In 1954, the Daily Mail sponsored a team of journalists and mountaineers to search the Himalayas for the elusive and very real (so they believed) Abominable Snowman. The whole venture was a failure that cost the newspaper the equivalent of £1 million in today’s money, but it also demonstrates the excitement that surrounded this supposed […]
The Unsettling Explanation of the Dark Forest Hypothesis: Why Aliens Haven’t Made Contact
You have probably heard of the Fermi Paradox, but if you haven’t, here it is in a nutshell: Given the high probability that alien life exists out there in the universe (bearing in mind the vastness of space and that we keep finding planets within habitable zones) why has nobody got in touch yet? If […]
Neanderthals Died Out 40,000 Years Ago, But There Has Never Been More Of Their DNA On Earth
Peter C. Kjærgaard, University of Copenhagen; Mark Maslin, UCL, and Trine Kellberg Nielsen, Aarhus University Neanderthals have served as a reflection of our own humanity since they were first discovered in 1856. What we think we know about them has been shaped and moulded to fit our cultural trends, social norms and scientific standards. They […]
Why Did People “Look Older” In The Past?
If you’ve ever had a look through your relatives’ old photo albums from when they were young, or watched old TV shows, this thought may have crossed your mind: why the hell do these teenagers look like they’re worried about mortgages and pensions on their way to their bi-annual prostate exams? While some of it […]
What’s Underneath The Ocean Floor?
There’s an old adage that we know more about space than we do about the depths of the ocean, as if it’s not rational to see what lurks down there and immediately want to leave the planet. The ocean is incredibly deep, with an average depth of 3.7 kilometers (2.3 miles). The deepest part of […]
Orb-Like Belugas Rely On Sea Ice To Escape Orcas, But It’s Rapidly Melting
A battle of cetaceans plays out beneath the Arctic sea ice where orcas pursue belugas. Orcas, known as killer whales, are ferocious predators, but the flukes on their backs can sometimes get in the way. While the orb-like beluga can slip beneath the sea ice and hide out in narrow air holes, orcas run the […]
Terra Nullius: There Are Still Unclaimed Lands On Earth That No Country Wants
The modern world is one of nation-states strictly defined by borders. Challenge those borders and it’s a sure-fire way to have troops and tanks rolling in your direction before lunchtime. However, despite humanity’s relatively recent obsession with lines on a map, there are a small number of places on Earth that no sovereign state claims […]
Linguists Decipher An Enigmatic Language Not Used For Centuries
In the rocky hills of Central Asia, a number of walls bear a mysterious script that’s scrawled in an unknown written language. Thanks to the recent work of a team from the University of Cologne, parts of this ancient script are starting to be revealed, shedding light onto the pre-eminent culture that wrote it. The […]
Canada’s Dark History Of Giving LSD To Prisoners
Psychedelic psychotherapy is currently experiencing its second wave of interest, with studies over the past decade revealing the therapeutic potential of psilocybin and other mind-altering substances. A previous boom in psychedelic research occurred between the 1950s and 1970s, when a lack of ethical standards allowed for some shockingly irresponsible experiments to be performed on nonconsenting […]
Llamas Show Their Smarts By Learning Problem-Solving From Humans
We’ve had just about as much as we can take of animals being deceptively, and sometimes deviously, smart this week. First, magpies demonstrated their lawlessness by building nests with material meant to deter them – now it turns out llamas, too, are sharper than you might imagine. The canny camelids (not to be confused with […]
Watch Hunters Capture The Largest-Ever Burmese Python In Florida
A hunter has claimed the record of catching the longest-ever Burmese python in Florida, bagging a gigantic 5.79-meter (19.3-foot) snake. It takes the record from the previous snake caught in 2020, which was 5.7 meters (18.75 feet). Check out footage of them capturing it below. Advertisement The monster pythons are invasive and extremely damaging to […]
TWIS: Further Evidence Of Building Blocks Of Life Found On Mars, World’s Oldest Discovered Glaciers Are 2.9 Billion Years Old, And Much More This Week
This week an extinct baby bird’s feathers have been found locked in 99-million-year-old amber, scientists have a new proposal for where and when the Anthropocene started, science proves that old people really do smell, and we get a sneak peek into what’s in store for the next few months of JWST discoveries. Subscribe to the […]
AI Is An Existential Threat – Just Not The Way You Think
The rise of ChatGPT and similar artificial intelligence systems has been accompanied by a sharp increase in anxiety about AI. For the past few months, executives and AI safety researchers have been offering predictions, dubbed “P(doom),” about the probability that AI will bring about a large-scale catastrophe. Worries peaked in May 2023 when the nonprofit […]
Boomerang Meteorite? Candidate Space Rock Might Have Actually Come From Earth
Scientists might have found a truly weird rock. It looks like a meteorite, but its composition is very close to that of rocks that form deep in the ocean. And so, they have proposed a radical explanation: that this rock was knocked off the Earth, flew through space for maybe thousands of years, and then […]
Megalodon’s Secret To Achieving Gigantism Revealed By Tooth-Like Scales
Megalodon was a ferocious predator, but new research suggests that when it came to swimming, it was mostly pretty slow. The revelation follows the discovery of scales within rock pieces surrounding a previously described set of teeth from a megalodon fossil. “Our big scientific findings come from ‘tiny evidence’ as small as grains of sand,” […]
The World’s Tallest Mountain Isn’t Mount Everest
The dizzying height of Mount Everest’s 8,849-meter (29,032-foot) peak has cemented this famous Himalayan mountain as the tallest in the world. Semantically speaking, however, it isn’t. Measuring from base to peak, and distance from the equator, Mount Everest has been beaten hands down by two other rocky contenders. Before you leave a strongly worded comment, […]
Birth Control Will Soon Be Available Without A Prescription In The US
A birth control pill that can be purchased without a prescription has been approved for use in the US for the first time. The over-the-counter drug received groundbreaking approval from the US Food And Drug Administration (FDA), and will be available online and in-store. “Today’s approval marks the first time a nonprescription daily oral contraceptive […]
Why Does Steak Taste Better When Aged?
It’s a common sight in upmarket restaurants desperate to make the $40 steak seem worth it: “28-day matured beef”. In fact, most places selling meat will often advertise it as aged or matured, and meat enthusiasts will tell you that makes it significantly tastier. But why is that? To a non-meat eater, 28-day-aged meat sounds […]
Failed Star Cooler Than An Electric Stove Caught Emitting Radio Waves
Not all stellar objects turn into stars: some are not big enough to turn on nuclear fusions at their core. They become brown dwarfs and end up not much bigger than a planet like Jupiter. Some of them are also colder than a campfire or the hottest setting of an electric stove. Among these ultracool […]
Surfboard-Stealing Sea Otter Is Now On The Run From Wildlife Officials
The ocean is a dangerous place at the best of times and now another creature, a sea otter by the name of 841, has joined the orcas in the great uprising of marine animals in 2023. We jest, of course, but maybe consider other places to surf this summer than the California coast. Otter 841 […]
