A statue of the Virgin Mary has been the unlikely recipient of a DNA swab, after it appeared to be weeping blood. Results from the test make a miracle appear unlikely, and a criminal case against its owner more probable. ADVERTISEMENT GO AD FREE Back in 2014, “mystic” Gisella Cardia bought a statue of the […]
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Before Lions And Wolves, Bastetodon Was The Apex Predator Early Monkeys Feared
A 30-million-year-old skull from Fayum, Egypt, is thought to come from the apex predator of the times, which would have been the scourge of early hippos and elephants, snacking on our own ancestors in between. ADVERTISEMENT GO AD FREE The cat and dog families evolved about halfway between the death of the dinosaurs and today. […]
How Do Our Brains Make – And Break – Habits?
Is there a habit you wish you had? Maybe it’s something simple, like always leaving your keys in one specific place so you never lose them. Or is there an annoying habit you’d really like to kick, like biting your nails? Let’s take a step back for second, though: what actually is a habit? ADVERTISEMENT GO […]
Incredible 14.6-Million-Year-Old Fossil Bee Discovered In New Zealand
Finding fossils of any species is an exciting discovery for science, but some are a little bit more special than others. In New Zealand, a 14.6-million-year-old fossilized bee has been discovered, marking the first fossil bee to be uncovered from Zealandia. ADVERTISEMENT GO AD FREE Near the township of Outram in Otago on the South […]
Carbon Capture Is More Expensive Than Just Switching To Renewables
As the nations of the world continue to burn fossil fuels, the amount of carbon dioxide, methane, and other greenhouse gases – as well as air pollutants – continue to increase. The climate crisis is a consequence of those human actions. Wouldn’t it be great to just remove excess CO2? Carbon capture aims to do […]
World’s Largest Lake Island Has Lakes Of Its Own – Which Also Have Lake Islands
If you found Inception tricky enough to get your head around, just wait until you hear about Manitoulin Island. Located in Lake Huron, not only is it the world’s largest lake island, but it also has lakes of its own, some of which in turn have their own lake islands. Someone grab us the Advil… ADVERTISEMENT […]
Neutrinos’ Quantum Size Likely Thousands Of Times Larger Than Atomic Nuclei
The quantum size of a neutrino has been measured for the first time using innovative table-top measurements of the particle’s decay. ADVERTISEMENT GO AD FREE Neutrinos are thought to be the second most common particles in the universe after photons, and the most plentiful ones with mass, but it’s not that long ago that physicists […]
Watch Amazon River Dolphins Pee Straight Up Into The Air, What Do Ancient Mummies Smell Like, And Much More This Week
This week, we take an inside look at how humanity is dealing with the threat of asteroid 2024 YR4, humpback whale song seems to follow a fundamental law of human language, and we investigate whether red light therapy is a skin superhero or a beauty bust. Finally, we discuss a powerful human emotion everyone has […]
The Greenland Ice Sheet Is Falling Apart – New Study
Observing Greenland from a helicopter, the main problem is one of comprehending scale. I have thought we were skimming low over the waves of a fjord, before noticing the tiny shadow of a seabird far below and realising what I suspected were floating shards of ice were in fact icebergs the size of office blocks. […]
Solar-Powered Reactor Gobbles Up Carbon Dioxide And Spits Out Sustainable Fuel
Researchers at the University of Cambridge have developed a brand-new device designed to capture carbon dioxide directly from the air and turn it into fuel – and it does so with only the power of the Sun. ADVERTISEMENT GO AD FREE Direct air carbon capture is far from a new idea, but time has yet […]
In The Chilly Bering Strait, The US And Russia Are Only 3.8 Kilometers Apart
Russia and the US might feel like two places that are worlds apart, but sitting in the middle of the Bering Strait are two tiny islands that prove otherwise. With just 3.8 kilometers (2.4 miles) between them, the Diomede Islands mark the closest point between the two countries. ADVERTISEMENT GO AD FREE On the Russian […]
Car Brake Dust Can Be More Harmful Than Diesel Exhaust – New Study
Exposure to air pollution is associated with around seven million premature deaths per year across the world. When we think of urban air pollution, diesel exhaust emissions are often portrayed as a key culprit – rightly so, given previous research findings. However, our latest research shows that dust from brake pads could be more harmful […]
When Did People Start Drinking Coffee?
I think it’s probably safe to say coffee is a popular drink. If you’re anything like me, it is not only a staple of your morning routine but perhaps the cornerstone on which the rest of your day’s functionality rests. You can barely walk down a street these days without seeing some sort of café […]
Watch Usually Solitary Wild Koalas Captured On Film Snuggling Socially For First Time
Three male koalas have been filmed grooming each other in a manner only reported once before. Although stroking a koala is near the top of most tourists to Australia’s wishlist, this is only the second reported example of males doing it to each other and the first time it’s been caught on film. ADVERTISEMENT GO […]
Asteroids Can Strike Earth With Such Force They Form A Material Harder Than Diamond
When carbon is subjected to extreme heat and pressure within the Earth, it can crystalize to form diamonds; the hardest (though not necessarily the toughest) natural mineral on the planet. ADVERTISEMENT GO AD FREE But it turns out that there is more than one way to make a diamond. In 1891, examining a meteorite in […]
This US Flu Season Is Seeing The Most Doctor’s Visits For Respiratory Illness Since 2010
As the US enters what is usually the peak month of the flu season, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has released its latest surveillance data on influenza activity – and the 2024-2025 season seems to be particularly intense. ADVERTISEMENT GO AD FREE In the update, the organization stated that 7.8 percent of […]
Iron Age Sites In Spain Are Littered With Severed Heads. Who Was Decapitated And Why?
As political violence spread across the northeastern Iberian peninsula during the Iron Age, a gruesome practice that involved nailing decapitated heads to walls became increasingly fashionable. To find out why, a team of researchers has applied stable isotopic analysis to seven of these bodiless bonces, revealing new information about where the victims came from. ADVERTISEMENT […]
The Pale Blue Dot At 35: The Making Of An Iconic Photo
Thirty-five years ago, on February 14, 1990, the Voyager 1 probe took its last series of photographs. The mission has completed its goal of traveling across the Solar System to see Jupiter and Saturn. Launched in 1977, it encountered the king of the planets in January 1979, and 21 months later, it flew by the […]
Dolphin Pee Party, Inside Asteroid Response, And That Ancient Mummy Smell
This week on Break It Down: Amazon river dolphins are saying it with urine proudly sprayed directly into the air, an inside look at the planetary defense response to asteroid 2024 YR4 (and no, it isn’t too late), find out what mummies smell like thanks to a team of “sniffers”, whale song follows Zipf’s Law, […]
Why Do You Rub Your Skin When You’re Injured? There’s Actually A Very Good Reason
Imagine you’ve just walked into a table. As well as turning the air blue, you’d probably immediately bend down and start rubbing the affected shin – but does that actually do anything? Well according to one theory of how pain works, it turns out that weird little instinct of ours could genuinely be helping to […]
