Newsdesk Archive
The class of marine animals known as cephalopoda – which today includes squids, octopuses, and cuttlefishes – could have been around on Earth 30 million years earlier than previously thought, according to new research.
In the study published in Nature Ecology and Evolution, the researchers examined the genomes of more than 400 modern humans to investigate the interbreeding events between ancient humans and modern human populations who arrived at Island Southeast Asia 50,000–60,000 years ago.
Image from Wiki Commons
Experts reveal ‘cautious excitement’ over unstable particles that fail to decay as standard model suggests.
An eye-popping new image of the Milky Way took 12 years and 1,250 hours of photographic exposure to create.
Oregon is about to become the first state in the country to try to build a support infrastructure through which psychedelic mushrooms can be woven into everyday life.
The further back in time you go, the sparser the archaeological record grows. Many materials used by humans - wood, leather, fabric - simply don't last and are swallowed by Earth under the implacable march of time.
Sapphire Medical Clinic, located in Stirling, is the first medical cannabis clinic authorised by Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS) to provide safe access to medical cannabis for patients in Scotland.
For almost a decade, one lone mushroom was classified as an endangered species, and scientists say more could be in trouble.
Image from Sasata (Wiki Commons)
About 8500 years ago, hunter-gatherers living beside Eagle Lake in Wisconsin hammered out a conical, 10-centimeter-long projectile point made of pure copper.
As the fire dwindles in the hearth, a family picks through the remains of their feast, turning over the bones for any remaining flesh. It is about 3000BC in Skara Brae, a small neolithic settlement on the west coast of Orkney's Mainland, Scotland.
Scientists in Denmark believe the psychedelic substance psilocybin might produce rapid and lasting antidepressant effects in part because it enhances neuroplasticity in the brain.
Fish school, insects swarm and birds fly in murmurations. Now, new research finds that on the most basic level, this kind of group behavior forms a new kind of active matter, called a swirlonic state.
As the Arctic warms much faster than everywhere else on the planet in response to climate change, the findings, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, may not only be a glimpse of the past but a snapshot of our potential future.
The use of magic mushrooms, ecstasy and other psychedelic drugs to treat mental illnesses, including depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, may be a step closer in Australia, with clinical trials given a $15m grant.
New observations from the Hubble Space Telescope show the powerful astrophysical jets and stellar winds that flow from baby stars do not have the expected effect of quenching the stellar growth process. This poses quite a significant conundrum for our models of star formation.
Our solar system’s first known interstellar visitor is neither a comet nor asteroid as first suspected and looks nothing like a cigar. A new study says the mystery object is likely a remnant of a Pluto-like world and shaped like a cookie.
If we want to predict our planet's future under climate change, we must better understand what has happened on Earth before, even hundreds of thousands of years in the past.
Six-millennia-old skeleton of child also unearthed during dig in Judean Desert by Israeli archeologists
Stop your sobbing – because scientists can do it for you. Using stem cells, Dutch researchers have grown miniature human tear glands capable of “crying”.
It's a longstanding mystery: how Mars lost the water that flowed across its surface billions of years ago.
Four stars in the night sky have been formally recognised by their Australian Aboriginal names.
About 70 million years ago, an ostrich-like dinosaur brooding atop a nest of blue-green eggs met its doom, perishing with its nearly-hatched babies in what is now southern China.
The Greenland ice sheet has been there for a long time. As near as we can tell, it could have been extensive as early as 45 million years ago.
When Neanderthals, Denisovans and homo sapiens met one another 50,000 years ago, these archaic and modern humans not only interbred during the thousands of years in which they overlapped, but they exchanged ideas that led to a surge in creativity, according to a leading academic.
A powerful hallucinogenic drug known for its part in shamanic rituals is being trialled as a potential cure for depression for the first time.
Over the course of the Pleistocene epoch, between 2.6 million years ago and 11,700 years ago, the brains of humans and their relatives grew. Now, scientists from Tel Aviv University have a new hypothesis as to why: As the largest animals on the landscape disappeared, the scientists propose, human brains had to grow to enable the hunting of smaller, swifter prey.
A digital model has revealed a complex planetarium on the ancient device's face. “Unless it's from outer space, we have to find a way in which the Greeks could have made it,” researchers say.
Sobek, crocodile-headed god of the Nile; Sekhmet, leonine goddess of war; Anubis, jackal god of the underworld; and Hathor, mother goddess with a cow’s horns: The ancient Egyptian pantheon of gods was filled with divine animals.
This week sees the opening of the first UK high-street clinic offering psychedelic-assisted therapy. Could popping psilocybin be the future of mental healthcare?
Earth and giant meteorites go way back, but new research confirms that what had been proposed as the oldest impact crater on the planet – the 100-kilometer (62-mile) wide Maniitsoq structure – isn't actually an impact crater at all.
If you've ever walked into a room, then completely forgotten what you went in there for, you've experienced what's known as the doorway effect: it's almost as if the mind blanks itself as you change location, ready for some fresh experience or input.
A burial site found in Spain – described by archaeologists as one of the most lavish bronze age graves discovered to date in Europe – has sparked speculation that women may have been among the rulers of a highly stratified society....
