The vicious claws of the hairy frog were first discovered around the year 1900, but it wasn’t until after the turn of the millennium that we found out how these bizarre amphibians grow them – or break them, as it were. Yes, when aggravated the hairy frog (Trichobatrachus robustus) actively breaks its own toe bones, […]
Vulcan Point: The Island In A Lake On An Island In A Lake On An Island
Earth is absolutely heaving with bizarre geological formations, but nothing has us exclaiming “what in the turducken?” quite like Vulcan Point. This unique little island lies within a lake, within another island, within a lake, within another island, within an archipelago, within the Pacific. It’s a rather tongue-twisting concoction of concentric lakes and islands, and while […]
Are Your Cats Playing Or Fighting? Here’s How To Tell The Difference
Cats love to fight, so much so that it’s one of the most common forms of play, but with the line between light-hearted scrapping and aggressive attacking so easily blurred beneath all that fur, how’s an owner to know when to take it seriously? Researchers on a new study decided to investigate the behaviors mostly […]
JWST Spots Rings Around Asteroid In First Stellar Occultation
Billions of kilometers beyond the orbit of Saturn, there’s a population of asteroids known as the Centaurs. The biggest among them is Chariklo, a rock 250 kilometers (160 miles) across that is known for also having two thin rings. The discovery of these two rings happened thanks to a phenomenon called stellar occultation. When an […]
There Is Only One Specimen Of The Rarest Mineral On Earth
When people want to possess something unique it usually has to be human-made, not a piece of the Earth. After all, we live on a large planet, and if geologic forces produce a particular mineral in one spot, there’s a pretty good chance they will make it somewhere else as well. Indeed, of the 6,000 […]
Medical Mystery Behind Baby Deaths Solved By Find Of Odd Shaped Genes
Scientists say they’ve solved an “80-year-old medical mystery” by showing how a specific form of kidney damage in children, which can be fatal in babies, isn’t always caused by a gene mutation, but sometimes the gene’s shape. Known as infantile hypercalcemia type 1, the condition causes a build-up of calcium in the blood, leading to […]
New Emperor Penguin Colony Spotted From Space Thanks To Their Poop
If you want to spot something black and white in a huge surrounding area of things that are largely black and white then you might think you’d have more luck with that needle in the haystack. Fortunately, the team at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) have a few tricks up their sleeves. To find penguin […]
Spanking May Damage A Child’s Social Development, Study Suggests
A new study suggests that spanking children may have a detrimental impact on their social development, demonstrating a number of worsened social behaviors when compared to children from non-violent backgrounds. The research adds to a growing body of evidence that suggests physical punishment can have long-term effects on the children that last well into adulthood. […]
Archaeologists Uncover “Oldest, And Most Complete Mummy” Found In Egypt Yet
Archaeologists in Egypt have reportedly found what is being hailed as the oldest mummy found in Egypt yet. The 4,300-year-old mummified remains were uncovered recently during ongoing excavations of tombs near the Step Pyramid at Saqqara, around 24 kilometers (15 miles) from Cairo. The mummified remains of a man named Hekashepes were discovered in a […]
Millionaire Spends Over $2 Million In An Attempt To Make His Body Young Again
Multi-millionaire Bryan Johnson has spent over $2 million in an attempt to de-age himself. The 45-year-old hired a team of medical professionals to help him, according to Bloomberg, “have the brain, heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, tendons, teeth, skin, hair, bladder, penis, and rectum of an 18-year-old”. So far Johnson’s team has focused on the unsurprising: […]
Has A Rock That Generates Electricity Really Been Discovered In Africa?
Viral videos that have exploded across Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok claim to show a new mineral that somehow holds a charge, with users demonstrating by rubbing them together and creating sparks, as well as connecting them with wires that then appear to power an LED. The rocks were supposedly discovered in the Democratic Republic […]
Let Astro Alan Help Launch You into Dreamland
There is very little chance that any of us in our lifetime will actually go into space, to experience first-hand what it’s like to be among the stars. True, Blue Origin has launched into space manned with Captain Kirk himself, taking him to where no civilian has gone before, but at a cost well beyond […]
When You Look At Mars And A Giant Bear Stares Back
NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has snapped a picture of a new face on Mars. And this time it’s not a sphynx-like one that turns out to be a windswept hill, it’s an adorable bear… that turns out to be a filled-in crater possibly due to some volcanic activity. The image was taken by MRO’s […]
Why Are Egg Prices Sky-Rocketing? Some Blame Industry Price-Gouging
Egg prices are skyrocketing. While the cost of groceries has generally risen, the price of eggs has tripled in the US since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Things have heated up even further recently, with the price of a dozen eggs now costing around $4.25, compared to $1.79 last year. The situation has […]
Computer Scientist Attempts To Get The Police To Find His Stolen Bike Using Math
In an article about bike theft for The Times, one computer scientist outlines how he attempted to convince the police to search for his stolen bike using math. Bike theft is one of those crimes that doesn’t get given a lot of police attention. In Cambridge, UK, where the computer scientist lives, the police will […]
Artificial Intelligence May Hit The Singularity Within 7 Years, Researchers Claim
Researchers have claimed that artificial intelligence (AI) will reach the singularity within seven years, after attempting to quantify its progress. Translation company Translated, presenting their work at an Association for Machine Translation in the Americas conference, explained that they first began testing machine translation technology in 2011. The team settled on a metric to measure […]
Ping Pong Balls And Vaseline: All Of The Unhinged Ways People Want To Raise The Titanic
The HMS Titanic is arguably the most famous shipwreck of all time. Following its discovery in 1985 at an astonishing depth of 3,800 meters (12,500 feet) below sea level in the North Atlantic Ocean, visitors have flocked from all over the globe to see even a small fragment of the hull, like that currently sitting […]
How Has The Inside Of The Earth Stayed As Hot As The Sun’s Surface For Billions Of Years?
Our Earth is structured sort of like an onion – it’s one layer after another. Starting from the top down, there’s the crust, which includes the surface you walk on; then farther down, the mantle, mostly solid rock; then even deeper, the outer core, made of liquid iron; and finally, the inner core, made of […]
Ancient “Hell Pigs” With Massive Teeth Are Actually Misunderstood Omnivores
Two ancient, funky-looking mammals, anthracotheres and entelodonts, have been the subject of a new study looking at their teeth. Anthracotheres bear some resemblance to modern-day pigs and hippos and are thought to have had a diet of fruits and foliage. Entelodonts, also known as “hell pigs”, had powerful heads, were thought to crush bones like […]
Shape-Shifting Robot Escapes Miniature Prison Cell By Liquifying Before Re-solidifying
A robot that can shift between solid and liquid states has been filmed escaping from a miniature jail cell with bars too close together to allow it to leave in solid form. The creators claim they were inspired by sea cucumbers’ capacity to alter their tissue stiffness – but the scene is just a little […]
