Newsdesk Archive
Scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the University of Rochester take a critical look at the scientific evidence that ours is the only advanced civilization ever to have existed on our planet.
“You have to go beyond these stories,” Ms. Irvine, 24, said. “They are not, by themselves, an accurate representation of who we are.”
Historically, immigrants were given special rights to take Native land. If Trump says we are no longer a nation of immigrants, that has consequences.
Scientists discovered that the animals can not only recognize humans, but remember their expressions.
From Alaska to Australia, scientists are turning to the knowledge of traditional people for a deeper understanding of the natural world.
More than 140 children were ritually killed in a single event in Peru more than 500 years ago. What could possibly have been the reason?
The entombed horse, found in Tombos in northern Sudan and shown to have lived around 950 B.C., reveals the growing influence of the Kingdom of Kush in Nubia.
When an asteroid smashes into Earth at 11,000 mph, how much of that asteroid's constituent water gets left behind in the debris, and how much boils away in the intense heat of the collision?
Our ancestors used misdirection to gain the upper hand in close-quarter combat with this deadly creature.
"We are striving to make economic advances using traditional knowledge that was impossible in previous decades because of societal disadvantages.”
The law that allows Native Americans to claim ancestral remains must be strengthened.
Shooting small rocks from a high-speed cannon showed that some asteroids could have brought water to the early Earth — without all the water boiling away on impact, a new study finds.
The idol is much, much older than previously thought — about 11,500 years old — meaning it was constructed just after the last ice age ended.
Early humans in southern Africa figured out that stabbing large animals close up is silly, so honed pieces of bone into projectile weaponry.
Students who show up in geosciences classes see a clear lack of role models in the faculty.
A new study finds that heavy marijuana users are just as good as everybody else at remembering tasks they need to do in the future.
This snowy-looking scene wasn't captured on Mount Everest, or in some canyon in Antarctica. It's the view from a lander on the surface of a comet.
ESA's Gaia mission has produced the richest star catalogue to date, including high-precision measurements of nearly 1.7 billion stars and revealing previously unseen details of our home Galaxy.
A researcher is calling for the voices of women to be given a fairer platform at a leading scientific conference.
Studies show that traditional uses of the landscape should be valued highly, and that Amazonian communities can support themselves without extensive deforestation.
Native Americans and Asians carry a version of the gene that is linked to thicker hair shafts, more sweat glands, and shovel-shaped incisors.
As a once-illicit drug becomes folded into the mainstream, so does the language used to describe it.
A study of 3.6 million year old hominin footprints discovered in Tanzania suggests our ancestors evolved the trait of extended leg, human-like bipedalism much earlier than previously thought.
The greatness of the Indian civilisation is its spiritual brotherhood and harmony, he said, adding that it has produced the greatest philosophical thinkers and preachers who gave rise to Nalanda Buddhism.
A hole in the skull of a Stone Age cow was likely made by humans about 5,000 years ago, probably by a veterinarian or trainee surgeon.
/https://public-media.smithsonianmag.com/filer/c6/bc/c6bcd543-6e7f-4e63-8b2e-0c56ec2ddb28/take2.jpg)
Researchers at a Egyptian-German excavation have puzzled together new information about the statue after discovering 4,500 more of its fragments.
The Kalamazoo fountain, built in 1940, has been called “horrendous,” “a monument to mistreatment,” and “evil.”
The deepest dive recorded by the free-diving Bajau Laut people of Southeast Asia was to an impressive 79 metres (259 feet), and the longest time spent underwater by them was just over three minutes.
The site dates back to around 2,000 BC and was discovered when an archaeologist was conducting geophysical surveys of a known site outside the village of Looe in Cornwall and was approached by a farmer about a possible site in a neighbouring field.
Mary Frances Dondelinger creates bowls, vases, and statues that masquerade as the relics of a previously undiscovered civilization.
Nearly all of the Indian subcontinent’s ethnic and linguistic groups are the product of three ancient Eurasian populations who met and mixed: local hunter-gatherers, Middle Eastern farmers, and Central Asian herders
Industrial civilizations might have been around long before human ones ever existed — not just around other stars, but even on Earth itself.
Modelling finds that in a human world, big animals run the greatest risk of extinction.
Humans may have begun hunting large mammal species down to size -- by way of extinction -- at least 90,000 years earlier than previously thought.
Assessment after three months of practicing Transcendental Meditation found benefits on standardized measures of self-efficacy, perceived stress, and mental and physical quality of life.
