Newsdesk Archive
Cheers!—not to your health, but to your memory.
Drinking alcohol after learning information appears to aid the brain’s ability to store and remember that information later
Alcoholism has risen 49% in the US in just 11 years, national surveys find.
Americans are becoming increasingly heavy drinkers, with the greatest rise among women, older people and ethnic minorities, national surveys have shown.
The altered state of consciousness and temporary lack of ego that results from using psychedelic drugs could help some mental health patients recover from their symptoms, according to academics.
New results show a difference in the way neutrinos and antineutrinos behave, which could help explain why there is so much matter in the universe.
The results, announced today by the international team of scientists including large group from Imperial College London, suggest there could be a difference between the behaviour of matter and antimatter.
This isn't the first time scientists have suggested black holes might be dark matter, but we thought the possibility had been decisively ruled out. The resurrection of the idea is but one example of the fertile creativity that follows a new discovery.
In the 1970s, Stephen Hawking and his then-graduate student Bernard Carr proposed that, from the chaos that reigned after the Big Bang, a sea of tiny primordial black holes could have emerged, populating space.
After conducting a cosmic inventory of sorts to calculate and categorize stellar-remnant black holes, astronomers from the University of California, Irvine have concluded that there are probably tens of millions of the enigmatic, dark objects in the Milky Way - far more than expected.
Related: Primordial black holes may have helped to forge heavy elements
Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity has passed a multitude of tests over the past century, but physicists remain unsatisfied. That’s because it has never been matched up against a strong gravitational field, like that of a supermassive black hole. Now, a team monitoring a star on its way to a close encounter with the giant black hole at the center of our galaxy says early signs hint that the 102-year-old theory will once again hold up.
The moon may have had a magnetic field for at least a billion years longer than we thought. A moon rock brought back to Earth by Apollo 15 astronauts in 1971 shows the signature of a magnetic field that would have encompassed the moon more than 1 billion years ago.
The fate of the universe just became a little less certain. That’s due to a disagreement between a map of the early universe and a new map of today’s universe. If the mismatch stands the test of future measurements, we might have to rewrite physics. But that is a pretty big if.
Two potentially habitable planets have been found orbiting the nearest sun-like star 'tau Ceti'.
An international team of researchers discovered the planets among four Earth-sized worlds surrounding the star, which sits 12 light years from the sun - close enough to be seen by the naked eye.
Related: Holographic imaging could be used to detect signs of life in space
The Red Planet is plagued by devils. It now seems that Mars’s surface is teeming with 10 times as many dust devils as we thought.
These rotating columns of dust form around low-pressure air pockets and are common on Mars, where they send dust into the atmosphere, controlling the planet’s climate.
For the first time, scientists have found living microbes in the blistering hot springs of Ethiopia’s Danakil Depression.
Known as the “gateway to hell”, the Danakil Depression in Ethiopia is scorchingly hot and one of the most alien places on Earth. Yet a recent expedition to the region has found it is teeming with life.
A great deal of evidence relating to ancient climate variation is preserved in proxy data such as tree rings, lake sediments, ice cores, stalagmites, corals and historical documents, and these sources carry great significance in evaluating the 20th century warming in the context of the last two millennia.
Human bones may have been engraved as part of a cannibalistic ritual during the Paleolithic period, according to a study published August 9, 2017 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Silvia Bello from The Natural History Museum, UK and colleagues.
Plants and the meat of mammoths, red deer and horses were a major part of the diet of anatomically modern humans who lived in what is now Crimea, Ukraine, between 38,000 and 33,000 years ago.
A 13-million-year-old infant’s skull, discovered in Africa in 2014, comes from a new species of ape that may not be far removed from the common ancestor of living apes and humans.
The tiny find, about the size of a lemon, is one of the most complete skulls known of any extinct ape that inhabited Africa, Asia or Europe between 25 million and 5 million years ago
Radiocarbon dating of a fossilized leg bone from a Jamaican monkey called Xenothrix mcgregori suggests it may be the one of the most recent primate species anywhere in the world to become extinct, and it may solve a long-standing mystery about the cause of its demise. The short answer: human settlement of its island home.
Two ancient teeth found in an Indonesian cave hint that our species had arrived there as early as 73,000 years ago – and may have had to deal with the biggest supervolcano eruption of the last few million years and also adapt to the challenges of living in thick rainforest.
Roughly 450 million years ago a region that was likely the size of Europe started to stretch and tear. Deep gashes opened in Earth's crust, spewing lava that leaped into the air in luminous walls that reached up to 500 meters. Although the ground eventually grew still, the damage had just begun.
A loss of oxygen in global ocean seawater 94 million years ago led to a mass extinction of marine life that lasted for roughly half a million years.
Scientists have found several potential explanations for how the loss of oxygen happened.
The Mesozoic Era, from 252 million years ago to 66 million years ago, is often called the Age of Dinosaurs. To generations of paleontologists, early mammals from the period were just tiny nocturnal insect-eaters, trapped in the shadows of leviathans.
