Newsdesk Archive
Two ancient clay tablets discovered in Iraq and covered from top to bottom in cuneiform writing contain details of a "lost" Canaanite language that has remarkable similarities with ancient Hebrew.
A team of researchers affiliated with a host of institutions across Spain, working with one colleague from Portugal and another from Austria, has discovered a large number of animal skulls placed by Neanderthals in Spanish cave more than 40,000 years ago
Jupiter isn't alone along its orbital path around the Sun. Two giant swarms of asteroids have been snared in the gravitational interaction between the gas giant and our star, leading and trailing Jupiter as it treads its cosmic measure.
Forged in magma and capable of producing the sharpest blades on Earth, obsidian is without a doubt one of the most badass materials ever imagined... The jet-black volcanic glass is also extremely delicate and dangerous to work with and was not mastered by humans until the latter part of the Stone Age… or so we thought.
An international team led by archaeologists at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) has discovered the earliest human remains ever found in northern Britain.
The James Webb Space Telescope's latest observations of icy molecules will help scientists understand how habitable planets form.
A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences discovered that rubble pile asteroids are an extremely resistant type of asteroid and hard to destroy by collision.
Psychedelic medicines have shown great promise in treating mental health conditions and helping patients see life from a new perspective, but their benefits may go even further in repairing injuries to the brain and, therefore, consciousness itself.
A new study shows that the Milky Way is too big for its “cosmological wall”, something yet to be seen in other galaxies. The new research is published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
The ancient Egyptians believed that when we died, our spiritual body sought out an afterlife similar to this world. But entry into this afterlife wasn't guaranteed; it first required a perilous journey through the underworld, followed by an individual last judgment.
Archaeologists have discovered a 7,000-year-old mass grave in Slovakia containing 38 skeletons, with all but one decapitated. The remains were found at the Vrá ble-Vèlke Lehemby site in Slovakia, one of the largest settlements of the European Neolithic period.
In the 1930s, a tarnished bronze sword was pulled from the banks of the Danube River that runs through Budapest.
This study shows that directing humans’ attention to interesting locations may not be something that every domestic animal can do.
A small indigenous community is fighting a historic land rights claim in Canada - and they are using ancient trees and famed British explorer Captain Cook's journal to help make their case.
We have the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) to thank for this beautiful shot of space, part of the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), some 2,200 meters (7,218 feet) above sea level in Chile.
A new study published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology is the first to characterize the psychological impacts of psilocybin among people with bipolar disorder.
Contrary to the view that the Neolithic era was marked by peaceful cooperation, the team of international researchers say that in some regions the period from 6000BCE to 2000BCE may be a high point in conflict and violence with the destruction of entire communities.
A new study into the Tissint meteorite, which crash-landed in Morocco in 2011, revealed a wide array of organic compounds hidden in the rare space rock.
Undergoing a brush with death may sound terrifying. But people who have had a near-death experience (NDE) typically report feeling peace, comfort, and calm throughout the ordeal.
A team of archaeologists from the Universities of Chester and Manchester has made discoveries which shed new light on the communities who inhabited Britain after the end of the last Ice Age.
Researchers from a variety of Spanish institutions have managed to reconstruct the diet of some 50 individuals buried more than 3,000 years ago in the Cova des Pas' necropolis in Menorca.
One of the most hotly debated questions in the history of Neanderthal research has been whether they created art. In the past few years, the consensus has become that they did, sometimes.
Norwegian archaeologists believe they have found the world's oldest runestone inscribed almost 2,000 years ago, making it several centuries older than previous discoveries, they announced on Tuesday.
Scientists from The Australian National University (ANU) have uncovered new insights into the physiology of our earliest animal ancestors by studying the contents of the last meal consumed by the Ediacara biota, the world’s oldest large organisms dating back 575 million years.
Scientists who watched nerve cells connect inside the eyes of growing squid have uncovered a remarkable secret — the cephalopods’ brains independently evolved to develop in the same way ours do.
Like in all land-dwelling vertebrates, tooth enamel mineralizes gradually in microscopically thin layers in humans too, represented by the striae of Retzius. The speed with which a human develops can be read from these Retzius lines. Physiological changes, such as birth, weaning or illness, for example, leave distinctive traces.
