“There is a tide in the affairs of men,” Shakespeare had Brutus say. The Bard was speaking metaphorically, but it turns out there are far more real tides than he knew, with the latest being found in the cold plasma that surrounds the Earth in a giant donut shape above the atmosphere. Shakespeare didn’t even […]
Nine-Year-Old Boy Becomes One Of The Youngest High School Graduates Ever
A nine-year-old boy from Pennsylvania has become one of the youngest-ever high school graduates after receiving his diploma remotely from Reach Cyber Charter School. David Balogan, who loves science and computers, has already begun working towards his degree in the hopes of becoming an astrophysicist that studies black holes. According to David’s parents, raising a […]
New Earth-Sized Planet May Be Habitable, Although Half Is In Eternal Darkness
Astronomers have announced the discovery of a new rare Earth-sized exoplanet. Wolf 1069 b orbits its star in the habitable zone, where water can exist as liquid, vapor, and ice. Of the 5,000 confirmed exoplanets, it’s thought only around 60 might be rocky like Earth and in the habitable zone, but Earth-sized ones or smaller […]
DNA Of Skull In Alaska Solves Mystery Of New Yorker Missing Since 1976
A skull found in the Alaskan wilderness has been linked to an adventurer from New York who went missing in 1976. In a grisly surprise, investigators believe that the man most likely died after being mauled by a bear. Gary Frank Sotherden, then 25, traveled to the Arctic Circle in the mid-1970s to go hunting, […]
Deadly 7.8 Magnitude Earthquake Hits Turkey And Syria
A major earthquake has struck central Turkey, near the city of Gaziantep not far from the border with Syria. Both countries have been greatly affected by the seismic event which had a magnitude of 7.8 with the death toll over 1,000 and still rising. The event struck at 4:17 am local time and was followed […]
What’s The Safest Seat On A Plane? We Asked An Aviation Expert
When booking a flight, do you ever think about which seat will protect you the most in an emergency? Probably not. Most people book seats for comfort, such as leg room, or convenience, such as easy access to toilets. Frequent flyers (this author included) might book their seat as close as possible to the front […]
A Record-Breaking Number Of Hoodoos Can Be Found In Bryce Canyon
This article first appeared in Issue 3 of our free digital magazine CURIOUS. The Grand Staircase is a 160-kilometer (100-mile) stretch of sedimentary rock that was first conceptualized by geologist Clarence Dutton in the 1870s. Dutton saw it as an immense stairway that at one end rises out of the Grand Canyon and at the […]
Iceland’s Crystal Ice Caves Carve Walkways Deep Within A Glacier
This article first appeared in Issue 2 of our free digital magazine CURIOUS. Iceland’s Vatnajökull National Park centers around the country’s largest glacier, Vatnajökull. Its biggest outlet is the Breidamerkurjökull glacier tongue, which as a piedmont glacier formed as the result of a valley glacier meeting flat plains upon which the ice spread out. It once […]
World’s Oldest Fossils Or Oily Gunk? These 3.5 Billion-Year-Old Rocks Don’t Contain Signs Of Life, Study Says
The Pilbara region of Western Australia is home to one of the most ancient surviving pieces of Earth’s crust, which has been geologically unchanged since its creation some 3.5 billion years ago. Some of the oldest signs of life have been found here, in the North Pole area west of the town of Marble Bar, […]
Italy’s Upside-Down Fig Tree Hangs From The Roof Of An Ancient Ruin
This article first appeared in Issue 1 of our free digital magazine CURIOUS. In Naples, Italy, visitors to the ruins of Baiae which sit within the modern city of Bacoli will find a botanical take on Stranger Things’ The Upside Down. Here, from the ceiling of a cave in the Parco Archeologico delle Terme di Baia, […]
Chef Julia Child Was A Shark-Fighting Secret Agent During World War II
In many ways, cooking is just chemistry. You combine acids, bases, proteins, and various other chemicals, and subject them to a myriad of different physical and chemical processes like freezing, heating, mixing, and blending – it’s all classic lab stuff, but with cake at the end rather than, say, five kilos of primo coke. This […]
TWIS: “Spicy” Lives Of Royals Revealed In Ancient Shipwreck, How To Not Cheat On Your Partner, And Much More This Week
This week, Neanderthals may have hunted 13-tonne prehistoric elephants, a one-in-10-billion future kilonova is discovered for the first time, and we investigate whether you can actually get filthy rich from panning for gold. Ancient Shipwreck Reveals Unprecedented Glimpse Into Medieval Royal Luxury An archaeological investigation of a well-known shipwreck off the coast of Sweden has […]
Groundhog Day Claims Another As Fred la Marmotte Found Dead Before Prediction
Groundhog Day has rolled around again to see what a group of rodents have to say about spring. However, in Canada, tragedy struck as star of the season Fred la Marmotte was found dead just a few hours before the big prediction. The idea goes that when a groundhog emerges from their burrow at the […]
Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria In Eye Drops Linked To 55 Infections And One Death
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued an alert advising to stop using EzriCare Artificial Tears eye drops after the product was linked with an outbreak of drug-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacteria. As of January 31, 55 people are known to have been infected across 12 US states. Some have suffered permanent vision […]
How To Know If You’ve Found “Floating Gold” Ambergris Or Plain Old Sewage
Precious ambergris is an unusual auction item. The waxy lumps of whale waste have become a sought-after ingredient in perfumes, but their unusual appearance means people often confuse everything from fat to sewage and palm oil as being “floating gold” when it is, in fact, just pungent garbage. So, how do you know if you’ve […]
Don’t Travel Without These CES-Featured Translation Earbuds
The same earbuds you use to listen to music and escape the world could help you connect to it instead. Translators have come a long way since the days of Google Translate. The Mymanu CLIK S was featured at CES 2023 and can automatically translate you or another speaker into 37 different languages. You can […]
Are The Aztec Crystal Skulls Real Or Fake?
Arguably some of the most iconic archaeological artifacts ever to come out of Mesoamerica, the famous Aztec crystal skulls have inspired countless blockhead theories about alien sculptors, psychic technologies, and magic stones. In reality, however, the supposed pre-Columbian relics might just be cheap knock-offs sold by a nineteenth-century French conman. The Story Of The Crystal […]
Does Our Sporting Future Lie Beyond Earth’s Atmosphere?
This article first appeared in Issue 4 of our free digital magazine CURIOUS. For all of human history, and probably before, people have tried to put any new environment or technology to use for the purposes of food, alcohol, sex, or sport. It’s unlikely space will be any different. Growing food in space has turned out […]
“Flamingo” The Rescue Pigeon Is A Reminder To Never Dye Birds
A domestic king pigeon was recently discovered by a bird rescue group after it had been deliberately dyed pink and released into the wild. Flamingo, as the unlucky pigeon has been named, has it doubly rough. As a domestic bird, it’s not prepared for the realities of life in the wild, making it vulnerable to […]
Which Material Has The Highest Melting Point? The Answer’s Complex
The question of which substance has the highest melting point sounds simple, but the answer turns out to be “it depends”. Perhaps you were told the answer is tungsten in high school chemistry class, as we were, but it’s not that simple. For one thing, as chemistry teachers and textbooks really should know, a material’s […]
