Newsdesk Archive
The burned food remnants – the oldest ever found – were recovered from the Shanidar Cave site, a Neanderthal dwelling 500 miles north of Baghdad in the Zagros Mountains. Thought to be about 70,000 years old, they were discovered in one of many ancient hearths in the caves.
Eight non-profits and numerous applicants with past cannabis convictions among first batch to receive licenses.
The complete skeletal remains of a spider monkey — seen as an exotic curiosity in pre-Hispanic Mexico — grants researchers new evidence regarding social-political ties between two ancient powerhouses: Teotihuacán and Maya Indigenous rulers.
The oldest known writing dates back more than 5,000 years to ancient Mesopotamia, in what is now mostly present-day Iraq. But who was the first author known by name?
Physicists have long struggled to explain why the Universe started out with conditions suitable for life to evolve. Why do the physical laws and constants take the very specific values that allow stars, planets, and ultimately life to develop?
Northwestern University astrophysicist Farhad Zadeh has been fascinated and puzzled by a family of large-scale, highly organized magnetic filaments dangling in the center of the Milky Way ever since he first discovered them in the early 1980s.
Tardigrades are tiny, incredibly tough animals that can withstand a wide range of dangers, including many that would obliterate most other creatures known to science.
Experts have voted for an expansion of the universe – or at least the official terminology that can be drawn upon to describe the vanishingly small and the preposterously large.
Underneath a temple in the ancient ruined city of Taposiris Magna on the Egyptian coast, archaeologists have uncovered a vast, spectacular tunnel that experts are referring to as a "geometric miracle".
The annual Leonid meteor shower will peak this week as Earth passes through the trail of icy, rocky debris left behind nearly 30 years ago by the comet Tempel-Tuttle.
Piecing together the story of human evolution is an undeniably complex task. However, new research has brought us closer to understanding how early humans in Britain may have been related to other European populations over 400,000 years ago.
4.6bn-year-old rock that crashed on to a driveway in Gloucestershire last year has provided some of the most compelling evidence to date that water arrived on Earth from asteroids in the outer solar system.
A global drop in oxygen levels about 550 million years ago led to Earth's first known mass extinction, new evidence suggests.
A carved stone discovered in Caithness could help archaeologists shed new light on the development of Pictish symbols.
More than 2,000 years after it was probably hung from the door of a mud-brick house in northern Spain to bring luck, a flat, lifesize bronze hand engraved with dozens of strange symbols could help scholars trace the development of one of the world’s most mysterious languages.
Research published in September 2021 claimed that these footprints are "definitive evidence of human occupation of North America" during the last ice age, dating back to between 23,000 and 21,000 years ago. Now, a new study disputes the evidence of such an early age.
We finally have the technological means to detect interstellar objects. We've detected two in the last few years, 'Oumuamua and 2I/Borisov, and there are undoubtedly more out there.
We think of physical reality as what objectively exists, independent of any observer. But relativity and quantum physics say otherwise.
A new vaccine has been developed that targets the dangerous synthetic opioid fentanyl that could block its ability to enter the brain, thus eliminating the drug’s “high.
Researchers have observed a wild chimpanzee showing an object to its mother simply for sharing's sake—social behavior previously thought to be unique to humans.
Tracking down the oldest traces of life on Earth isn't easy. Smoosh a bunch of microbes between layers of rock and let them ripen for billions of years; what you end up with is going to resemble rock more than an ancient life form.
After examining carp remains, researchers claim people who lived 780,000 years ago liked their fish well done
Colorado became the second state to legalize magic mushrooms and decriminalize other psychedelics for adults following Tuesday’s midterm elections.
An uncharted region of space known as the "zone of avoidance" lurks behind the Milky Way's center – and astronomers just found an enormous, multi-galaxy structure there.
Study finds rats instinctively move in time to music – an ability previously thought to be uniquely human.
An “overweight” neutron star has been observed by astronomers, who say the mysterious object confounds astronomical theories.
Researcher and GRS Radioisotopes technician Jorge Rivera, from the University of Seville, has participated in an incredible discovery that is unique in Europe.
