News

Stone tools created half a million years in what is now Poland were probably the work of an extinct hominid species called Homo heidelbergensis, thought to be the last common ancestor of Neanderthals and modern humans. Previously, researchers were unsure if humans had made it to central Europe by this point in history, so the […]

It’s often a touted piece of trivia that Adolf Hitler was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. As strange as it may sound in today’s world, it is true. However, it’s less well-known that the nomination was actually a sarcastic joke that fell victim to the quirks of the Nobel nomination system.  Hitler was nominated […]

On Christmas eve, 1617, a violent storm raged off the coast of Norway. Of the 23 boats out at sea, 10 never returned, and 40 men and boys were lost with them. What followed was a wave of accusation, suspicion, and murder that lasted for 40 years and claimed 91 lives. At the northernmost point […]

Police in Longmeadow, Massachusetts, have accused a woman of showing up to an eviction they were facilitating and fighting them using angry bees. According to Hampden County Sheriff deputies, 55-year-old Rorie Susan Woods put on a full beekeeper costume during the alleged incident. Police say that Woods showed up at the scene of an eviction […]

A drug researchers are calling CanKet, which resembles ketamine but has two important chemical differences, has been reported by the Australian National University. The scientists who found it suspect the drug is circulating widely in Australia, and possibly worldwide, but differences in drug laws mean it has only been found in Canberra. The Australian Capital […]

A man recently played the saxophone during a nine-hour surgery in which doctors opened up his skull so they could access his brain and test for the safest boundaries from which to remove a tumor. The procedure is known as an awake craniotomy, and it has historically tasked patients with doing anything from playing the […]

Parts of Uganda have entered a three-week lockdown to help contain an Ebola outbreak that has struck the country. Uganda’s President Yoweri K Museveni announced the measures on October 15, noting that people will not be able to travel in or out of Mubende and Kassanda.  A nighttime curfew between 7:00 pm and 6:00 am […]

North America was once home to enormous ostrich-like dinosaurs called ornithomimosaurs, new research has found, and some of the largest known to have existed were stomping around what’s now called Mississippi. Clocking in at 800 kilograms (1,764 pounds) in weight, the “bird-mimic” dinosaurs had little heads on top of long necks as well as long […]

We have bad news for anyone who likes to look up at the sky and not see the words “Drink Pepsi” (for example), as researchers have found that space adverts are not only possible today, but economically feasible. The team, from Skoltech and Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, had previously looked at the viability […]

A new study has offered hope that we could be close to finally finding a treatment for a rare form of inherited blindness in adults. Such a treatment has been sorely lacking after recent results have suggested promising therapies for children, but not for adults who are currently living with the condition.   The therapy, […]

Controversy has bubbled up around a recent research project at Boston University that created a lab-made hybrid version of SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19. The research combined the spike protein of the Omicron variant (BA.1), the fast-spreading but relatively mild variant, with the “backbone” of a more pathogenic strain from earlier in the pandemic. […]

A new JWST image just dropped and it may be its most epic yet. The most powerful eye in the sky has turned its attention to one of the undoubtedly most iconic cosmic features known to humanity, the Pillars of Creation. Brought to the world’s attention in 1995 thanks to Hubble’s first spectacular image of […]

Avian influenza is currently seeing a spike in parts of the globe, with the UK environment agency recently announcing that Britain is experiencing its worst outbreak on record. While health authorities are advising residents across the globe on how to prevent the spread of disease, posts on social media have scientists worried as people comfort […]

Everyone loves a surprisingly colored species, from these gorgeous black seal pups to the bright feathers on pterosaurs, the animal kingdom is no stranger to colors of all kinds, be it present in fur, feathers, or fins. Now to add to the list, an extremely rare sighting of a melanistic Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis) has been […]

An astonishingly rich trove of Neanderthal remains from Chagyrskaya cave in Siberia’s Altai mountains has offered scientists their first insight into Neanderthal family structure. The group was highly inbred, but more surprisingly were patrilocal – with fathers staying close to home while mothers often came from other populations. Whether this was normal for Neanderthals, or […]

The Black Death, the single greatest mortality event in recorded history, left a huge impression on the makeup of genes that code our immune systems. Centuries later, certain genetic variants related to surviving the Black Death continue to influence people’s risk of disease and health.  In a new study, an international team of scientists analyzed […]

“A party led by artificial intelligence (AI) is attempting to run for Danish government” is a sentence you’d expect to find in a sci-fi about some distant future which is bound to go well for the humans. But, the Synthetic Party is a real thing and it’s hoping to field an AI candidate in Denmark’s […]

Being hospitalized with COVID-19 is associated with an 11 percent increase in the risk of developing schizophrenia, new research has found. While a number of previous studies have detected an observational association between the severity of infection and schizophrenia, this is the first to identify a causal link between the two. Primarily a respiratory illness, […]