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The ancient Maya are famed for their ritual use of cacao, and new evidence suggests that the iconic pods were more widely consumed than previously thought. Until now, archaeologists assumed that the ingestion of cacao products was the exclusive right of the political and religious elites – yet it now appears that even the lowliest […]

At 91 years of age and after an incredible career as one of the most iconic voices on the planet, James Earl Jones has retired from being the voice of Darth Vader – but not before allowing technology to continue his legacy. The actor has now handed over the rights to his voice recordings to […]

All astronomers’ eyes were pointed towards NASA’s DART mission on Monday when an uncrewed spacecraft crashed into an asteroid, hoping to find out whether humanity could avert a catastrophic collision.  So far, so good: it looks like the mission was an “unprecedented success for planetary defense,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement.  Advertisement […]

Living forever can get messy in the context of cancer as the longer an organism is on this Earth, generally speaking, the higher its risk of developing a genetic mutation that can lead to disease. Some plucky animals, like the bowhead whale, have adapted to overcome this, becoming one of the longest living species on […]

Australians watched in horror last week as 230 pilot whales became stranded at a beach near Macquarie Harbour on Tasmania’s west coast. Some whales were saved, but the vast majority died. This left a big problem: what to do with all the rotting whale carcasses? Authorities decided to tow the dead animals out to sea, […]

A woman taking a nap with her mouth open ended up in hospital for three days after her daughter’s dog took a poop in her mouth. Amanda Gommo and her daughter were looking after their chihuahua named Belle, who was suffering from gastrointestinal distress when the incident occurred.  “I was having my afternoon nap with […]

With some artificial intelligence (AI) programs able to write sentences well enough to apparently convince a Google engineer that it is sentient,  it was inevitable that someone out there would try to use it to cheat at homework. According to one Redditor, this has already happened – and as a result, they and their friends […]

The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) has proven one thing – we have the capability to slam a spacecraft at high speed into a Great Pyramid-sized rock 11 million kilometers (7 million miles) from Earth. In the process, we got some excellent images of the jumble of rocks that make up the surface of Dimorphos, […]

Our physical traits and disease risk can be decided by epigenetic modifications that alter how our genes are expressed, meaning our health and development can differ from what’s laid out in our genetic code. Whether these changes could be carried across generations has been a puzzling question, but new research believes to have found evidence […]

A new opera is to tell the story of a soviet naval officer who, in 1962, narrowly prevented the world from entering a nuclear war. Vasili Arkhipov was born into a peasant family near Moscow in 1926. After serving as a minesweeper in World War II, he began working aboard Soviet submarines in 1947, rising […]

Climate tech companies have kicked off their plan to construct a colossal plant in Wyoming that’s capable of sucking up 5 million tons of carbon per year and storing it deep underground.  Dubbed Project Bison, the LA-based CarbonCapture Inch and Texas-based Frontier Carbon Solutions hope to get the direct air capture (DAC) plant up and […]

Last week, Mexico experienced a major earthquake that killed at least two people. Given its 7.6 magnitude, there were fears the death toll could be considerably larger. Being on land, the quake did not cause a tsunami in the ocean. However, it triggered what has been termed a “desert tsunami” in the Devil’s Hole pool, […]

As self-driving cars become commonplace, the question on everyone’s tongues is how well will they react to pedestrians. With human drivers, it’s relatively easy to understand that they likely won’t just mow you over at a crossing (unless it’s a BMW). But without one? It will always be hard to tell whether a computer system […]

A Chinese biotech company has cloned an Arctic wolf for the very first time. Not only is the young whippersnapper a milestone in the field of cloning technology, but the researchers believe this feat could provide hope for endangered species that are struggling to survive. The tiny Arctic wolf was born in Beijing on June […]

Italian fashion house Gucci’s spring/summer 2023 show, Twinsburg, featured 68 sets of identical twins modeling on the runway. That impressive number of identical twins in one place got us thinking: what is the science of identical twin births? Monozygotic twins (aka identical twins) are distinct from dizygotic twins (fraternal, or non-identical, twins). For fraternal twins, […]

A 49-year-old woman with advanced metastatic breast cancer has successfully halted the spread of the disease with chemotherapy alongside cannabis oil and magic mushrooms, according to a new case report. After halting her conventional cancer treatment, the patient remained disease-free for 18 months while using only cannabis and psilocybin, but experienced a recurrence when she […]

For 3,300 years, Neferneferuaten Nefertiti has remained hidden from the wanting eyes of Egyptology. Her existence was confirmed after a bust of the queen of the 18th Dynasty of Ancient Egypt was discovered in 1912, but despite enduring interest around Nefertiti (whose name means “the beautiful woman has arrived”) she has failed to make an […]

The Marra Wonga rock shelter in central Queensland may have more petroglyphs (rock engravings) than any other single site in the world. Impressive as that is, a study of the art there reports something even more distinctive and significant: a series of paintings telling the story of the Seven Sisters, also known as the Pleiades. […]

Newly formed lakes created by thawing ice in Alaska are teeming with methane-belching bacteria, as shown by a recent expedition by NASA scientists. Since methane is a potent greenhouse gas, the creation of these bubbling lakes is further fuelling the climate crisis and leaving the local environment in disarray, They’re known as thermokarst lakes or […]

In February, in what was described as a “great day” for the state’s bees, a Californian court ruled that bumblebees are fish. Now, the state Supreme Court has taken a closer look and confirmed that they are indeed fish, in a ruling that has positive implications for the state’s insects (aka fishies). Now biologically speaking, […]