Do you have an Adam’s Apple? It’s a lump that sits in the middle of the throat of many adult humans, prone to bouncing around when we laugh and swallow. But what is an Adam’s Apple? And what does it actually do? Adam’s Apples are just one of many changes we see set in during […]
“Co-Extinctions” Could Take Out One-Sixth Of Vertebrate Species This Century
A model of the Earth’s ecosystems indicates many species capable of surviving in a hotter world themselves are dependent on others that are more vulnerable. Consequently, we can expect a great many more “co-extinctions” than previous estimates have anticipated, although it’s still very much within humanity’s power to minimize the damage. Endangered species lists indicate […]
Elon Musk Is Asking Twitter If He Should Step Down As CEO
Twitter has been in free fall since billionaire Elon Musk took over on October 27. Bad decision after bad decision has led to fleeing advertisers, the return of neo-Nazis, and recently the banning of journalists covering Elon Musk negatively. Yesterday, a controversial new policy was brought in, stopping any links to any other social media […]
COVID: What We Know About New Omicron Variant BF.7
Since the COVID variant omicron emerged in late 2021, it has rapidly evolved into multiple subvariants. One subvariant, BF.7, has recently been identified as the main variant spreading in Beijing, and is contributing to a wider surge of COVID infections in China. But what is this new variant, and should we be worried? Although reports […]
Ancient Bog Body May Have Been Victim Of A Grisly Sacrificial Ritual
An ancient murder mystery appears to have been solved. Archaeologists suspect that an ancient body that was preserved in a bog in Denmark may have been placed there as part of a grisly sacrificial ritual. While carrying out building work at a peat bog in Stenløse Mose in Egedal Municipality, workers recently stumbled across a […]
Photos Show What Seven Years Of Restoration Can Do For Coral Reefs
Dynamite fishing can devastate coral reefs turning them to rubble, so left with nothing on which to grow, how do you reestablish an ecosystem? Non-profit Coral Guardian has been using metal frames to do just that, and the astonishing results off Hatamin Island, Indonesia, show that it can be very effective. Prior to 2015, dynamite […]
Aliens Won’t Bother Contacting Earth, There’s No Sign Of Intelligence, Fermi Paradox Solution Suggests
The Fermi Paradox has long puzzled humanity and over the years countless solutions have been proposed, some of them darker than others. Now, yet another paper offers an answer to the question of why haven’t aliens got in touch yet, one that is pretty scathing for us humans: maybe we’re just not smart enough. Earth […]
Gut Bacteria Changes May Explain Why You Gain Back Weight After Dieting
Dieting to lose weight can be a real slog, and anyone who has ever given up on an eating regimen will probably have noticed that the pounds tend to pile up again pretty quickly. According to a new study on mice, the body’s tendency to gain back weight after dieting may be caused by an […]
Chilblains Vs Frostbite: What’s The Difference?
So, you’ve been out in the cold, and now your fingers or toes are all weird and painful. Is this frostbite? Are you doomed to suffer the fate of so many ill-fated Victorian polar explorers, your extremities lost to the bitter wind and snow? Or did you just sit too close to the radiator, and […]
Over 12,000 CIA Documents About JFK’s Assassination Have Been Released
Thousands of documents about the assassination of President John F Kennedy have just been released by the US National Archives. It includes heaps of previously classified information about the CIA’s giant investigation into one of the biggest moments of post-war America and the man accused of his murder, Lee Harvey Oswald. In total, 12,879 documents […]
Why Are There Brown Black Bears? Thanks To A Delicious Mutation
“What’s in a name?” When the Bard posited this profound question, he was on about some star-crossed lovers, but we’d like to apply it instead to black bears. Ursus americanus – a delightfully fluffy bear found across the US, Canada, and Mexico – is called the black bear despite the fact that some of them […]
You Can Sear A Steak By Dropping It From Space, But Not Cook It
Xkcd webcomic writer and science communicator Randall Munroe has written two books on what he calls “absurd hypothetical questions”. Among the unusual questions explored in his first What If? book was this: “From what height would you need to drop a steak for it to be cooked when it hit the ground?”. Munroe gave a […]
The Salem Witch Trials’ Accused May Have Fallen Victim To Moldy Bread
The Salem Witch Trials were a regrettable time in America’s history, and in the 329 years that have followed, all of those accused have since been exonerated. As for what led people in 1693 to think that a group of mostly women were bewitched, some have suggested a fungus may have played a role. Rye […]
Giant Herbivorous Sauropods Like Diplodocus Were Descended From Meat-Eating Ancestors
The largest creatures to ever walk the Earth were the giant sauropods such as Brontosaurus, Patagotitan, and, of course, Diplodocus of the non-supersonic tails. All of them reached their enormous sizes on a diet of leaves and other vegetable matter. However, a study of the teeth of the earliest dinosaurs shows these (probably) gentle giants […]
Asteroid Ryugu Formed Far Away From Earth Before Moving Close To Our Planet
Asteroid Ryugu is one of the most famous Near-Earth Objects. It was visited by the Japanese probe Hayabusa-2 a few years ago and the spacecraft collected samples from its surface and below it. Analysis of this material has revealed incredible insights about Ryugu and the latest research continues this trend. It found an important connection […]
Low Sex Drive Has Been Linked To All Causes Of Death Among Men In Japan
Scientists have found a bold link between a lack of sex drive and an increase in the risk of death from all causes among men living in Japan. Before you go jumping to conclusions, there’s a lot to unpack from the study and some limitations to consider. Nevertheless, it hints that there may be an […]
Cache Of Gold Jewelry Found In Ancient Egyptian “Heretic” Burial
Proving once again that nobody in the ancient world got blinged up quite like the Egyptians, an archeological dig in the Eighteenth Dynasty necropolis of Tell El-Amarna has turned up a treasure trove of ornate gold jewelry. Hidden for the last 3.500 years, the collection originally belonged to a young woman from the city of […]
Do Axolotls Bite?
Ahh the axolotl (Ambystoma mexicanum), undoubtedly one of nature’s weirdest offerings. Famous for their ability, or rather inability, to grow up, they never undergo metamorphosis and stay in their larval juvenile stage even as adults in a strange biological phenomenon called neoteny. Wild axolotls are critically endangered and only found in a few waterways above […]
Musk Drops Claims Of “Free Speech”, Bans Journalists And Mastodon From Twitter
Elon Musk used to call himself a free speech absolutist but since making that over-hyped claim, he’s been backtracking, adding more and more exceptions to what free speech means to him. From banning comedians making parodies of him on Twitter to banning newly-verified accounts that parodied companies. And remember that this came after he tweeted […]
Tainted Baby Spinach Is Causing People To Hallucinate In Australia
Dozens of people in Australia have suffered from hallucinations, confusion, and delirium after eating baby spinach that appears to have been contaminated. At least 47 people in New South Wales (NSW) have reported symptoms after eating spinach and at least 17 of these have needed medical attention, according to an announcement from NSW Health. Along with […]
