Newsdesk Archive
The increased use of light-emitting diodes is obscuring our view of the Milky Way as well as taking a toll on human and wildlife health.
In an article published April 25 in the journal Ichnos, an international team of researchers used optically-stimulated luminescence (OSL) to figure out when the impressions were made.
Archaeologists have mapped a hidden landscape where Australia's first people made inroads more than 60,000 years ago. The study was published in PLOS One.
The psychedelic substances 5-MeO-DMT causes a long-lasting increase in the number of tiny protrusions called dendritic spines in the brain, according to new research published in Neuropsychopharmacology.
More than 5,000 undescribed animal species have been discovered in the depths of a massive "pristine wilderness" in the Pacific Ocean, a new study shows. But researchers warn they could soon be wiped out by deep-sea mining.
An international team of archaeologists has found what may be the earliest known saddle at a dig site in China. In their paper published in the journal Archaeological Research in Asia, the group describes where the ancient saddle was found, its condition and how it was made.
New research reveals that mushrooms and other fungi can keep themselves cooler than their surroundings. The discovery could tell us more about these organisms' evolution and how they might respond to continued global warming.
Since what has come to be known as the Great Dimming that took place in the latter half of 2019 and early 2020, the red giant star Betelgeuse just will not stop with the wackiness.
A team of theoretical physicists have discovered a strange structure in space-time that to an outside observer would look exactly like a black hole, but upon closer inspection would be anything but: they would be defects in the very fabric of the universe. Read the paper here.
What we lose when psychedelics are medicalized.
Scientists have identified specific patterns of brain network reconfigurations that occur when people take both classical and non-classical psychedelic drugs. Their findings, published in NeuroImage, shed new light on how psychedelics affect the brain and consciousness.
Dr. Sophie Lund Rasmussen, who in a new article in the journal Science, draws on a range of written sources from the earliest Mesopotamian societies, kissing was already a well-established practice 4,500 years ago in the Middle East. And probably much earlier, moving the earliest documentation for kissing back 1,000 years compared to what was previously acknowledged in the scientific community.
A team has found evidence of the controlled use of fire by direct human ancestors – or hominins – at a site in Spain dating to 250,000 years ago. This pushes the earliest evidence of fire control in Europe back by 50,000 years. The findings have been published in Nature Scientific Reports.
The classic out-of-Africa hypothesis suggests that Homo sapiens evolved from a distinct lineage of early humans that evolved around 150,000 years ago before setting off to spread through Europe and beyond. But there is another story...See the study here.
Three rock art panels were this month removed from Murujuga/Burrup in Western Australia to make way for a new A$6.4 billion fertiliser factory. Moving Indigenous rock art anywhere in the world is controversial. In this case, a journalist photographing the removal was stopped by police. Later, her home was raided, and her camera’s memory card temporarily seized.
In a forest clearing of birch and pine trees in what is today central Europe, herds of long-extinct beasts once gathered to drink on the shores of an ancient lake. Now, researchers have confirmed that early human relatives and their children foraged and bathed among them. See the study here.
A ground-breaking study of ancient meteorites has provided the first evidence to suggest that Jupiter was once much closer to the sun before it shifted position.
The explosion is more than 10 times brighter than any recorded exploding star - known as a supernova.
We at Science News heard the PSA loud and clear: Just leave this toad alone. But we couldn’t help but wonder: What other amazing animals may have psychedelic potential? Join us on a tour, by land and sea, of some of the world’s mind-altering fauna.
Archaeologists have discovered a 5,400-year-old megalithic tomb near a prominent lone mountain in southern Spain, suggesting the peak may have been meaningful to prehistoric people there.
An international team of biologists, geneticists, anthropologists and biochemists has found, through genetic analysis, that the migration patterns of ancient Mexican civilizations were much more complex than previously thought. See the studies here and here.
Scientists are rewriting the story of how modern humans first spread out of Africa, and it might contain more run-ins with Europe's Neanderthals than previously recognized. See the study here.
Their findings, published in the journal PNAS, show Neanderthals in the region were hunting fairly large animals across wide tracts of land, whereas humans living in the same location tens of thousands of years later survived on smaller creatures in an area half the size.
Rhino-like horse relatives that had lived in the shadow of the dinosaurs became gigantic "thunder beasts" as suddenly as an evolutionary lightning strike, new research published Thursday (May 11) in the journal Science shows.
