Stories told by Indigenous Tasmanians to white settlers appear to describe the flooding of Bass Strait, which occurred 12,000 years ago, as well as the location of the stars at a similar time. Records of Tasmania’s Indigenous oral traditions are scant, but with the exception of some much more speculative connections, these appear to be […]
Polar Bear Milk Is Extremely Fatty With An Unusual Flavour
You ever think about polar bear milk? Yeah, us neither… but a recent email from the folks over at Polar Bears International got us thinking about their lactation situation. With Polar Bear Week being celebrated every year on the first week of November, now seemed as good a time as any to get into it. […]
Does Chicken Soup Really Help When You’re Sick? Here’s The Science
Preparing a bowl of chicken soup for a loved one when they’re sick has been a common practice throughout the world for centuries. Today, generations from virtually every culture swear to the benefits of chicken soup. In the US, the dish is typically made with noodles, but different cultures prepare the soothing remedy their own […]
Ancient Worms Revived After 46,000 Years Frozen In Siberian Permafrost
An ancient worm has wriggled back to life after 46,000 years frozen in Siberian permafrost. The tiny animals, called nematodes, were revived from a lengthy slumber, which began in the late Pleistocene some 45,839 to 47,769 years ago, radiocarbon analysis has revealed. That’s quite the catnap. As well as being impressively hardy, the microscopic critters […]
Only 1 Percent Of Chemicals Have Been Discovered – How Can We Find The Rest?
The universe is flooded with billions of chemicals, each a tiny pinprick of potential. And we’ve only identified 1 percent of them. Scientists believe undiscovered chemical compounds could help remove greenhouse gases, or trigger a medical breakthrough much like penicillin did. But let’s just get this out there first: it’s not that chemists aren’t curious. […]
Owls – An (Un)Natural History
Weirdly enough, David Lynch got it right when he wrote the line, “The owls are not what they seem,” during a particularly odd moment in Twin Peaks. For much of history, and across the world, various people have seen owls as wholly contradictory creatures. In fact, as the zoologist Desmond Morris has argued, very few […]
When A Scientist Reunited With The Whale That Protected Her From Huge Shark
“I knew there was a chance I could easily be killed by this whale,” whale scientist Nan Hauser can be heard saying in a 2021 interview with BBC Earth. Hauser was recollecting an unusual and shocking encounter between herself, a humpback whale, and a tiger shark. While it sounds like the cast of a “walks […]
Which Is The Richest Country In The World?
Money makes the world go round but who in the world has the most of it? Back in 2021, there was a change at the top: The US was stripped of its title as the richest country in the world (by net worth), and China became the world’s wealthiest nation. The switch-up in the global […]
Amazon Drought Reveals Dozens Of Ancient Faces Carved In Rocks
An extreme drought has seen river levels fall to record lows throughout parts of the Brazilian Amazon, exposing a series of pre-Hispanic rock carvings. Last seen over a decade ago when the region experienced a similar water shortage, the ancient engravings depict human faces and other forms, though it’s unclear who sculpted the artworks or […]
Cosmonauts Find Growing Blob Outside ISS, New Acid-Spraying Giant Vinegaroons Just Dropped, And Much More This Week
This week you can listen to the sound of Earth’s largest living organism, NASA is struggling to open the lid on its asteroid sample, and a lost continent has been located 155 million years after it broke from Australia. Finally, we look at the only known physical remains of a first-generation human hybrid. Subscribe to […]
373-Year-Old Volcanic Tsunami Mystery Has Finally Been Solved
When we hear “Aegean Sea”, it often conjures up images of Ancient Greece, relaxing beach holidays, or sparkling blue waters. But underneath the glittery surface lies Kolumbo, an active submarine volcano that in 1650, erupted and triggered a destructive tsunami. Thanks to modern imaging technology, researchers have now successfully reconstructed the event, finally solving the […]
A Colony Of Puffin Hybrids May Have Been Created By Climate Change
Climate change appears to have driven a large-scale hybridization event in the Arctic between two subspecies of puffins. In the wake of warming temperatures in northern Norway, the habits of the two family members have merged and seemingly resulted in prolific canoodling between the pair. The large-bodied subspecies of Atlantic puffins (Fratercula arctica naumanni) used […]
Why Are People So Worried About Canola Oil?
If you stray into the more health and wellness-focused parts of the internet, it won’t be too long before you find someone deriding the so-called evils of seed oils. One that seems to bear the brunt of a lot of this ill-feeling is canola oil – but is it really all bad? It’s time we […]
How Are Bats So Good At Dodging Cancer And Viruses?
Bats are remarkable little creatures, with a long lifespan and an impressive resistance to both cancer and viral infection that has researchers very interested. So how have they managed to get blessed with these traits? “In terms of the immune system, I want to be a bat,” said Dr Linfa Wang, professor in the emerging […]
Medicine’s Worst “Cures” For History’s Deadliest Diseases
Medical history has seen humans try their hands at all kinds of peculiar cures to tackle deadly diseases (even Isaac Newton was at it with these toad-vomit lozenges for bubonic plague). While the modern phrase “first do no harm” feels as if it’s been ignored at certain points in history, it’s also true that early […]
A Typhoon Swept Up A Bird For 11 Hours And Dumped It 1,000 Miles Away
A typhoon took a shearwater bird on an epic journey when it swept up the bird, beginning an 11-hour journey that saw the bird complete five full circular loops. Tracking data revealed that the unfortunate male reached speeds of 90 to 170 kilometers per hour (55.2 to 105.6 miles per hour) soaring to an altitude […]
The “Ghost Planets” That Turned Out Not To Exist
The ancients knew of five planets, objects that moved against the background stars, if one didn’t count the Sun and Moon. Copernicus revealed the Earth was actually one of these, made different only by our presence here, but the assumption remained that this was all there was, passing comets aside. Then in 1781, William Herschell […]
Year’s Worth Of Rain In Single Day Leaves Death Valley With Incredible Ephemeral Lake
The idea of an oasis rising in the middle of a desert to quench the thirst of a stranded soul might sound like something out of a survival movie, but it has become the reality in one of the driest places on Earth. In Death Valley National Park, the aftermath of Hurricane Hilary has created […]
These Weirdo Amphibians Eat Their Own Mom’s Skin To Pass on Bacteria
Caecilians, a mysterious type of limbless amphibian that dwells underground, just got even weirder. Young caecilians effectively eat their mother alive, munching on her tissues to aid with their early development. The mother produces a special layer of fatty skin tissue, which their babies gnaw off using specialized teeth and consume. Mmm, delicious. It was […]
Why Do Some People Die In Their Sleep?
It’s a pretty human thing to think about our mortality, particularly when it comes to the prospect of how it might happen. For some, they might be worried about dying in their sleep – but thankfully, unless you have a particular medical condition, the chance of that happening is relatively low. There are a number […]