Their findings conclude that a faint white dwarf located just 90 light-years from Earth, as well as the remains of its orbiting planetary system, are over ten billion years old. Led by the University of Warwick, the study was published on November 5 in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Believed to be the oldest known sentence written in the earliest alphabet, the inscription on the luxury item reads: “May this tusk root out the lice of the hair and the beard.”
Draconian licensing rules and a lack of public funding are holding back the emerging field of psychedelic medicine in the UK, leading scientists have warned after the release of groundbreaking results on the use of psilocybin to treat depression.
Before life on Earth exploded in diversity some 540 million years ago, the first primitive animal skeletons were already starting to form.
An international team of scientists, including researchers at the University of Adelaide, have gathered new evidence about the energetic core of an active galaxy millions of lights years away by detecting neutrino particles emitted by it.
Sky watchers in North America who get an early start on Tuesday will also be treated to a total lunar eclipse — the last one for the next three years — with the moon falling into the darkest part of Earth's shadow around 5:17 a.m. EST (9:17 a.m. UTC).
The analysis of these rocks revealed a great deal about the Moon's composition, formation, and geological history. In particular, scientists concluded that the rocks were formed from volcanic eruptions more than 3 billion years ago.
Do bones and teeth found in Sussex share characteristics with Neanderthal fossils from northern Spain?
LSD appears to induce both improvements and impairments to cognitive functioning that can be observed on the day after consumption, according to a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study published in European Neuropsychopharmacology.
In many popular accounts of human prehistory, civilization emerged in a linear fashion. A new book—The Dawn of Everything, challenges this narrative. Rather than being nomadic hunter-gatherers, they argue human societies during the Paleolithic were, in fact, quite diverse.
A team of Canadian astronomers, including experts from the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics in the University of Toronto's Faculty of Arts & Science, have used the James Webb Telescope (JWST) to identify the most distant globular clusters ever discovered – dense groups of millions of stars that may be relics containing the first and oldest stars in the universe.
A river longer than England's Thames flows beneath the Antarctic ice sheet, draining an area the size of France and Germany combined, new research reveals.
The study, led by Archaeologist Tuija Kirkinen, was aimed at investigating how these highly degraded plant- and animal-based materials could be traced through soil analysis.
Nearly third of patients on largest trial using psychedelic compound went into rapid remission.
Analyses of more than one thousand ancient genomes dating as far back as 45,000 years ago have found historic signals showing genetic adaptation was more common than previously thought.
With a diameter of 1 to 2km, space rock named 2022 AP7 crosses our orbit but has ‘no chance’ of hitting Earth
The Americas were the last continent to be inhabited by humans. An increasing body of archaeological and genomic evidence has hinted to a complex settlement process. This is especially true for South America, where unexpected ancestral signals have raised perplexing scenarios for the early migrations into different regions of the continent.
Marking the passage of time in a world of ticking clocks and swinging pendulums is a simple case of counting the seconds between 'then' and 'now'... however, 'then' can't always be anticipated. Worse still, 'now' often blurs into a haze of uncertainty.
Archaeologists and volunteers have discovered a stone bearing a mysterious inscription and carved birds that the Picts of Scotland crafted more than a millennium ago.
Did Vikings find their way to a remote part of Oklahoma? Some in a small community believe so, thanks to controversial runic carvings found in the area.
Making love, not war, might have put the Neanderthals on a path to extinction.
A team of researchers led by the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics has tested the rhythmic abilities of harbor seals, a species of animals known to be capable of rhythmic learning. The analyses revealed that seals also have a sense of rhythm, being able to discriminate between rhythmic and non-rhythmic sequences early in life without any training or rewards.
There are few animals as frightening and as fascinating as the snake. So why exactly have we obsessed over them for 70,000 years?
A snail preserved in amber with an intact fringe of tiny delicate bristles along its shell is helping biologists better understand why one of the world's slimiest animals might evolve such a groovin' hairstyle.
Which factors determine what we believe about our world, ourselves, our past, and our future? Cognitive neuroscience suggests that our beliefs are dependent on brain activity, specifically on the way our brains process sensory information in order to make sense of our environment.
The agency released the image on Wednesday on Twitter, writing: “Today, Nasa’s Solar Dynamics Observatory caught the sun ‘smiling.’ Seen in ultraviolet light, these dark patches on the sun are known as coronal holes and are regions where fast solar wind gushes out into space.”