A new study in the journal Fungal Ecology found that a certain breed of mushroom seems to "talk" using electrical signals — and intriguingly, they get especially chatty after a nice rain. The way they talk after the weather — perhaps about the weather? — has not been reported before.
Archaeologists have unearthed the remnants of a 7,000-year-old road hidden beneath layers of sea mud off the southern Croatian coast.
Some of the first humans to arrive in the Americas included people from what is now China, who arrived in two distinct migrations during and after the last ice age, a new genetics study has found.
Crusts, cracks and other geologic features on sand dunes near the Martian equator are leading researchers to believe there may have been water there much more recently than previously thought. See April 2023 research here and Jan 2021 research here.
The psychedelic drug lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) makes people learn faster when receiving feedback and enhances exploratory behavior, according to new research published in Psychological Medicine.
The tomb, near Naf?n in the country's central Al Wusta province, is among the oldest human-made structures ever found in Oman. The burial area is next to the coast, but it is otherwise a stony desert.
The traditional knowledge that once helped cultivate this precious ecosystem could now help it recover, according to new research by researchers from the University of São Paulo, the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation, and the National Institute for Amazonian Research in Brazil.
A recent case study describes a young 35-year-old male researcher in the United States, who claims to distinguish red and green colors better after taking psychedelics.
Scientists at Flinders University have used sub-surface imaging and aerial surveys to see through floodplains in the Red Lily Lagoon area of West Arnhem Land in Northern Australia. These ground-breaking methods showed how this important landscape in the Northern Territory was altered as sea levels rose about 8,000 years ago. See the research here.
A geological study of the rock formation that encased a fossilized example of the world's biggest "raptor" shows it's 10 million years older than previously understood.
An AI-based decoder that can translate brain activity into a continuous stream of text has been developed, in a breakthrough that allows a person’s thoughts to be read non-invasively for the first time.
The first modern humans spread across Europe in three waves during the Paleolithic, according to a study published May 3, 2023.
A pendant made from a deer's tooth has turned out to be a veritable locket of genetic information left by an ancient woman who lived in Siberia some 20,000 years ago. See the study here.
The number of known mountains in Earth’s oceans has roughly doubled. Global satellite observations have revealed nearly 20,000 previously unknown seamounts, researchers report in the April Earth and Space Science.
According to new research, published Monday (May 1) in the journal PNAS(opens in new tab), this surge can sometimes occur after a person's breathing stops but before the brain stops functioning. The activity pattern is somewhat similar to what is seen when people are awake or in dreamlike states...
Sometimes you need to make sure you know what you're looking at before its scientific value is made clear – and that's the case with a 3,000-year-old piece of human bone initially thought to have come from a bear. The research has been published in iScience.
A large number of extraordinary new fossils, including many soft-bodied creatures, have been discovered near Llandrindod Wells in Powys.
People who use psychedelic substances in an attempt to self-treat their mental health tend to report mild-to-moderate positive outcomes, according to new research published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology. But there were more negative effects reported by these individuals than in clinical settings where professionals are involved in the treatment.
Quasars, the most extreme phenomena in the universe, are triggered when galactic collisions deliver gas to feeding black holes, new research suggests.
The Picts of Scotland who have long intrigued and have been ascribed exotic origins in fact descended from indigenous Iron Age society and were genetically most similar to people living today in Scotland, Wales, North Ireland and Northumbria. See the research here.
Believed to be more than 5,000 years old, it is on the brink of replacing Methuselah, a 4,850-year-old Great Basin bristlecone pine found in California in the United States, as the oldest tree on the planet.
Franklin wasn’t the victim of data theft at the hands of James Watson and Francis Crick, say biographers of the famous duo. Instead, she collaborated and shared data with Watson, Crick and Maurice Wilkins. The researchers laid out their findings in a commentary in the April 27 Nature.
If we want the psychedelic revolution to be ethical and equitable, we must consider the context in which these medicines are being industrialized—and what our priorities are.
Archaeologists in Spain have unearthed five life-size busts of human figures that could be the first-known human depictions of the Tartessos, a people who formed an ancient civilization that disappeared more than 2,500 years ago.
With the mass of about half an eyelash, a hunk of crystal exists in two distinct states at once. See research here.
The ancients certainly divided humanity into different groups and recognised differences of colour. But they did not categorise people in racial terms as we do, nor attribute the same social meanings to human differences. Whether we are talking of Cleopatra or Aristotle, to portray them as “white” is to project a contemporary racial sensibility into the past.
