In scenes that wouldn’t be out of place in The Last Of Us, rabbits with zombie-like growths sprouting out of their heads have been spotted hopping around Colorado in recent days. Residents have shared photos of the nightmarish creatures on social media, with users comparing them to “Frankenstein” and branding them “demon-rabbits” – so what […]
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Why Do We Feel Pain? Palliative Expert Dr BJ Miller And Chris Hemsworth Explore The Science Of Pain
Pain sucks. Burning, aching, stabbing. Emotional, physiological, existential. There’s all kinds to choose from, and modern medicine has innovated many clever ways to overcome it. Thing is, as much as pain is unpleasant, it’s also vital. A reminder that if we touch the fire or prod the thorn, we could injure ourselves. Pain, really, keeps […]
What Is The Silverpit Crater: The First Meteorite Impact Found Near Great Britain, Or Something Else?
Off the coast of Great Britain is something of a deep-sea mystery. Seismic data gathered here during gas exploration revealed a feature on the seabed about 130 kilometers (80.7 miles) off England’s Humber Estuary. Known as the Silverpit Crater, it’s a huge dip that’s about 3 kilometers (1.9 miles) wide and characterized by striking concentric […]
Toothpaste Made From Hair Might Be The Future Of Your Dental Health
Listen: sometimes medicine is gross. Poop transplants exist and are weirdly effective at a whole bunch of things; Ozempic has its roots in Gila monster venom. Premarin, the most common form of estrogen prescribed to menopausal women in the US, is literally named after its main ingredient, Pregnant mare urine. So, when we tell you […]
What Were The “Fireflies” NASA Astronaut John Glenn Saw As He Orbited The Earth?
When we first started to leave Earth’s atmosphere, strapping test pilots into spacecraft and blasting them into the vacuum of space, we expected there to be a few surprises in store. And we were not disappointed. For instance, dating back to the Apollo program, many astronauts have reported mysterious bright flashes of light in their […]
Over 1,300-Year-Old Skeletons Buried In England Had West African Roots
More than 1,300 years ago, a boy and a girl were buried on two sides of England’s south coast. Today, their DNA reveals they both had West African roots, a surprising find that suggests early medieval Europe was far more connected and cosmopolitan than the history books suggest. Archaeologists made the discovery through genetic analysis […]
Meet The Tibetan Fox: Perfectly Adapted For Life In The Plains With A 10/10 Side-Eye
If you’ve ever lived with a pet, you know that they can have a whole host of facial expressions, and apparently, this trait isn’t confined to domesticated creatures. Look no further than the Tibetan fox; while they are perfectly adapted for life in the Himalayas, they might also have the most judgmental faces in the […]
New Species Of Early Human Lived Alongside The Oldest Known Homo Over 2.6 Million Years Ago
Fossilized teeth discovered in Ethiopia have revealed a new-to-science species of Australopithecus, a genus of early hominins that lived from the Pliocene to the Early Pleistocene. Not only does it add to our busy human family tree, but the discovery proves they were living alongside the oldest specimens of Homo, the genus of early humans […]
Finally, A Mathematical Algorithm For Winning At Guess Who?
If those are two ends of a spectrum, then beating your 7-year-old nibling at an elementary board game probably falls somewhere in the middle – but it’s precisely that which a new preprint, possibly written to justify a group outing to a pizza place, is tackling. “We prove[d] an optimal strategy for the children’s game […]
Scientists Found Air Trapped Inside A Rock For 815 Million Years And Set It Free
Some of the oldest air ever studied by scientists was trapped inside rock over 800 million years ago. Cracking the rock open and allowing the air to escape, the team who found it got a pretty astonishing surprise about the ancient atmosphere of Earth. When studying the Earth’s atmosphere in the ancient past, scientists have […]
A Black Hole Hitting A Star Created A Never-Before-Seen Type Of Supernova
If you ever wondered what would happen if you were to throw a black hole at a star, well astronomers now have an answer: it goes “boom” in a truly distinctive way. Researchers have spotted an interesting supernova event that had never-before-seen behavior. A study revealed the involvement of a black hole and its interaction […]
“Superhard” Hexagonal Diamonds Found In Meteorites Produced In Bulk For The First Time
Chinese and American scientists claim to be the first to make large enough quantities of diamonds with a hexagonal structure to test their physical properties. The substance has been sought for 60 years, reflecting the extraordinary anticipated hardness of the gemstones. The team responsible may have scooped another team who described a method for achieving […]
Mysterious Inca String “Writing” System Was Surprisingly Used By Commoners As Well As Elites
A 500-year-old Inca document made of alpaca wool and human hair was made by an unknown individual of low social status, shattering the common belief that only high-ranking imperial officials knew how to produce these strange thread-based records. Known as a khipu, the artifact forms part of a “proto-writing” tradition that was widespread in the […]
An Entirely New Mineral May Have Been Found On Mars, Solving 20-Year-Old Mystery
A team of scientists studying strange spectral lines observed on Mars may have discovered a previously unknown mineral. For nearly two decades, scientists have been receiving data from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, constantly in orbit around Mars. On board the orbiter, the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) analyzes the spectra of the planet’s […]
World-First Study Finds “Sex Reversal” Surprisingly Common In Wild Australian Birds
A study of five common Australian bird species in southeast Queensland has found on average, 4.8 percent of them have sexual organs that don’t align with their chromosomes. The authors don’t know the cause of the deviation from biology textbooks, nor how representative the findings are for avian populations elsewhere, but it does appear to […]
Another Earth Twin Canceled! Promising Exoplanet Unlikely To Have Atmosphere, Says NASA
The TRAPPIST-1 system is a multi-planetary system made of seven Earth-sized planets orbiting a cool red dwarf just 40 light-years from Earth. Of the seven, three planets sit in the habitable zone, the distance from their star where temperatures would allow for liquid water, making the whole system an object of great interest. Observations so […]
Orange Dwarf Crocodiles Lurk In The Caves Of Central Africa
A deeply bizarre group of dwarf crocodiles with fiery orange skin lurk in the caves of Central Africa. Immersed in the environment of Gabon’s Abanda cave system, the crocs have developed several strange adaptations that set them apart from their surface-dwelling counterparts. Dwarf crocodiles (Osteolaemus tetraspis) are the world’s smallest living species of crocodile, measuring […]
North America’s Tintina Fault More Active Than Thought – And Could Be Brewing A Major Earthquake
Stretching around 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) along western North America, the Tintina fault has long been assumed to be inactive. Now, a new study has challenged that assumption, finding that the fault has generated “numerous large earthquakes in the recent geologic past” – and it could be brewing another one of “at least” magnitude 7.5. […]
There Is Now An Easy Way To Look For Living Organisms On Mars
The search for life beyond Earth is a complicated affair. Elsewhere in the Solar System, we are looking for microorganisms, and our robotic explorers do not have the ability to do the things that we do in the lab. There are many ways for rovers and spacecraft to look for evidence of life, recent or […]
Newly Discovered 26-Million-Year-Old Whale Was “Deceptively Cute”, With A Tiny Body But A Big Bite
While whales today are the giants of the ocean, it was a different story 26 million years ago. Back then, their ancestors were much smaller – but don’t let that lull you into a false sense of security. As one newly described ancient whale species makes clear, appearances can be deceiving. The rest of this […]