Children as young as two years old went out of their way to help dogs get toys and tasty treats that were placed beyond their reach, despite never having met the animals before, scientists found.
Mushrooms aren't known for their ornamental value, but for this scientist, they are a thing of beauty. The plant pathologist is on a mission to spread the word that fungi need conservation just as much as plants and animals.
Researchers reporting in Current Biology on January 12 describe genomes from ten individuals up to 7,500 years old that help to fill the gap and show gene flow from people moving in the opposite direction from North America to North Asia.
Scientists have discovered a new way to identify the average ages when men and women reproduced throughout human evolutionary history. By studying DNA mutations in modern humans, they discovered a window that let them peek 250,000 years back in time.
It's another stupendous image from the new superspace telescope James Webb.The picture shows NGC 346, a region about 200,000 light years from Earth where a lot of stars are being created.
The Swedish geneticist on winning the Nobel prize, his laureate father and early man’s sensitive side.
The hottest West Coast tech 16,000 years ago was a “projectile point” for hunting game. Though tiny, the artifact tells an outsize tale.
The ancient Greek historian Strabo referred to the presence of an important shrine located on the west coast of the Peloponnese some 2,000 years ago. Remains of such an Archaic temple have now been uncovered at the Kleidi site near Samikon, which presumably once formed part of the sanctuary of Poseidon.
A deep dive into "bog bodies" reveals that this practice started in southern Scandinavia during the Neolithic and spread throughout Northern Europe.
A trio of researchers from the Research Center of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, the University of Arizona, and Colgate University has found examples of Mesoamerican structures aligned for use as a 260-day calendar, built thousands of years ago along Mexico's gulf coast.
Inside your brain there is a map of every bedroom you've slept in. Every kitchen you've cooked in. Every city you've worked in, every country you've holidayed in. There's even a threadbare map of every Universe you've dreamt in
Scientists once considered much of the human genome "junk" because large stretches of its genetic code don't give rise to any proteins, the complex molecules tasked with keeping cells running. However, it's since been discovered that this so-called junk DNA plays important roles in cells, and in a new study...
In giant clusters of hundreds or thousands of galaxies, innumerable stars wander among the galaxies like lost souls, emitting a ghostly haze of light. These stars are not gravitationally tied to any one galaxy in a cluster.
Analysis of stone tools attributed to the Ahmarian, the first Upper Paleolithic culture of the Near East (dated approximately 40,000 to 45,000 years ago) shows that small, elongated, symmetrical objects (bladelets) were mass-produced on-site.
Researchers believe that ancient stone tools discovered in Brazil are the work of capuchin monkeys, not early humans, the art and design website Artnet reported, citing an academic article.
Mysterious "halos" of rock surrounding cracks in a Martian crater may be made of water-rich opal gemstones, a new study suggests.
Results of a study we published today in Nature Ecology & Evolution show that the way the different parts of the human brain evolved separates us from our primate relatives. In a sense, our brains never grow up. We share this "Peter Pan syndrome" with only one other primate—the Neanderthals.
Stone Age dots, lines and Y-shaped marks might represent a type of proto-writing created by hunter-gatherers who lived in Europe at least 20,000 years ago.
A scientist from Tokyo Metropolitan University has shown that large gamma-ray-emitting bubbles around the center of the Milky Way were produced by fast, outward-blowing winds and an associated "reverse shock."
The Bering Land Bridge, a stretch of land that once connected Asia with North America, came into existence much later than experts previously thought, but humans likely crossed not long after it formed, according to a new study.
Melanie Senn’s father, long dead, appeared to her as she lay back in the dimly lit room at the Santa Monica clinic, a mask over her closed eyes, and the psychedelic trip began.
Image from: Imperial College London (Wiki Commons)
Ancient bones retrieved from an archaeological site in Germany suggest that archaic humans were peeling bears for their skins at least 320,000 years ago.
To the uninformed, his land looks wild. But much of it is farmed: one part has timber trees for making furniture, in another cacao trees for chocolate, near the top a garden for herbs, and everywhere throughout the forest a variety of fruit, vegetables and flowers.
A single dose of the psychedelic drug psilocybin combined with supportive counseling leads to significant reductions in depressive symptoms, according to a new double-blind, placebo-controlled study. The findings have recently been published in eClinicalMedicine.