Archaeologists in Egypt have discovered several tombs and chapels dating back around 3,300 years in an ancient cemetery at the site of Saqqara.
The nature of dark matter is a longstanding puzzle. However, a new study by Alfred Amruth at the University of Hong Kong and colleagues, published in Nature Astronomy, uses the gravitational bending of light to bring us a step closer to understanding.
It is not just humans that get the munchies: worms also display the same craving for their favourite snacks after consuming cannabis, new research has found.
Bubbles of radiation billowing from the galactic center may have started as a stream of electrons and their antimatter counterparts, positrons, new observations suggest.
Botanists and paleontologists, led by researchers from CU Boulder, have identified a fossil chili pepper that may rewrite the geography and evolutionary timeline of the tomato plant family. See the research here.
A cycle featured in Maya calendars has been a mystery pretty much since it was rediscovered, and its deciphering began in the 1940s. Covering a period of 819 days, the cycle is referred to simply as the 819-day count. The problem is that researchers couldn't match that 819 days up to anything. See the paper here.
Roughly 10% of patients with cancer experience anxiety, while 20% report depression. However, current research suggests that available prescription antidepressants do not significantly decrease depressive symptoms in cancer patients compared with a placebo. See research here.
Hydrogen released during large impacts might have boosted Mars’s surface temperature above freezing for thousands or even millions of years, enabling liquid water to flow over the Red Planet. See research here.
What are the most successful organisms on the planet? Some people might think of apex predators like lions and great white sharks. For others, insects or bacteria might come to mind. But few would mention a family of plants that we see around us every day: grasses.
A study published in Frontiers in Psychiatry found that patients who received MDMA-assisted therapy (MDMA-AT) experienced significant reductions in PTSD symptoms severity and changes in brain activity after 2 months of treatment.
Historical records have long suggested that medieval Norse colonists on Greenland (AD 985–1450) relied on imported material such as iron and wood. Until now, it has not been fully recognized where these imports of wood came from. See the study here.
As wooly mammoths grazed frigid Siberian steppes for more than half a million years, they evolved increasingly fluffy fur, large fat deposits, and smaller ears, according to a new study.
A popular and easy method for validating whether or not a chunk of rock is a meteorite, and what kind of meteorite it is, has been inadvertently erasing invaluable information locked inside. See the research here.
Researchers at the University of Tartu in Estonia have developed a virtual reality (VR) experience that seeks to simulate the subjective effects of psychedelic drugs...Their latest findings, published in Frontiers in Psychiatry, provide preliminary evidence that such VR experiences might help to alleviate depression.
Pre-colonial African history is alive with tales of civilizations rising and falling and of different cultures intermingling across the continent. We have now shed more light on some of these societies using the science of genetics. See the study here.
European Space Agency probe due to arrive in 2031 to scan icy moons and study Great Red Spot
Research recently published in Death Studies sheds light on the relationship between increased subjective well-being after psychedelic use and potential reductions in death anxiety.
A study of lithic hunting heads found in the Solutrean levels was conducted using an infrared (IR) microscopy analysis, indicating that Palaeolithic hunters used a mixture of pine resin and beeswax as an adhesive to fasten the heads to arrow shafts.
Image from: Rogers Fund, 1925 (Wiki Commons)
Traces of the past remain hidden in rivers, lakes and seas. But we rarely look underwater and, as they say, out of sight is out of mind. In his inaugural lecture Martijn Manders will explain why underwater archaeology is so important to understanding our history.
A study of an ancient bone from Spain with a strange pattern of notches hints that it was used by early Homo sapiens in Europe as a punch board for making holes in leather
What do medieval monks and volcanic eruptions have in common? According to a team of researchers led by the University of Geneva, quite a bit because chronicles from the 12th and 13th century are helping volcanologists to precisely date ancient eruptions based on descriptions of lunar eclipses. See the research here.
Image from: .scopex (Wiki Commons)
In the depths of a network of underwater caves, Julien Louys has been on the trail of some rather unusual animals. Despite the sunken setting, these creatures weren't forms of marine life — they were giant marsupials, and they became extinct tens of thousands of years ago.
It's being described as the most detailed ever map of the influence of dark matter through cosmic history. A telescope in Chile has traced the distribution of this mysterious stuff on a quarter of the sky and across almost 14 billion years of time.
New research into ancient populations that resided on the Tibetan Plateau has found that dairy pastoralism was being practiced far earlier than previously thought and may have been key to long-term settlement of the region's extreme environment.
