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A story out of Israel today provides a reminder that, sometimes, things really can be too good to be true. It must have felt like the find of a lifetime: a fragment of pottery, discovered serendipitously by a couple of visitors to the Tel Lachish National Park in central Israel, bearing the first-ever written evidence […]

When going out for a night at the bar, most people are acutely aware of what they are drinking if they are the designated driver, ensuring they don’t go over that important drink-driving threshold. But a little-known fact is how alcoholic random foods can be, with some containing almost as much alcohol content as a […]

The first people to master the art of horseback riding may have lived in eastern Europe around 5,000 years ago. After examining the remains of hundreds of individuals from the ancient Yamnaya culture, researchers identified signs of skeletal stress caused by equestrian activity in around 15 percent of samples. Exactly when humans first took to […]

In terms of “promises that epically fail to deliver,” few things can beat the world of cryptids. Take Nessie, for example: is she, as promised, an unbelievably long-lived plesiosaur, somehow surviving alone in a single Scottish lake, only surfacing to tease the odd tourist every few years? Or is she, as is arguably more likely, […]

New research has studied hundreds of the free-wheeling dogs that roam the ruins of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and found that exposure to radiation may have made them genetically distinct from other dogs elsewhere in the world.  Following the Chernobyl nuclear disaster on April 26, 1986, around 120,000 people living in the surrounding area […]

Bones, ancient grooming tools, even gold – these are all things you might expect to find if you go poking around an Iron Age burial site. What you might not expect to find is your new favorite tipple. But, back in 2016, archaeologists were stunned to uncover a 2,500-year-old cauldron that contained the remnants of […]

Underwater discoveries, be they long-lost cities, hidden artifacts, or the remains of sunken ships, capture our imaginations like little else. A great example of the mysteries that surround such discoveries is exemplified in the lost city of Pavlopetri, which archaeologists believe to be the oldest sunken city in the world. Pavlopetri is located in the […]

Toothed whales and dolphins are known to hunt using echolocation – but that takes oxygen, which is precious at depth. A new study has revealed whales’ solution, which turns out to be similar to an American trend in speaking style. Humans have three registers for speaking or singing. There is our normal “chest” voice; falsetto, […]

Deep in the Pacific, on a lonely bunch of islands, there lies a “nuclear coffin” that’s been trying to contain a pit of radioactive waste since some of the first atomic bomb tests. Decades on from the blasts that tore through this idyllic pocket of the planet, the makeshift solution is starting to show its […]

Last month, we answered the question on every bird-lover’s lips: where do birds go when it rains? Now, we’re coming at you with another all-important wondering about our feathered friends: do they sleep? In short, yes. It’s a tiring business flapping about and trying to avoid turbines, and birds, just like the rest of the […]

Salt deserts are unique environments on Earth – so unique, they almost appear otherworldly. The most striking feature in their appearance is how they are tiled with hexagons and other polygonal shapes covering their surface as far as the eye can see. And how these patterns appear might finally have been understood. In the past, […]

We’re told a number of stories as kids. There’s the one about pulling a face for too long and having it stick that way, or the myth that Australian toilets flush backwards; some of us are even cruelly told that Santa isn’t real, despite ample evidence to the contrary. One of the more harmless of […]

The U.S. Defense Department issued a memo on Feb. 17, 2023, warning service members to avoid eating poppy seeds because doing so may result in a positive urine test for the opiate codeine. Addiction and pain medicine specialist Gary Reisfield explains what affects the opiate content of poppy seeds and how they could influence drug […]

Science fiction writers have often preempted many modern scientific and technological developments, from credit cards and mobile phones, to military tanks and even antidepressants. But now two sci-fi writers have teamed up with the UK Ministry of Defence (MOD) to help imagine what the wars of tomorrow will look like.  The authors, Peter Warren Singer […]

The Carnac stones have inspired stories and fueled myths for thousands of years. Along the south coast of Brittany in northwestern France, an unassuming field is studded with around 3,000 ancient megaliths. Their original purpose, however, remains a total mystery. The Carnac stones were likely placed during the Neolithic era before the advent of agriculture […]

This article first appeared in Issue 5 of our free digital magazine CURIOUS. Watch out, old book enthusiasts – your collection might be poisoned. Starting with just one suspicious green tome that turned out to contain arsenic, the Winterthur Poison Book Project has so far identified a further 101 arsenic-tainted books out in the world, […]

It’s not long since physical books were expected to be on their way out, replaced by digital readers for all but an eccentric few. The truth has turned out to be very different, and it’s likely an appreciation of the smell of old books has played a part. The smell of old books has been […]

A Jurassic-era lacewing that’s been MIA for 50 years was plucked from inside the façade of an Arkansas Walmart. It’s the first record of the species ever in the state, and the first seen in half a century since the species mysteriously disappeared from North America back in the 1950s. The Walmart-dwelling specimen was actually […]

Pharmaceuticals giant Eli Lilly has announced they will be capping the out-of-pocket cost of their insulin to just $35 a month, a stark difference to the high fees many are currently paying. The move will bring the price in line with a January provision that capped insulin to $35 a month for seniors, called the […]