Any mother or caregiver will recognize the distinct way we speak to babies – “motherese”, as the baby talk that uses soothing, high-pitched tones to communicate with infants and small children is known across the world. Now, new research has found that humans are not the only species to practice it. According to a new […]
NASA Locks Four Volunteers Inside Mars Simulation For A Year
Four volunteers have now been shut inside a Mars habitat simulation. Should everything go to plan, they will emerge from the experiment in a year. NASA’s Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog (CHAPEA) mission is the first of three planned simulations of living on the surface of Mars. The crew – including a microbiologist and […]
In 1987, Orcas Had A Fashion Of Wearing A Dead Salmon As A Hat
Orcas are the unlikely subject of memes at the moment after a number of attacks on boats in Europe led experts to believe they were teaching calves how to target the rudder and stop the vessels. Memes have mainly focused on the “orcanize” pun, the idea of the orcas rising up against humans, and killer […]
Where Was Jesus Born? Was It Actually The Town Of Bethlehem?
Jesus was born in Bethlehem, a city in Palestine’s West Bank located about 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) south of Jerusalem, according to two accounts in the Christian New Testament. However, other religious scriptures and ancient sources are not so certain about this claim. Scholars debate how reliable the Bible is as a historical source, but […]
Ancient Pizza Ancestor And Wine Seen In Newly Revealed Painting At Pompeii
A vibrant painting has been unearthed among the ruins of Pompeii appearing to show a bundle of food and wine, including a distant ancestor of the modern-day pizza. The fresco was found during recent excavations at a ruined house in the archeological site of Pompeii, the Roman town that was infamously wrecked by a devastating […]
The Five-Second Rule Has Already Been Tested By The Mythbusters
If you’ve ever dropped food – and, let’s face it, at some point you have – you have probably at some point exclaimed “five-second rule” like you are citing legal precedent as you try and scoop your chicken korma back onto your food-less plate. The rule, according to Urban Dictionary, is an “unwritten law” that […]
Person Dies After Being Sucked Into Plane Engine At Texas Airport
An airline worker died after being ingested into the engine of an airplane at San Antonio International Airport in Texas on Friday. The plane was an Airbus A319 operated by Delta Air Lines that was arriving in San Antonio from Los Angeles, according to a statement from the National Transportation Safety Board shared with NPR. […]
Mad Vocal Skills Of Human Beatboxers Seen In Wild Orangutans
Orangutans could make great beatboxers if they had the inclination, as new research has discovered they can make two sounds simultaneously. The skill is seen in birds and human beatboxers and could explain how Homo sapiens evolved to be able to boots n’ cats so damn well (which, by the way, looks really weird in an MRI). […]
Special Carbon Molecule Spotted By JWST In The Orion Nebula For The First Time
The molecule methenium, also known as methyl cation (CH3+) has been observed in interstellar space for the first time. The detection comes from the Orion nebula, the closest region of massive star formation to Earth, and in particular from a protoplanetary disk known as d203-506. Among the many young stars forming in this vast nebula, […]
Incredible Composite Lightning Photography Lights Up Turkish Sky
Lightning is no doubt one of nature’s most impressive creations, from the 11-hour lightning marathon after the Tonga eruptions to bright green lightning bolts captured on Jupiter. Down on Earth is no exception with this spectacular composite image taken in the Turkish sky. Amateur astronomer Uğur İkizler made this incredible image by combining images of the different […]
Detecting HIV Could One Day Be As Easy As Picking Up The Phone
Monitoring HIV status could become easier than ever before, thanks to an innovative new device developed by a team at Johns Hopkins University. The device is powered by a smartphone and uses CRISPR technology to produce a result in just 15 minutes, giving patients a rapid and accurate measurement of their viral load. “We want […]
Do You Crush Microbes When You Step On Them?
Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to [email protected]. Do viruses, bacteria and other small things get crushed like an ant when stepped on? – Ryan L., age 12, Chapel Hill, North Carolina Advertisement When you step on some […]
How Uploading Our Minds To A Computer Might Become Possible
The idea that our mind could live on in another form after our physical body dies has been a recurring theme in science fiction since the 1950s. Recent television series such as Black Mirror and Upload, as well as some games, demonstrate our continued fascination with this idea. The concept is known as mind uploading. […]
People Are Only Just Discovering This “Secret” Feature On Toasters, And We Have Concerns
Inventors, bless them, are constantly coming out with new inventions. If this story is anything to go on, they’d be far better off putting their fancy new flying cars on hold and simply forcing everyone to learn how to use the inventions they already have. A video of a toaster has been widely shared on […]
Why People Would Not Sleep In The Catacombs Of Paris For $10 Million
Over the past week, people have been debating whether they would stay in the catacombs of Paris for a cool $10 million. The debate is entirely hypothetical, started by the account “creepy.org” on Twitter. $10 million is a lot of money, so why aren’t people keen? Well, as well as concerns about respect for the […]
Wolves Can Recognize Human Voices, Just Like Dogs
A new study has shown that wolves, just like dogs, recognize and respond to human voices, especially those they are familiar with. This has interesting implications for our understanding of both canine domestication and how species interact. Many animals can discriminate between members of their species (conspecifics) and recognize familiar individuals by sight, smell, or […]
Why Lemon Juice And Sodas Can Cause False Positives In Some Tests
The rumors are true: lemon juice, soda, and other beverages can be misused to provide false-positive results on certain tests, such as lateral flow tests. This piece of knowledge grew during the COVID-19 pandemic when schoolkids in the UK were reportedly using this trick to forge at-home tests to get out of class. However, there […]
Classic MythBusters Clip Demonstrates Just How Quickly Implosion Happens
The one fundamental law of the universe remains true – if something happens, MythBusters or The Simpsons foresaw it. With the recent catastrophic implosion of the Titan submersible while hunting the Titanic, a MythBusters clip of them testing out what implosion actually looks like has resurfaced and it’s pretty dramatic. The MythBusters team looked to […]
The Singing Sand Dunes Of Dunhuang: China’s Mysterious Musical Phenomenon
In China’s northwestern Gansu Province, the city of Dunhuang’s desert hills are alive with the sound of music. A fascinating, and somewhat eery, phenomenon causes the staggeringly high sand dunes scattered throughout the Kumtag Desert to “sing” in the wind. The Singing Sand Dunes range in size, with the highest peak reaching 1,715 meters (5,626 […]
Nearby Star Cluster May Be Nearly As Old As The Universe
A new technique has been used to estimate the age of globular star cluster M92 at 13.8 billion years, plus or minus 0.75 billion years. This is an almost exact match for the estimated age of the Universe, albeit with wider error bars. Either this nearby collection of stars formed as soon as possible after […]