The bat skeletons unearthed in southwest Wyoming are the oldest ever found, and their discovery has sparked a reshuffle in the bat family tree. See the research here.
The eye is so complex that even Charles Darwin was at a loss to explain how it could have arisen. Now, it turns out that the evolution of the vertebrate eye got an unexpected boost—from bacteria, which contributed a key gene involved in the retina’s response to light.
A move to allow Australian psychiatrists to treat depression with psilocybin may herald a new era
Lawmakers want the DEA to clarify that the seriously ill can access psychedelics under “Right to Try” laws.
An innovative method developed by an Italian team is emerging that will revolutionize the field of archaeology and radiocarbon dating and protect our cultural heritage. The researchers have used it with surprising results on archaeological bones, making the 'invisible' visible.
Scientists have stitched together the most high-resolution map yet of the underlying geology beneath Earth's Southern Hemisphere, revealing something previously undiscovered: an ancient ocean floor that may wrap around the core. See the research here.
About 1,300 years ago a scribe in Palestine took a book of the Gospels inscribed with a Syriac text and erased it. See the research here.
The hellscape of Venus is riddled with even more volcanoes than scientists thought. See the research here.
People were getting high on hallucinogenic drugs in Spain around 3,000 years ago, according to new research.
In a new study, astronomers propose that extraterrestrial life could exist in so-called terminator zones, the border between light and dark halves of an exoplanet.
See the oldest human ever found in Egypt in a stunning new facial approximation.
One of the most well-studied chemical processes in nature, photosynthesis, may not work quite how we thought it did, scientists have accidentally discovered. See the study here.
The first physical evidence of an ancient practice previously known only from iconographic and literary sources—12 to 18 right hands buried beneath pits in an ancient Egyptian palace. See the study here.
A new study by researchers from China and the UK is the latest to suggest 'Snowball Earth' wasn't completely covered in ice – and might have even exhibited habitable open-ocean conditions far away from the equator.
Chief executive and founder of space company ALE, Dr Lena Okajima, says she wants to "inspire wonder and spark scientific curiosity" with an awe-inducing multi-coloured meteor shower, but also hopes to collect crucial atmospheric data that helps humankind tackle climate change.
Until now, the oldest evidence of Homo sapiens eating land snails dated to roughly 49,000 years ago in Africa and 36,000 years ago in Europe. But tens of thousands of years earlier, people at a southern African rock shelter roasted these slimy, chewy — and nutritious — creepers that can grow as big as an adult’s hand, researchers report in the April 15 Quaternary Science Reviews.
A study of U.S. Special Operations Forces Veterans participating in an ibogaine and 5-MeO-DMT treatment in Mexico showed that participants treated with these psychedelic substances showed a significant reduction in alcohol misuse 1 month after the start of the treatment.
When deprived of water or snipped with scissors, plants emit a flurry of staccato "screams" that are too high-frequency for humans to hear, a study suggests. When lowered into a range that human ears can detect, these stress-induced pops sound like someone furiously tap dancing across a field of bubble wrap.
Native American people integrated horses into their communities much earlier than European colonial records suggest, according to an innovative study that combined archaeological and genetic analysis with Indigenous oral traditions.
Sixty thousand years ago, give or take a few millennia, bands of Neanderthals thrived in a valley in central Spain, doing everything they needed to survive generation after generation. But about 45 miles north of what is now the city of Madrid, researchers have discovered a site that makes a strong case for a totally unheard-of Neanderthal behavior.
The first DNA recovered from members of the medieval Swahili civilisation has revealed that Africans and Asians were intermingling along the East African coast more than a thousand years ago, a study has revealed.
Human longevity records may be broken in the next few decades, a new modeling study suggests.The study, was published on March 29 in the journal PLOS One.
An ultramassive black hole about 30bn times the mass of the Sun has been discovered by astronomers in the UK.
A 2022 attempt at creating a sweeping family tree for the human race, and at least three others, reached back 2 million years, long before Homo sapiens are believed to have originated in Africa 200,000 years ago.
A paper published in the journal Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences undertakes a spatial analysis of the faunal remains and lithic tools for the Neanderthal occupation of level F at the Navalmaíllo Rock Shelter site (Pinilla del Valle, Madrid), which is about 76,000 years old.
Bones found on the remote Arctic island of Spitsbergen suggest the ancient marine reptiles known as ichthyosaurs roamed Earth's oceans for much longer than we thought.