Scientists have measured the smallest gravitational field yet, which has big implications for future research into dark matter, quantum gravity, and the possibility of extra dimensions.
Lawmakers in Mexico have approved a bill to legalize recreational cannabis, but in a country still marred by a deadly drug war, the proposal has proved divisive.
Scythian people of ancient Ukraine led more complex lives than commonly assumed, according to a study published March 10, 2021.
A lump of a rare meteorite that lit up the night sky over the UK and northern Europe last week has been recovered from a driveway in Gloucestershire.
Neanderthal remains believed to belong to some of the last survivors of the species in Europe are thousands of years older than once thought, according to a new study.
The Spiros were once “the single most powerful group ever to exist” in North America. This groundbreaking new exhibit in Oklahoma shares their story.
The earliest multicellular organisms may have lacked heads, legs, or arms, but pieces of them remain inside of us today, new research shows.
Experts weigh in on the connection between the spiritual and the psychedelic and why some trippers feel like religious figures.
Archaeologists in Egypt have discovered the oldest pet cemetery on record — a nearly 2,000-year-old burial ground filled with well-loved animals, including the remains of cats and monkeys still wearing collars stringed with shell, glass and stone beads, a new study finds.
The CENIEH has participated in the study of the prints of bare feet found at the Sala y Galerías de las Huellas site in the Ojo Guareña Karst Complex (Burgos), which are the marks left in a soft floor sediment of an exploration by a small group of people between 4600 and 4200 years ago.
A tiny burnt hazelnut shell found on the Threave Estate near Castle Douglas has been radiocarbon dated back to the Mesolithic period.
Last year, Singapore became the first country to allow the sale of lab-grown meat. BBC Minute takes a look at what lab-grown meat is and whether it could help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the future.
An important new study suggests octopuses are likely to feel and respond to pain in a similar way to mammals - the first strong evidence for this capacity in any invertebrate.
Psychiatrist Bruce Greyson has spent decades talking to people about near-death experiences. His work raises questions about what happens when we die, and how we ought to choose to live
When you think about what separates humans from chimpanzees and other apes, you might think of our big brains or the fact that we get around on two legs rather than four. But we have another distinguishing feature: water efficiency.
More people are using psychedelics to treat their mental health, according to the 2020 Global Drug Survey, which asked 110,000 people about their drug use.
Scientists have identified the earliest primate fossils: tiny ancient teeth from a rat-size creature that suggest our ancient ancestors once lived alongside the dinosaurs.
It is still unclear how the Neanderthals died out. For long, one theory seemed most likely: the emergence of the highly intelligent Homo sapiens, or modern humans. This competition hypothesis is no longer the dominant theory among scientists, research among archaeologists and anthropologists has shown.
A lone cranium in an Italian cave wound up there after being washed away from its original burial site, according to a study published March 3, 2021...
Cephalopods were willing to forgo meals when they knew that waiting meant they would be rewarded with more delicious treats, according to a new study. That makes them the first known invertebrates to show the ability to exert self-control.
While most of us take the ground beneath our feet for granted, written within its complex layers, like pages of a book, is Earth's history. Our history.
Imperial College London researchers conducted largest placebo-controlled trial of psychedelics
Anglo-Australian mining giant triggered an outcry last year when it blew up the 46,000-year-old rock shelters at Juukan Gorge.
With a growing body of research showing psilocybin as an effective mental health treatment, many journalists reporting on these studies have dubbed the lab-made psilocybin capsules used in scientific research as “synthetic magic mushrooms.” However, does such a simplification ignore the range of potentially psychoactive compounds found in these mushrooms, most of which we currently know little about?
A priceless fossil was briefly brought to a UK research centre in complete secrecy two years ago, in an operation that had more than a touch of the spy novel about it.
Humans were present in Florida by 14,000 years ago, and until recently, it was believed the Bahamas—located only a few miles away—were not colonized until about 1,000 years ago
Our Neanderthal cousins had the capacity to both hear and produce the speech sounds of modern humans, a new study has found.
Research from the University of Kent's School of Anthropology and Conservation has discovered that one of the earliest stone tool cultures, known as the Acheulean, likely persisted for tens of thousands of years longer than previously thought.
Image from: José-Manuel Benito Álvarez (Wiki Commons)
How we humans became what we are today is a question that scientists have been trying to answer for a long time. How did we evolve such advanced cognitive abilities, giving rise to complex language, poetry and rocket science?
Well-preserved iron, bronze and tin carriage discovery is ‘without precedent in Italy’.
Beyond Earth, the general scientific consensus is that the best place to search for evidence of extraterrestrial life is Mars. However, it is by no means the only place.
Video footage captured on security cameras shows a meteor lighting up the sky above Midsomer Norton and Bath.
Image from: Night sky near Flagstaff (Wiki Commons)
Prof David Nutt supports study into whether move could cut violence and deaths
Based on a manual recently discovered in a 3,500-year-old medical papyrus, University of Copenhagen Egyptologist Sofie Schiødt has been able to help reconstruct the embalming process used to prepare ancient Egyptians for the afterlife. It is the oldest surviving manual on mummification yet discovered.