Voluntary guidelines aim to combat ‘helicopter’ science and ensure that studies benefit African citizens and scientists.
The entire region quailed before King Sennacherib, known for horribly torturing rebel monarchs, but he didn't kill King Hezekiah. Inquiring minds have been asking why ever since.
They may be from a Mercury-sized body obliterated during Solar System formation.
Notably, some of the flint being used by the prehistoric Ligurians had its origins hundreds of kilometres away.
A trio of dogs buried at two ancient human sites in Illinois lived around 10,000 years ago, making them the oldest known domesticated canines in the Americas.
The ingrained notion – that there has only ever been one species of human being, Homo sapiens – is a latterday fiction born of our own self-important view of ourselves.
The most ambitious search for alien worlds around the brightest stars in the sky will begin on Monday with the launch of Nasa’s newest planet-hunting spacecraft.
Scientists show that the key expansion of dinosaurs was also triggered by a crisis – a mass extinction that happened 232 million years ago.
An asteroid estimated to be at least 150 feet in diameter made an alarmingly close pass to Earth on Sunday morning just hours after it was first observed by astronomers.
Baker’s yeast, brewer’s yeast, yeast that lives in infected toenails—they all descended from a common ancestor.
SACNAS has arranged for a number of Native and indigenous speakers at satellite marches across the country, all committed to engaging the power of both Western and indigenous science.
The decision could provide more legal ammunition for those supporting recent tribal movements in support of Bears Ears or to stop the Dakota Access pipeline.
/arc-anglerfish-syd-prod-nzme.s3.amazonaws.com/public/C5J2C663NBBNRKLW7T2OVA2K2Y.jpg)
Matisoo-Smith and Knapp said there were well accepted and published protocols for the extraction and sequencing of ancient DNA, none of which appear to have been followed by these researchers.
Apart from the deer, the team identified what they call “‘boat(s)’ and a ‘starburst’”, a series of cupules arranged in geometric patterns, paddle-shaped motifs and bow and arrow motifs.
In the newly-excavated lower levels of the deposit, researchers discovered and dated archaic cobble-based cores and flakes that indicate human occupation at the site at least 50,000 years ago.
Tuber’s travels deepen mystery about timing of first contact between people in Americas and the South Pacific.
A 3,000-year-old Egyptian text is being reassessed as one of the first records of a powerful man being accused of sexual assault.
The inscriptions are written in the obscure 'Meroitic' language, the oldest known written language south of the Sahara, which has been only partly deciphered.
A recent study by Harvard University found a strange genetic disparity emerged in south-east England around the Iron Age and Roman Period.
The deposits are located near the tomb of Ay (who reigned from 1327 B.C. to 1323 B.C.), a pharaoh who succeeded Tutankhamun (who reigned from 1336 B.C. to 1327 B.C.)
Humanity needs to step up its asteroid-hunting game.
While eyebrows help to prevent debris, sweat, and water from falling into the eye socket, they serve another important function too – and it’s all to do with how they move and human connection.
Indigenous people are rejecting oil, coal and gas extraction in favor of renewable energy to save their land, increase employment and fight global warming.
The first Homo sapiens fossil discovery from Saudi Arabia dates to 90,000 years ago during a time when the region’s deserts were replaced by grasslands.
Scientific African will be the first “mega-journal” in Africa. The first issue is scheduled to be published at the end of the summer.
Interviews with frontline staff uncovered that the gender gap in academic medicine has a negative impact.
If Heel Stone and Stone 16 were already placed, pointing at the solstice Sun, that could have given the site its significance for the people who lived nearby thousands of years ago.
Okay, if you’ve got some spare time, check out this amazing website called Stuff in Space. It’s a simulation of every satellite (alive or dead), space station, and large piece of space junk orbiting the Earth right now.
“Some people think that the Carambolo Treasure comes from the East, from the Phoenicians,” says Ana Navarro, the director of the Archaeological Museum of Seville and one of the authors of a recent studyof the treasure published in the Journal of Archaeological Science. “With this work, we know that the gold was taken from mines in Spain.”
If 10 million researchers spend an hour per year trying to navigate clunky paywalls and university login pages just to read a few articles, that equates to 10 million hours per year of wasted time that could be better used in conducting research.
A new elephant has been added to the mix: the palaeoloxodan antiquus, which roamed Europe and western Asia about 400,000 years ago, has been extinct for 120,000 years.
In recent years, genome sequencing has changed everything we thought about our origins and how we relate to early human species.