Image from: Cannabis Picture (Wiki Commons)
Mummification may never have been intended to preserve the bodies of ancient Egyptians after death, experts say, a sharp contrast to the popular understanding of the practice.
In re-examining artifacts from a significant 4,000-year-old Bronze Age burial site near Stonehenge in the UK, archaeologists discovered a toolkit for working with gold objects and coatings that hadn't previously been identified.
Octopuses are not like humans – they are invertebrates with eight arms and are more closely related to clams and snails. Despite this, they have evolved complex nervous systems with as many neurons as in the brains of dogs, allowing them to exhibit a wide range of complex behaviors.
Oregon State University archaeologists have uncovered projectile points in Idaho that are thousands of years older than any previously found in the Americas, helping to fill in the history of how early humans crafted and used stone weapons.
From France to Indonesia and Australia, ancient life is painted across the walls of darkened caves, seemingly motionless silhouettes in earthen colors that echo an earlier time.
A new survey revealed nearly 1,000 Maya settlements, with pyramids and ballcourts, that date back more than 2,000 years.
A team of researchers at the University of Patras's, OCEANUS- Lab has found evidence suggesting that early human ancestors (extinct hominids) may have sailed across the Aegean Sea.
A smattering of stars scattered throughout the center of the Milky Way is the remnants of the ancient galactic core, when our galaxy was still new.
Nations have agreed to protect a third of the planet for nature by 2030 in a landmark deal aimed at safeguarding biodiversity.
When prehistoric people re-sharpened cutting tools 300,000 years ago, they dropped tiny chips of flint—which today yield evidence of how wood was processed by early humans.
In the search for life on other planets, a couple of promising leads have just opened up: Astronomers have identified two worlds with Earth-like masses, sitting in the habitable zone around a red dwarf star called GJ 1002.
A dazzling fireball that ended its cosmic journey over central Alberta, Canada could change astronomers' understanding of how the solar system formed 4.5 billion years ago.
Archaeologists have identified a 4000-year-old goldworking toolkit amongst the grave goods from an important Bronze Age burial near Stonehenge.
A new study exploring the behavior of wild chimpanzees suggests the evolution of bipedalism may in fact have been a strategy that first emerged while still moving about the branches of trees.
A study has taken a look at the real-life experiences of people using N,N-Dimethyltryptamine, more commonly referred to as DMT.
Female snakes have clitorises, according to the first detailed study on the subject Wednesday, in which the scientists lashed out at how little female sex organs have been researched compared to males across species.
Archaeologists have discovered the ancient skeletal remains of a so-called bog body in Denmark near the remnants of a flint ax and animal bones, clues that suggest this person was ritually sacrificed more than 5,000 years ago.
The Nazca desert in Peru is like an art gallery for the gods above. Yet even with decades of surveyance from the skies, we've barely explored a small wing of this fading collection of giants among the stones.
Without clocks or modern tools, ancient Mexicans watched the sun to maintain a farming calendar that precisely tracked seasons and even adjusted for leap years.
The deserts of Saudi Arabia were once the lush and fertile homes of ancient people more than 8,000 years ago.
This is a new discovery we describe in a study published in PLOS Genetics today. It further suggests that our modern human diversity didn't just evolve – some parts of it we got from other, extinct human groups.
A study of children with autism spectrum disorders in Israel reported significant improvements in their social communication abilities after six months of treatment with cannabidiol-rich cannabis oil... The study was published in Translational Psychiatry.
A new Dartmouth College-led study analyzing stone tools from southern China provides the earliest evidence of rice harvesting, dating to as early as 10,000 years ago
An 11,000-year-old rock-cut relief in southeastern Turkey featuring menacing animals and two men, one of whom is holding his genitalia, is the oldest narrative scene on record, a new study suggests
Scientists have made a significant breakthrough in reconstructing the history of our planet. Sedimentary deposits from the permafrost of Greenland contained recoverable environmental DNA dating back to around 2 million years ago.
Humanity has become a weapon of mass extinction," the head of the United Nations has warned at the start of a high-level nature summit in Canada.
The 100-million-year-old head and body bones of the marine reptile were uncovered by three fossil enthusiasts who regularly trawl the ranges of their privately-owned outback station searching for ancient remains.
