Priam’s Treasure may be some of the most famed and controversial archeological relics ever recovered. The cache of gold and other stunning artifacts was discovered in the 19th century by German businessman and amateur archeologist Heinrich Schliemann, who professed they belonged to the ancient king of Troy from Homer’s epic poem Illiad. His claim, however, […]
First-Ever 2D Photonic Time Crystal Created To Amplify Light
Time crystals are one of the most exciting metamaterials that have been discovered in the last decade. Just as a regular crystal has properties that repeat in space, time crystals have properties that vary in time. These peculiar objects are being studied with multiple applications in mind, and one of them has to do with […]
Volcanic Gas Cloud Reaching A Scorching 550°C Turned Vesuvius Victims’ Brains To Glass
The volcanic eruption that obliterated the Roman town of Pompeii sent out an initial wave of hot gas that reached temperatures high enough to turn people’s brains to glass. According to a new study, this short-lived early burst of heat engulfed the nearby town of Herculaneum in a 550°C inferno (1,022°F), bringing instant death and […]
High Rate Of Girls Dropping Out Of Sport Linked To Gendered Kits
They say a good tennis player can play in any shoes, and yet for some reason in schools it’s long been enforced that boys wear one uniform while girls wear another when playing sport. Gendered kits would appear to be at best unnecessary, and now new research has found they can be damaging as it […]
Why Does Easter Sunday Change Date Every Year?
Unlike Christmas, Easter curiously falls on a different date each year. While Easter is always on a Sunday, it can sometimes spring up in March and the next year in late April. This year, Easter will be held on Sunday, April 9 (for Western Christians), while Easter 2024 is on March 31, and Easter 2025 […]
Elon Musk Says He Had No Idea His Name Was Encoded Into Twitter’s Algorithm
Just as promised, Elon Musk has made Twitter’s algorithm open-source meaning everybody is free to trawl through the code and pick apart how it works. Sharp-eyed users quickly spotted that part of the algorithm even features Musk’s name, a feature that he said was unknown to him. During a Twitter Spaces live event on Friday, […]
Embryo-Like Structures Created From Monkey Stem Cells For The First Time
Embryo-like structures have been created from monkey stem cells and implanted into female monkeys, marking the first time this has ever been performed. The new research hopes to push forward our knowledge of embryo development and early organ formation, which is typically slowed by ethical concerns. “The molecular mechanisms of human embryogenesis and organogenesis are […]
Hallucinogenic Drugs Detected In 3,000-Year-Old Bronze Age Shamanic Hair Samples
Locks of hair that may have belonged to Bronze Age shamans in Menorca, Spain, have been found to contain traces of psychoactive alkaloids. Hidden in a secret compartment at the back of a burial cave, the hair samples provide the first direct evidence of hallucinogenic drug use in ancient Europe. Dated to around 3,000 years […]
Are You A “Wendy”? How “Peter Pan Syndrome” Can Affect Relationships
It’s not recognized as a psychological disorder in its own right, but if you were to describe “Peter Pan Syndrome” to a group of women in heterosexual relationships, the odds are it would be familiar to some of them. Some of those – maybe by accident – will have found themselves playing the role of […]
All The Gold Discovered In The World Would Fit In A 23 x 23 Meter Cube
Hearing stories of the largest gold nugget ever found, or the recent 2.6 kilogram (5.7 pound) discovery by an amateur aussie gold hunter, you might be fooled into thinking we’ve discovered a massive amount of gold on Earth. Well, it might come as a surprise to learn that all the gold discovered so far could […]
Yellow Crazy Ant Chimeras Are Born Through Bizarre Reproduction Never Seen Before
The yellow crazy ant is a skilled invader. Like many invasive species trying to colonize new lands, it adapted to create worker ants that could up their initially tiny numbers, but now new research has discovered that they use a means of reproduction that was previously unknown to science to do it. Male yellow crazy […]
New Picture Of Uranus’s Rings Is Nothing Short Of Magnificent
Uranus is surrounded by a system of faint rings, but they are not easily spotted. Before today, only the Voyager 2 spacecraft during its flyby of the planet in 1986 and the Keck Observatory have been able to see them. Now, enter JWST, showing that the latest space telescope is more than up to the […]
Earth’s Core May Be Surrounded By The Remains Of Ancient Oceanic Crusts
Seismic waves reveal thin but dense layers of material sitting between Earth’s core-mantle boundary in parts of the world. One team of geologists suspects it is composed of material that once formed the ocean floor, before being pushed down into the mantle by overriding continental plates. Some parts of the continents date back most of […]
Frozen “Mummies” Of The Mongol Empire Are Rising From Melted Permafrost
The permafrost of east Eurasian mountains is slowly melting away, helping to reveal the buried bodies of the much-feared Mongol Empire – as well as their unquenchable thirst for yak milk. New research has studied the remains of a cemetery at the so-called Khorig site, located high in the Khovsgol mountains. Dating suggests that the […]
The Opening Of King Casimir’s Biological Bomb For A Tomb Ended Very Badly
When Casimir IV Jagiellon, the King of Poland, died in 1492, nobody could’ve predicted the death that would follow the reopening of his tomb half a millennium later. Having rotted away into a biological bomb of pathogen potential, it became a hazardous place for the living to poke around in. Unfortunately, in 1973, that’s exactly […]
The Mathematical Path To Men Achieving Orgasm
Mathematics teachers faced with students asking “When am I ever going to use this?” may have a new answer. It’s one that may give a lot of teenagers a whole new respect for their subject, but it could also lead to tricky conversations with parents and school principals: researchers have mathematically modeled what makes men […]
JWST Spots Furthest Known Supermassive Black Hole And It’s A Whopper
Astronomers have reported the detection of what is believed to be the oldest supermassive black hole in the Universe. The object is located in a galaxy whose light is reaching us from when the universe was just 570 million years old. The observations were possible thanks to the latest major space observatory JWST and the […]
Swearing An Oath To God More Likely to Get You Acquitted in Court, Study Finds
Researchers have found that defendants who refuse to swear an oath to God are more likely to be found guilty by jurors with religious beliefs. The study asks whether it is time for this legal ritual to be updated. When giving evidence in courts in countries like Britain, Ireland, Australia, and the USA, a witness […]
Incredible High-Res Interactive Map Shows Mars As You’ve Never Seen It Before
If you have ever wanted to travel to Mars and fly over its dunes, volcanoes, and chasms, today is your lucky day. Caltech’s Bruce Murray Laboratory for Planetary Visualization has released the closest thing to being physically above the Red Planet. They have published the highest-resolution global image of the Mars ever created. The interactive […]
Carat Vs Karat: What Do They Mean And What Are They Measuring?
Oh, the confusing world of units of measurement. Whether you’re a die-hard metric system user or prefer to measure things in corgis or ferrets we’re here to break down two of the more shiny, lesser-known units. In the sparkly world of gemstones and precious metals, carats and karats are used to measure different things in […]