Teenage T rexes and other carnivorous dinosaurs the size of lions or bears may have crowded out smaller species, explaining why there are so few of them preserved in the fossil record, research suggests.
These surreal cauldron-like megaliths in Laos are known as the Plain of Jars, an archaeological relics whose original purpose is still shrouded in mystery, their significance long forgotten.
The water-to-land transition is a leap in the history of vertebrate evolution and one of the most important scientific issues in vertebrate evolution. Previous studies have shown that vertebrate landing occurred in bony fishes.
Psychedelics have saved my life several times over, including helping me to heal from childhood abuse. So, it’s with a very heavy heart that I’ve come to accept several sad truths.
Thomas Cody Prang, assistant professor of anthropology, and colleagues examined the skeletal remains of Ardipithecus ramidus ("Ardi"), dated to 4.4 million years old and found in Ethiopia. One of Ardi's hands was exceptionally well-preserved.
Discovery of 19.5-metre tree with roots, branches and leaves is unprecedented, say experts
Researchers are building a growing (and glowing) list of fluorescent mammals, and a new addition, an endearing jumping rodent called the springhare, just leapt into the spotlight, its brown fur lighting up in swirling disco patterns of pink and orange under ultraviolet (UV) rays.
In Wonderland, Alice drank a potion to shrink herself. In nature, some animal species shrink to escape the attention of human hunters, a process that takes from decades to millennia.
Artwork that had adorned the walls of an Egyptian prince's tomb for more than four millennia has been found to contain images of a bird completely unknown to modern science - until now.
The rodents are often considered ‘nuisance animals’, but they can play a vital role in maintaining healthy landscapes
The Neanderthal of popular imagination is a hideous, ape-like being, lumbering around with his or her crude spear.
New Jersey effectively legalized marijuana on Monday, following voters’ approval of marijuana legalization in the November general election.
A life size kangaroo painted in red ochre around 17,300 years ago is Australia’s oldest known rock art. This indicates that the earliest style of rock art in Australia focused on animals, similar to the early cave art found in Indonesia and Europe.
Scientists have successfully sequenced the genome of an extinct cave bear using a 360,000-year-old bone—the oldest genome of any organism from a non-permafrost environment.
Many people have a spiritual experience on psychedelics. How they make meaning of it could be influenced by the metaphysical beliefs of their therapists.
Penis Envy mushrooms were encountered by ethnobotanist Terence McKenna in the Amazon...the story unfolds from there.
The 5cm (2in) figure of a Celtic deity was discovered at the National Trust's Wimpole Estate in Cambridgeshire.
Researchers have discovered organic molecules trapped in incredibly ancient rock formations in Australia, revealing what they say is the first detailed evidence of early chemical ingredients that could have underpinned Earth's primeval microbial life-forms.
Neuroscientist Prof Carl Hart argues that addiction isn’t the only way to think about drug use.
Humanity has been able to reach distant vistas, such as the Moon, the deep oceans, and the wild expanses at Earth’s poles. Now, scientists have made a new breakthrough in the exploration of a very different type of frontier—the hallucinatory world inside dreams.
The most recent reversal of Earth’s magnetic field may have been as recent as 42,000 years ago, according to a new analysis of fossilised tree rings.
The standing stones at Avebury and the Ring of Brodgar in Orkney are henges, but it is generally agreed that Stonehenge is not. But why?
Scientists recently captured a high-resolution video of DNA shimmying into weird shapes in order to squeeze inside cells.
Permafrost-preserved teeth, up to 1.6 million years old, identify a new kind of mammoth in Siberia.
The bill touts the benefits of the drugs and would expunge the criminal records for those already convicted of possession or use of a substance.
Earlier studies have suggested that growing numbers of “big-game” hunting humans in the Americas some 14,000 years ago led to large mammals being wiped out.
Image from: Merikanto (Wiki Commons)
A crater that covers nearly a quarter of the Moon's surface has revealed new information on how Earth's natural satellite buddy formed - and the findings have tremendous implications, researchers say.
Fungi have been discovered making fake flowers that look and even smell like the real thing, fooling bees and other pollinating insects into visiting them.
The fossilised tooth of a nine-year-old child found in Shuqba (or Shukbah) Cave is the most southerly evidence of Neanderthals ever discovered.
A "sungrazed" comet may be responsible for the extinction event around 66 million years ago.
We need alternatives to over-the-counter painkillers. Could microdosing for chronic pain be the answer?
Long held in a private collection, the newly analysed tooth of an approximately 9-year-old Neanderthal child marks the hominin's southernmost known range. Analysis of the associated archaeological assemblage suggests Neanderthals used Nubian Levallois technology, previously thought to be restricted to Homo sapiens.
The fish on antidepressants seemed to lose their capability for individuality as a result of their exposure, with variations in behaviour between separate animals diminishing as the dose got stronger.
The inadvertent discovery of sea life on a boulder beneath an Antarctic ice shelf challenges our understanding of how organisms can live in environments far from sunlight, according to a team of biologists.