Last December 24, NASA’s InSight lander recorded a magnitude 4 marsquake. However, scientists only learned the cause of that quake later: a meteoroid impact estimated to be one of the biggest seen on Mars since NASA began exploring the cosmos.
Russian archaeologists have unearthed an intricately detailed silver medallion of the Greek goddess Aphrodite in the 2,100-year-old grave of a young woman, possibly a priestess, on the northeastern coast of the Black Sea.
Germany wants to make it legal for adults to purchase and own up to 30g of cannabis for recreational use and to privately grow up to three plants, the country’s health minister has announced, saying the intended outcome could set a precedent for the rest of the European continent.
A recently released set of topography maps provides new evidence for an ancient northern ocean on Mars. The maps offer the strongest case yet that the planet once experienced sea-level rise consistent with an extended warm and wet climate, not the harsh, frozen landscape that exists today.
The psychedelic renaissance is responsible for easing regulations on psychedelic plants in some parts of the world, but in the Czech Republic, the ceremonial use of ayahuasca is still being prosecuted as a high crime. Last week, a Polish couple was sentenced to 8 years in prison for running private ayahuasca ceremonies at their home in the Czech Republic.
Researchers measured the electrical fields near swarming honeybees and discovered that insects can produce as much atmospheric electric charge as a thunderstorm cloud.
It’s Milky Way season. If you ever wanted to see the arc of our galaxy stretching across the night sky, get yourself to a dark sky destination away from light pollution in the next couple of weeks, and you’ll get a great view as soon as it gets dark.
Our Paleolithic ancestors ate each other. We (Homo sapiens) did it. Neanderthals did it. Homo erectus and Homo antecessor did it. It’s highly likely that almost all hominins have practised cannibalism in some form. The only questions are “why” and “how much”?
Archaeologists in northern Iraq have unearthed 2,700-year-old rock carvings featuring war scenes and trees from the Assyrian empire, an archaeologist has said.
Ancient creatures are emerging from the cold storage of melting permafrost, almost like something out of a horror movie.
It is no surprise that a 14km-wide asteroid slamming into the Gulf of Mexico would generate one hell of a tsunami, but this is the first time anyone has worked out how big and how far-reaching it would have been.
The history of Earth's bombardment with cosmic radiation is written in the trees.
The changing shape of the frontal sinuses is helping to reveal more about how modern humans, and our ancient relatives, evolved.
People caught with small amounts of illicit drugs, like cocaine, ice, heroin and speed, will be spared criminal charges in the Australian Capital Territory from 2023, after the territory government became the first in Australia to agree to decriminalising personal possession.
Leaders of the Native American Church of North America (NACNA) held multiple meetings with congressional offices last month to advocate that federal funding be dedicated toward efforts to preserve habitats where peyote can be grown.
Nestled in a cave in the snowy Altai Mountains of Siberia, fragmented bones and teeth have revealed the first-ever glimpse of a Neanderthal family. More than 50,000 years ago, a group of adults and kids died while sheltering at their hunting camp...
A joint study by TAU and the Hebrew University, involving 20 researchers from different countries and disciplines, has accurately dated 21 destruction layers at 17 archaeological sites in Israel by reconstructing the direction and/or intensity of the earth's magnetic field recorded in burnt remnants.
Britain was home to at least two genetically distinct groups of humans at the end of the last ice age, the oldest human DNA from the UK has revealed.
According to a new theory, choices are formed unconsciously and become conscious around half a second later.
The map segment, which was found beneath the text on a sheet of medieval parchment, is thought to be a copy of the long-lost star catalog of the second century B.C. Greek astronomer Hipparchus, who made the earliest known attempt to chart the entire night sky.
The interior of Central Asia has been identified as a key route for some of the earliest hominin migrations across Asia in a new study led by Dr. Emma Finestone, Assistant Curator of Human Origins at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History...
Strange libraries of supplementary genes nicknamed "Borg" DNA appear to supercharge the microbes that possess them, giving them an uncanny ability to metabolize materials in their environment faster than their competitors
A new study has shown milk was used by the first farmers from Central Europe in the early Neolithic era around 7,400 years ago, advancing humans' ability to gain sustenance from milk and establishing the early foundations of the dairy industry.