For over a century, one of the earliest human fossils ever discovered in Spain has been long considered a Neandertal. However, new analysis...dismantles this century-long interpretation, demonstrating that this fossil is not a Neandertal; rather, it may actually represent the earliest presence of Homo sapiens ever documented in Europe.
A single, low dose of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) can increase reward-related brain activity, according to new research published in Neuropsychopharmacology. The study indicates that the psychedelic drug alters neuropsychological processes that tend to be blunted in patients with depression.
Astronomers searching for radio signals that could be signs of extraterrestrial life have just gained access to South Africa's MeerKAT telescope.
Scientists may have just identified the culprit behind signs of recently active volcanism on Mars. Beneath a broad plain called the Elysium Planitia, a colossal, 4,000-kilometer (roughly 2,500-mile) wide convection plume in the Martian mantle could be driving molten magma up as far as the surface.
Ancient owl-shaped slate engraved plaques, dating from about 5,000 years ago in the Iberian Peninsula, may have been created by children as toys, suggests a paper published in Scientific Reports.
Multiple lines of evidence suggest that Mars wasn't always the desiccated dustbowl it is today.In fact, the red planet was once so wet and sloshy that a megatsunami was unleashed, crashing across the landscape like watery doom. What caused this devastation? According to new research, a giant asteroid impact...
Researchers are heralding the discovery of an ancient human skull in central China as an important find. As excavation of the remarkably intact fossil continues, archaeologists and palaeoanthropologists anticipate that the skull could give a fuller picture of the diverse family tree of archaic humans living throughout Eurasia in prehistoric times.
Recent papers have offered alternate interpretations of their age. Knowing the approximate age of the mounds provides significant insight into the people who built the mounds. Archaeologists have built "culture histories" describing prehistoric ways of life and the way lifestyles have changed through time.
More than 2,000 years before the Titanic sunk in the North Atlantic Ocean, another famous ship wrecked in the Mediterranean Sea off the eastern shores of Uluburun—in present-day Turkey— carrying tons of rare metal.
Archeologists have rediscovered a pre-Hispanic fresco depicting mythological scenes in northern Peru that they had only seen in black and white photographs that were more than a century old.
Some of Earth's weirdest fungi, including types of lichen, mycorrhizal, and insect symbiotes, never quite seemed to fit in our current tree of life.
A new study reveals that Mars was born wet, with a dense atmosphere allowing warm-to-hot oceans for millions of years. This discovery was recently published in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters.
Two minerals that have never been seen before on Earth have been discovered inside a massive meteorite in Somalia. They could hold important clues to how asteroids form.
The dog is the first species domesticated by humans, although the geographical and temporal origin of wolf domestication remains a matter of debate.
According to a new study by an international team of planetary scientists, Mars may have had enough water 4.5 billion years ago to cover it in a global ocean up to 300 meters (almost 1,000 feet) deep.
Our glorious little blue marble of a planet is filled with an astonishingly diverse array of lifeforms, but some are definitely more peculiar than others.
A brain region known as the amygdala could play a key role in predicting symptom improvement following ketamine therapy in patients with treatment-resistant anxious depression, according to new research published in the Journal of Affective Disorders.
While indigenous tribes have used ayahuasca for thousands of years, the psychedelic’s popularity has skyrocketed, largely due to travelers taking part in ceremonies and an emerging network of practitioners. A new study from the University of Melbourne took a closer look with data...
Several small, slender pendants uncovered from Stone Age graves on an island in a Russian lake more than 80 years ago have been reimagined after archaeologists reanalyzed the finds using chemical fingerprinting techniques.
A new study of the mummified body of Ötzi the Iceman questions the prevailing story of his death in the high Alps more than 5,000 years ago.
Submerged below the waves of the English Channel lies an important scientific record of undiscovered Neanderthal artifacts dating back to the last ice age. Collecting them from beneath the channel's cold waters is no easy feat, but UCL researchers found a way to get a brief peek at the otherwise hidden landscape.
At the end of October, a Mississippi resident made a rare discovery along the drought-stricken Mississippi River – a fossilized jawbone from an American lion that roamed the area roughly 11,000 years ago, according to McClatchy News
According to a recent study, the amazing survival techniques of polar marine creatures may help to explain how the earliest animals on Earth may have evolved earlier than the oldest fossils suggest