in Wuwei city. This is the first license given in China […]