Magic mushrooms are no magic cure for society’s ills, and a substance as powerful as psychedelics can be dangerous if it falls into the wrong hands.
One of the most bizarre phenomena in our Solar System is the strange way that Uranus spins on its side. That’s a puzzle because all the other planets spin upright. What could have happened to make Uranus so different, particularly from its neighbor Neptune, which formed at the same time in similar circumstances?
Dating from 1100, the fourth known Maya codex reveals this ancient civilization’s staggering understandings of — and reverence for — time, the cosmos and the role of the human scribe.
The near-Earth asteroid responsible for the spectacular annual Geminids meteor shower has been caught doing something really unexpected.
An analysis of obsidian artifacts excavated during the 1960s at two prominent archaeological sites in southwestern Iran suggests that the networks Neolithic people formed in the region as they developed agriculture are larger and more complex than previously believed, according to a new study by Yale researchers.
The idea is simple but ambitious: protect the ocean by giving it the same kind of rights a person might have. No such legal mechanism is currently in place, but support for this concept is growing as experts increasingly recognize that the ocean is in dire need of defense.
The tools from the Tunel Wielki cave in Ma?opolska are between 450,000 and 550,000 years old. This dating may allow scientists to learn more about the humans who made them and their migration and habitation in Central Europe across prehistory.
Scientists from the University of Plymouth are conducting a first-of-its-kind study using advanced genetic methods and behavioural experiments to address previously untested hypotheses into the origin of psychedelic compounds in fungi.
Oxygen levels in the Earth’s atmosphere are likely to have “fluctuated wildly” one billion years ago, creating conditions that could have accelerated?the development of early animal life, according to new research.
Humans are creatures of paradox. Sometimes we overflow with compassion and empathy, while at other times, we are violent and cruel. We preserve nature by creating natural parks and wilderness areas, then ravage the same natural resources without any thought of how to sustain them.
Not only did it create a booming avenue of tourism for Denver, but it caused a domino effect, leading to 19 states and DC legalizing recreational marijuana.
Astronomers don't have an explanation for a black hole burping out a shredded star, but they suspect it could be more common than once thought.
MDMA-assisted therapy reduces eating disorder symptoms in adults with severe posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), according to a new study published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research.
Griffith University has played a key role in new research that shows hunter-gatherers used miniaturized stone tools and bone projectile points to consistently hunt a range of animals in the Sri Lankan rainforests over the past 45,000 years.
Modern humans lived alongside Neanderthals for more than 1,000 years in Europe, according to research that suggests the two species may have imitated each other’s jewellery and stone tools.
Astronomers have captured a striking image of 17 concentric dust rings resembling a cosmic fingerprint in the latest observations from the James Webb space telescope.
Indigenous stories from the end of the last Ice Age could be more than myth.
An international research team has extracted and analyzed plant DNA from the sediments of the Armenian "Aghitu-3" cave. About 40,000 to 25,000 years ago, the cave was used as a shelter by humans of the Upper Paleolithic.
At the end of the Permian period 252 million years ago, Earth was devastated by a mass extinction that exterminated more than 90% of species on the planet. Compared with other mass extinctions, recovery from the "Great Dying" was slow: It took at least 10 million years for the planet to be repopulated and restore its diversity.
The American space agency says its recent attempt to deflect the path of an asteroid was successful. Scientists have now confirmed the orbit of a 160m-wide (520ft) space rock known as Dimorphos was altered when the Dart probe struck it head on last month.
"Many people had assumed that technology in the Middle Ages was not particularly advanced...On the contrary: this was not the Dark Ages, but a period when metallurgy and gilding techniques were incredibly well developed."
More than a mile beneath the Pacific Ocean, is a seascape of oddly shaped corals and a glass sponge named after ET.
Nature’s firework display is lighting up the night skies, here's how you can maximise your chances of spotting an Orionid.
The fly agaric (Amanita muscaria) is everywhere. Just this morning, I walked past a bug collection kit in Target fashioned in the image of the unforgettable red and white-speckled mushroom...Despite this ubiquity in representation, A. muscaria is very poorly understood.