This week, cannabis arteritis causes necrosis of the fingers, the majestic “sea cow” is declared functionally extinct in China, and we find out the truth behind Netflix hit The Sandman. Man’s Digits Turn Blue Due To Rare Side Effect Of Heavy Cannabis Use Doctors have reported the case of a man whose fingers turned blue following […]
Sequencing 777 Ancient Human Genomes Reveals History Of “Cradle Of Western Civilization”
For thousands of years, humans lived, worked, and grew kingdoms across an area called the “Southern Arc”, spanning southeastern Europe and Western Asia – and it is thought to be the “Cradle of Western Civilisation”. Now, scientists have created a complex population history timeline of the area from the earliest farming cultures to post-medieval times, […]
IFLScience The Big Questions: Can Humans Live Forever?
We live in a society that idolizes youth for sure, but also with age comes wisdom. However, aging is not all it’s cracked up to be. Could we keep getting older without the drawbacks of being old? Other animals do it, so maybe one day it could apply to humans too. In this episode, host […]
Perseverance Samples Hold Key To Understanding Water-Rich Martian Past
NASA’s Perseverance has been working on the floor of Jezero Crater for over a year, collecting samples and analyzing the terrain. Some samples have been stored in special capsules to be sent back to Earth in the next decade – but researchers have already been able to obtain some exciting results about the rocks, with […]
JWST Detects “Unequivocal” Carbon Dioxide In An Exoplanet’s Atmosphere For First Time
JWST has been delivering incredible observations of faraway galaxies and nearby planets, but now it has delivered the incredible exoplanet science that many astronomers have been waiting for. The space telescope has detected the first “unequivocal” carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of a distant world, the first-ever undisputable detection like it. Described in a paper […]
Young Woman Buried In Canoe Is Oldest (And Strangest) Boat Burial In Argentina
A young woman buried inside a canoe in South America almost 900 years ago appears to be the earliest example of a boat burial in this part of the world. Archaeologists have recently been trying to decipher the meaning behind this unique burial, concluding that the canoe likely represents an attempt to help the spirit […]
Teeth May Have Evolved From Scales That Shuffled From The Body Into The Mouth
The origins of teeth have long been debated. With some fishy ancestors exhibiting teeth-like structures on their skin, known as dermal denticles (and, by the way, some even have “teeth” on their eyeballs), researchers found themselves wondering: did teeth grow out from within? Or did they migrate from the body into the mouth? New research […]
Google Accused Of “Airbrushing” After Changing How It Calculates Your Flight’s Carbon Footprint
Google has been accused of “airbrushing” the air industry’s impact on climate change after it changed the way it calculates the carbon footprint of your flights. When you search for flights on the search engine, as well as displaying times and services, Google displays the average amount of carbon emissions pumped out by those flights. […]
Eight-Year-Old Girl Chats To Astronaut On The ISS Using Dad’s Radio
An 8-year-old girl from the UK has chatted to the astronauts onboard the International Space Station (ISS) using her dad’s ham radio. Isabella Payne managed to catch a quick call to the ISS with the help of her father Matt, an amateur radio enthusiast from Kent, England. Late in the evening on August 2, the […]
Missouri School District Brings Back Spanking For Students – Here’s Why That’s A Bad Idea
A school district in Missouri has announced it will be allowing the use of a paddle as corporal punishment in schools, so long as they have parental consent. The district covers around 1,900 students and stopped using spanking in 2001, but now has reversed the decision as a means to violently keep students in line. […]
Doggy Dementia Is A Thing And Risk Increases With Each Year Of Life After 10
Dog dementia risk increases yearly for pups aged 10 or over, according to new research from the Dog Aging Project. The findings also revealed that activity can influence a dog’s likelihood of developing the condition, with inactive animals being at the highest risk. Canine Cognitive Dysfunction (CCD), as doggy dementia is more officially known, is […]
Newly-Discovered Cretaceous Mega Predator Comes With Free Existential Crisis
It was the size of a killer whale, with the mouth and teeth to match; it had a tail similar to that of a shark, and a body like a Komodo dragon. It sounds like a ferocious chimera from myths of old – and in a way, it is. But in a much more scientifically […]
Psilocybin Therapy Helps Treat Alcoholism In First Controlled Clinical Trial
The first placebo-controlled clinical trial of psilocybin as a treatment for alcohol use disorder (AUD) reveals that the psychedelic compound may help heavy drinkers significantly reduce their booze intake. Eight months after receiving the drug, participants’ heavy drinking was on average 83 percent lower than at the start of the study period. Writing the journal […]
Elusive Red Sprite And Air Glow Captured In Photo So Pretty It Looks Like A Painting
A member of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) at La Silla, Chile was able to capture two elusive atmospheric phenomena in a photograph that would not be out of place among paintings in an art museum – and both events rival each other in beauty. ESO featured it as Image of the Week. On the […]
Modern Day Henry VIII Recreated With AI, And He Doesn’t Look Happy About It
An Artificial Intelligence (AI)-generated image has given us a glimpse of what King Henry VIII of England would look like in the modern world, and he does not look comfortable with the circumstances. AI-generated imagery is getting spookily good. As well as producing never-before-seen demons from hell named Crungus, they are able to produce some […]
In World First, A Man Tests Positive For Monkeypox, COVID-19, And HIV
A person in Italy has become the first reported case of a person simultaneously testing positive for monkeypox, COVID-19, and HIV – a grim reminder that the world is battling an array of global health issues at the moment. As reported in the Journal of Infection, the 36-year-old man from Italy had just returned from […]
The Sausage Robot Will Make You Feel Less Worried About The AI Uprising
Every few weeks, it feels like, there’s a new video from Boston Dynamics showing off their robot dancing or doing athletics that makes you wonder “will this robot soon be doing this salsa routine on a big pile of human skulls?” Even in games of chess, you aren’t really safe. But you probably shouldn’t worry […]
The US Forest Service Guide To Completely Obliterating A Horse With Explosives
The United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service has a handy guide, complete with illustrations, on how to blow up a horse. If you’ve ever heard the tale of a certain Oregon whale that was splattered across a crowd of onlookers and journalists, you probably already realize this isn’t a terrible idea. The guide – […]
Scientists Have Traced Earth’s Path Through The Galaxy Via Tiny Crystals Found In The Crust
“To see a world in a grain of sand”, the opening sentence of the poem by William Blake, is an oft-used phrase that also captures some of what geologists do. We observe the composition of mineral grains, smaller than the width of a human hair. Then, we extrapolate the chemical processes they suggest to ponder […]
The “Full 1LLL” – A Rubik’s Cube Holy Grail – Has Been Completed For The First Time Ever
For the first known time ever, a Rubik’s cube has been solved with a single last step – the so-called “Full 1 Look Last Layer”, or “Full 1LLL”. If you’ve no idea what that means – or why it’s so impressive – read on. Solving a Rubik’s cube has sort of become shorthand for “I’m […]