Here are some common questions answered about the nighttime hallucinations we call dreams.
Two separate space missions will help to determine the composition the asteroids and test technology for retrieving their potential riches.
Archaeologists have found incredible evidence of a huge Wichita Indian town in Kansas that was once home to 20,000 people.
“This means that it is a tradition of over a thousand years that precedes the famous geoglyphs of the Nasca culture, which opens the door to new hypotheses about its function and meaning.”
"As an archaeologist, I share the excitement around how technology and techniques to study DNA are leaping ahead. But the “bone rush” to make new genetic discoveries has set off an ethical crisis."
A protein found in birds’ eyes that’s linked to circadian rhythms called cryptochrome lets birds see the earth's magnetic field as another layer of their vision, an ability called magnetoreception.
These strong, clever women sailed their way around the world, sometimes dressing as men, often continuing their journeys and work even as the men they were traveling with became ill and died.
Armed with satellites and drones, archaeologists discover new Nasca lines and dozens of other enigmatic geoglyphs carved into the earth.
Neanderthals lived to be fairly old and even had some of the signs of age related illnesses; an adult male Neanderthal survived bone fractures, and when he died, he was buried by members of his group.
A sculpture of a man's head and two limestone lion statues were among the artifacts uncovered at the archaeological site.
An analysis of 115,000-year-old bone tools discovered in China suggests that the toolmaking techniques mastered by prehistoric humans there were more sophisticated than previously thought.
Although the Beaker Complex spread between Iberia and central Europe through the movement of ideas, in Britain its expansion occurred through the movement of people, and in some numbers.
People joined because of their appreciation for the Native American sentiment of peace and care for the environment during a time when both are desperately needed in the world.
The meteoric treasures number in the dozens, enough to indicate that the meteorite was more than a curiosity to the Hopewell — the wondrous metal was clearly meaningful.
Women in ancient Peru, far from being marginalized and invisible, were political and economic decision-makers, according to a new study that challenges many traditional takes on the country’s history.
Researchers ran simulations multiple times over the course of the spring equinox and the summer solstice for different types of crystals and with differing intervals between sunstone tests.
Toxic plants combined with dinosaurs' inability to associate the taste of certain foods with danger may have already caused their numbers to drastically decrease when the asteroid hit.
A University of Washington study has published the largest set of recordings for bowhead whales, to discover that these marine mammals have a surprisingly diverse, constantly shifting vocal repertoire.
Myths always circulate about Nature’s editorial processes and policies. Here is an attempt to dispel them.
Archeologists have revealed traces of previous human activity on Ramsey Island in Wales, including ancient burial mounds, a prehistoric fort, and a structure that appears to be a lost religious chapel.
Study appears to rule out theory that Neanderthals’ facial shape was adapted for a powerful bite.
A yew trunk was cut longitudinally into two halves. One of these halves was scraped with a stone-tool, and treated with fire to harden it and to facilitate the scraping to obtain a pointed morphology.
A new statistical method was applied to the DNA of 50 people. Roughly 8 percent of their DNA comes from a "ghost" species – but who are they?
Careful examination of numerous fluted spear points found in Alaska and western Canada prove that the Ice Age peopling of the Americas was much more complex than previously believed.
A former Navy diver who sells fossils on the internet said he isn’t talking until the state gives him a binding legal document that provides him rights to half the value of the mammoth bones.
Some doctors and Egyptologists doubted that ancient Egyptians could perform that complex operation with primitive tools. "Someone was actually doing coronoidectomy 4,000 years ago.”
The paper builds on the genetic understanding that there were two separate groups in ancient India: Ancestral North Indians and Ancestral South Indians, or ANI and ASI.
“We have never had a native woman in Congress. It is a voice which would add positive things to the conversation about the future of our country,” the 57-year-old single mother tells The Independent.
Indigenous tribes likely crafted traditional tools from flint cobbles that had been used as ballast on British ships, following the arrival of the convict vessels during the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
A view looking north to south of Egypt's famous Giza Pyramid Complex, as seen by ESA's Proba-1 minisatellite.
No other city has taken down a monument to a president for his misdeeds. But Arcata is poised to do just that with an 8½-foot bronze likeness of William McKinley.
Scientists at Johns Hopkins University are looking for participants for a study involving those who believe they encountered “autonomous beings or entities” after consuming DMT.
To the Heiltsuk and the Wuikinuxv, members of First Nations who call this land home, they affirm a tradition that goes back time immemorial.