Some species are so widespread and common that you could be fortunate enough to spot a magpie or even an ant nearly every day. On the flipside, some species are much harder to find, and those in the deep sea can be so rare, they only make an appearance once every few years. Now, scientists […]
Blue Supermoon Rising This Week: Witness The Year’s Biggest And Brightest Full Moon
Lunar lovers, this is your month. The only Blue Moon of 2023 rises this week and it will be the biggest and brightest Moon of the year. We have been treated to two Full Moons this August – a regular and a Blue Moon – and both of them occurred particularly close to our planet, […]
How Did Ancient Romans Build Aqueducts?
If you think of some examples of Roman inventions, the Roman aqueduct is probably among them. These large structures successfully transported water across great distances – but how did they do it, and how were they made? What have the Romans ever done for us? Roman aqueducts were channels designed to move fresh water from […]
People Are Discussing Whether The Placebo Effect Actually Exists
People are once again discussing the placebo effect, where patients appear to improve after being given a dummy treatment, such as a sugar pill, rather than conventional treatment. X (formerly Twitter) user zeta_goblin started the conversation, asking their followers about a weird aspect of it: the effect has still appeared in studies where it was […]
How Neanderthals Managed To Take Down Giant Elephants 125,000 Years Ago
Despite its name, the mammoth was not the largest Pleistocene land animal. That status goes to its relative, the straight-tusked elephant (Palaeoloxodon antiquus), which, due to weighing up to 13 tonnes, was twice the size of a modern African elephant and lived across Asia and Europe until around 100,000 years ago. Anthropologists have sought evidence […]
The Sniff Test Is Not Reliable For Food Safety – Here’s Why
I should know better, but I admit that I do it too. I’ve just pulled some sliced chicken out of the fridge, as I set out to make up some sandwiches. I notice the chicken is within its use-by date, but I’m still suspicious. Another member of the family has unlovingly ripped open the packaging […]
Ancient Ape Fossil Suggests Our Ancestors Were In Europe Before Africa
A newly-identified ape, named Anadoluvius turkae, may challenge our origin story once more, according to a new study. The fossilized ape, found in an 8.7-million-year-old site in Türkiye, suggests that the ancestors of humans and African apes evolved in Europe before migrating to Africa between 9 and 7 million years ago. A well-preserved partial cranium, […]
What Lies Beneath Desert Sand: Uncovering the Secrets Below
It may have crossed your mind while at the beach or in a desert that you don’t really know what you’d reach if you kept digging. Would you find sand, rock, soil, or just piles of treasure guarded by the genie Jafar? The answer, of course, varies based on where you are. Some sand dunes, […]
Megaslumps Explained: Their Impact And Threat To Earth’s Future
The Batagaika Megaslump is the biggest geological feature of its kind (at least that scientists know about). It sticks out of the Siberian wilderness like a tadpole-shaped slash in the land, surrounded by the green boreal forests of rural Russia. While this so-called “Gateway to Hell” is exceptional in its size and stature, it’s not […]
These Ill-Fated Bees Were Mummified Inside Their Cocoons 3,000 Years Ago
Hundreds of bees, mummified inside their cocoons for almost 3,000 years, have been discovered on the southwest coast of Portugal. In a cruel twist of fate, these pitiful pollinators were sealed and impeccably preserved inside their sheaths without ever having seen the light of day. The bees, which belong to the genus Eucera and were […]
Can We Learn To Be Happier? Find Out More In Issue 14 Of CURIOUS – Out Now
Issue 14 (September 2023) of CURIOUS is out now, bringing you science highlights for the month plus deep dives into intriguing topics, interviews, exclusives, diary dates, and explanations for some of Earth’s most perplexing natural phenomena and landscapes. In This Issue… Advertisement OUR COVER STORY: Can We Learn To Be Happier? While we can’t necessarily […]
Human Y Chromosome Sequenced For The First Time, India Becomes Fourth Nation To Successfully Land On The Moon, And Much More This Week
This week, India became the first nation to land at the South Pole of the Moon, the mystery of missing flight MH370 might be one step closer to being solved thanks to some surprising sea creatures, and a new 167-million-year-old dinosaur was discovered in India and could be the oldest of its kind in the […]
Lockdowns, Masks, And Social Distancing “Unequivocally” Help Stop The Spread Of COVID
The Royal Society has issued a report examining the effects of various non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) – not vaccines or medications – in reducing the spread of COVID-19, and their results are conclusive: wearing face masks, social distancing, and lockdowns “unequivocally” lowered the spread of the disease. The aim of the report was to “assess what […]
Did El Dorado Really Exist?
Though the legend of El Dorado fueled European ambition during the conquest of the Americas, direct evidence for a golden metropolis in the Andes has never been found. In all likelihood, that’s because El Dorado wasn’t a city at all, but instead referred to an ancient ritual involving a man covered in gold dust. However, […]
People Are Hooked Watching The Bottle-Smashing Trend On TikTok – What Can It Tell Us About Our Brain?
If you’ve been on TikTok in the last couple of months, it’s likely you’ll have come across a bottle-smashing video. With a simple concept racking up millions of views, you might be wondering what makes them so appealing. The answer could lie in how human brains process sound. Bottle-smashing content features an array of satisfying […]
New X-Ray Observatory Will Launch This Weekend
X-ray light is used to study the cosmos at its most extreme. The hottest plasma around stars and between galaxies, the behavior of black holes, and even energetic aurorae on the gas giant planets are all topics that require X-ray observations. And from tomorrow there will be a new telescope in orbit to do just […]
Up to 10,000 Emperor Penguin Chicks Killed By Melting Antarctic Ice
The loss of sea ice in Antarctica in 2022 caused the complete failure of four out of five known emperor penguin breeding colonies. The worst hit areas were in the central and eastern Bellingshausen Sea region, where some parts witnessed a 100 percent loss of sea ice concentration. In a devastating new study produced by […]
Paper Cups And Straws Could Be Just As Bad As Plastic
Paper cups and straws are fast becoming the norm – gone are the days of plastic straws in pitchers, now replaced by their paper siblings. It might be a bit annoying when the rim of a paper cup or straw goes soggy, but at least it’s helping the environment, right? Two new studies suggest that […]
Mirrors Don’t Really Flip Things Left To Right
Back in April, a Tiktok trend about mirrors had people spooked, thinking that these silvery contraptions might have the somewhat magical ability to see behind obstructions. The reality of it was not magic but science – specifically, optics, the set of rules that we have worked out to explain how mirrors and lenses work. Based […]
Psilocybin Desynchronizes Important Brain Networks And It Could Explain Its Antidepressant Effects
Psilocybin, the psychoactive component of magic mushrooms, has shown itself to be a possible game-changer in the treatment of major depression, but there are still a lot of unanswered questions as to what it does to our brains. A new preprint, which is yet to undergo peer-review, could have some of the solutions, and it’s […]