The 1986 Chernobyl power plant accident was the world’s largest nuclear disaster. The subsequent fallout from the fires that burnt for ten days after the explosion released radioactive chemicals that spread through much of northeast Europe, across the continent, and even over into North America. The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone (CEZ), a 2,600 square kilometer (1,615 […]
SpaceX’s Starship Lifts Off And Explodes In Space
The inaugural flight of SpaceX’s Starship can be considered a partial success that ended in an unscheduled rapid disassembly. That means it went kaboom. Unfortunately, it exploded about three minutes into the flight after it failed to separate from its Super Heavy booster. The launch, the first orbital test for the system, was stopped for […]
Amazon Releases AI Tool So You Can Finally Hear Dialogue In Movies
Rejoice, all ye people who can’t hear any dialogue in modern movies – Amazon has a new tool to fix it. Amazon’s new tool, called “Dialogue Boost”, supposedly uses AI to boost the sound when people are talking, allowing you to finally understand all that whispering that comes right after 20 minutes of explosions. For […]
New Brain Network Discovery Rewrites The Textbook On The Motor Cortex
The idea of a body-mind connection could have even more truth to it than you think. A new study has found evidence that the parts of the brain that control movement are entwined with neural networks responsible for planning and thought, and can directly affect involuntary processes like heartbeat. The findings go beyond models of […]
100-Year-Old Experimental Submarine Built By “Eccentric Millionaire” Found Near Long Island
The wreck of a strange “experimental submarine” built over 100 years ago has been discovered on the murky seabed of Long Island Sound. While rumors of the location of the mysterious sub – said to be inspired by Jules Verne’s classic 1872 novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea – have been floating around for […]
Cranberry Juice Can Prevent Recurrent UTIs, But Only For Some People
Many of us know cranberries as a tasty condiment to have with our Christmas turkey, or the juice that accompanies vodka in a cosmopolitan cocktail. You might have also heard cranberries prevent urinary tract infections (UTIs). While this is often dismissed as a myth, our new review of the evidence shows consuming cranberry juice or […]
Ancient Maya’s Secret To Making Plaster Stronger Revealed
Researchers have confirmed the secret of lime plaster used by the Ancient Maya. The Mesoamerican people likely added a special ingredient to this construction material: tree bark extracts. And this made their lime plaster much more durable, something that might have important applications today. The team worked with local Maya-descended masons at Copán in Honduras […]
Why Do Rocket Launches Create Weird Spirals In The Sky?
Last week, a SpaceX launch created a serendipitous and beautiful event over the Alaskan skies. In the midst of dancing green Northern Lights, a spiral cloud appeared in the sky. This is the result of the reentry stage of a Falcon 9 rocket taking satellites to orbit, including the first Earth observation satellite designed and […]
Khutulun Was A Badass Mongolian Warrior Princess Who Destroyed Men On And Off The Battlefield
What do you get if you cross Mulan with Merida and plop the result into 13th-century Mongolia? The answer: Khutulun, the warrior princess who reputedly turned down more than 1,000 suitors after beating them all in displays of strength and athletic ability. Born around the year 1260 to a cousin of Kublai Khan – the […]
The Universe’s Best Days For Life May Be Behind It
The factors that make a star a suitable host for life on surrounding planets are complex, and new research indicates something we thought was an asset – high metal content – may instead be harmful. If so, it indicates we’ve been focusing our search for life-supporting planets in the wrong places. More worryingly, it means […]
We Finally Know How The Maya Calendar Matches Up With The Planets
Astronomy and timekeeping were two of the Ancient Maya’s biggest loves, and new research may have finally revealed the intricate system that once connected these two pillars of Mesoamerican life. According to the study authors, the enigmatic Maya calendar can be used to track the movement of the planets across the night sky over a […]
More Evidence Shows Vikings Were In America Long Before Columbus
Microscopic analysis of wood suggests that Norse people in Greenland were using timber that came from North America over 700 years ago. The research is further evidence that Viking sailors were making contact with the east coast of North America long before Christopher Columbus “discovered the New World” in 1492 CE. Archaeologist Lísabet Guðmundsdóttir from […]
A “Weeping” Virgin Mary Statue Had Its Tears Tested, Revealing An Unlikely Substance
Back in 2018, a church in New Mexico claimed that their statue of the Virgin Mary was “weeping” liquid from its eyes. It all started on May 20, 2018 – Pentecost Sunday in the Catholic religious calendar – when the parishioners of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Las Cruces reportedly witnessed the statue crying tears […]
Cognitive Reappraisal Could Be Good For Your Sex Drive, Study Finds
How we manage our emotions could impact our sex drive, suggests a new study, which finds that those of us adept at cognitive reappraisal – a popular emotion regulation strategy – may also have heightened sexual desire. Cognitive reappraisal involves changing how you think about a given situation, reframing it in order to reduce the […]
The Origin Of Space-Time? Maybe It’s Quantum “Magic”
All the world’s a stage and the stage itself is space-time where all the laws of physics are merely players. But maybe space-time is not the fundamental aspect that it is believed to be. A team of researchers from Japan’s RIKEN suggests that space-time could emerge from quantum properties, and one in particular that is […]
Possible Genetic Cause Of Childhood Onset Schizophrenia Found
The onset of schizophrenia in children under 13 is extremely rare, but it does occur. When it does, its symptoms are far more severe and persistently debilitating than for patients who develop the condition at a later stage in life. Now a ten-year research effort has found new genetic factors that help to understand the […]
Despite Being Perfectly Adapted Hunting Machines, Sabertooth Cats Took Care Of Each Other
Sabertooth cats might be best known from their apparently social behaviors in movies (looking at you Diego), but evidence from the fossil record suggests that they were known to hunt cooperatively. A new skull fossil of a primitive sabertooth from the Linxia Basin, China, shows cranial adaptations to social behavior, and an injured forepaw reveals […]
What Is The Fastest Solid Object We Know?
As far as we know, the fastest things in the universe are photons of light, closely followed by subatomic particles, be they in particle accelerators or high-energy astronomical situations. However, when people ask what the fastest thing in the universe is, they probably don’t mean something far too small to see. The search for the […]
The Black Stains On Leonardo Da Vinci’s Codex Atlanticus Explained
A few years ago, strange black stains began to appear on a collection of Leonardo da Vinci’s most famous drawings and writings: The Codex Atlanticus. The codex, housed since 1997 in a controlled micro-climate at Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan, began showing signs of blackening. Investigation showed that these darkened patches were on some 210 pages of […]
Most Populated Nation Set To Change By Mid-2023 As “Population Anxiety” Increases
India is on track to overtake China as the world’s most populous country by mid-2023. Roughly before the end of June, India’s population is projected to be 1.4286 billion, compared with China’s 1.4257 billion, according to new estimates from the United Nations (UN). The data comes from a new report by the United Nations Population […]