In recent years, scientists have significantly revised the story.
Aly: Researchers discover first winged mammals from the Jurassic period
A study proclaims a newly named species the heavyweight champion of all dinosaurs, making the scary Tyrannosaurus rex look like a munchkin.
At 76 tonnes (69 metric tonnes), the plant-eating behemoth was as heavy as a space shuttle.
Related: Eat, Pray, Fossilize? Praying Mantis Fossil Is 110 Million Years Old
Signs of a culture that disappeared without a trace seven centuries ago have now been found in a rather unusual place – in the genetic material of domesticated birds.
Mitochondrial DNA taken from the remains of ancient turkey bones seem to suggest the population simply packed up and moved, confirming accounts of their descendants living on in the US Southwest.
Excavations in Costa Rica have revealed a massive—nearly perfect—stone sphere, prompting experts to ask how such precision was achieved thousands of years ago.
The massive stone spheres are referred to as the stone spheres of Diquis, a region to the south of Costa Rica, and were made between the year 300 and 1500 AD by the predecessors of the Boruca Culture, explains a post on the Facebook post on the National Museum of Costa Rica.
An Irish lawmaker has blamed a damaged road on malicious activity by fairies.
Danny Healy-Rae, an independent member of Ireland’s parliament, the Dáil, said that a mysterious dip in the N22 road in Kerry, in the southwest of the country, is related to the presence of fairy forts, the Irish Times reported.
Related: When exorcists need help, they call him
Related: Truly Bizarre Accounts of Spontaneously Vanishing Bigfoot
Related: The ghostly radio station that no one claims to run
Related: South Carolina Police Issue Bigfoot Warning After Sighting
While driving and accelerating in his car, a patient in France suddenly had a bizarre sensation. He felt like he was outside his car, looking in at his physical self, which was still at the wheel.
The patient was part of a new study that links problems of the inner ear with eerie "out-of-body" experiences. These experiences arecurious, usually brief sensations in which a person's consciousness seems to exitthe body and then view the body from the outside.
Are human beings hard-wired to be perpetually dissatisfied? Author Robert Wright, who teaches about the interface of evolutionary biology and religion, thinks so.
Wright points out that evolution rewards people for seeking out pleasure rather than pain, which helps ensure that human beings are frequently unsatisfied: "We are condemned to always want things to be a little different, always want a little more," he says. "We're not designed by natural selection to be happy."
Scientists have discovered a new difference between the sexes: women's brains seem to be more active than men's brains, in terms of blood flow through specific regions.
Alt: Women have more active brains than men
Loneliness is deadlier than obesity and should be considered a major public health hazard, the biggest ever review into the problem has suggested.
Researchers in the US looked at 218 studies into the health effects of social isolation and loneliness involving nearly four million people.
A study published online in The FASEB Journal shows that parents' own prenatal environment has a detectable impact on their children's weight. Mothers who were malnourished in the womb tend to produce smaller babies, while a father's malnourishment in utero results in his offspring being smaller by the time they are 2 years old.
Related: Overweight children and adults get significantly healthier and quickly with less sugar
Related: Why Fat on Your Hips May Be Healthy
More than 7000 people worldwide are thought to have bought parasitic worms online and ingested them in an attempt to treat conditions ranging from depression to inflammatory bowel disease.
University of Adelaide researchers have shown that it may be possible to eradicate populations of invasive pest animals through the inheritance of a negative gene - a technique known as gene drive.
By analyzing the DNA of two prehistoric dogs from Germany, an international research team led by Krishna R. Veeramah, Ph.D., of Stony Brook University in the USA has determined that their genomes were the probable ancestors of modern European dogs.
Remains of at least two Late Bronze Age initiation ceremonies, in which teenage boys became warriors by eating dogs and wolves, have turned up in southwestern Russia, two archaeologists say. The controversial finds, which date to between roughly 3,900 and 3,700 years ago, may provide the first archaeological evidence of adolescent male war bands described in ancient texts.
Norway is famed for its cod. Catches from the Arctic stock that spawns each year off its northern coast are exported across Europe for staple dishes from British fish and chips to Spanish bacalao stew.
Related: First genetically engineered salmon sold in Canada
The Islamic State militant group (ISIS) makes as much as $100 million annually by trafficking looted antiquities out of Iraq and Syria and selling them on the black market.
A unusual social study has revealed that atheists are more easily suspected of vile deeds than Christians, Muslims, Hindus or Buddhists—strikingly, even by fellow atheists, researchers said Monday.
The "lost home of Jesus' apostles" has just been found, according to a recent Israeli newspaper report. Yet while the actual discovery is not nearly as sensational as many headlines suggest, the new results are adding very interesting fuel to an ongoing debate about the location of one of the most important cities in the New Testament. Here's what we know so far...
Alt: Archaeologists Zero in on Lost City and Perhaps the House of Three Apostles of Jesus
Once you get past the big three of Bethlehem, Nazareth and Jerusalem, there are hundreds of places mentioned in the Bible that may or may not still exist today. An interesting one is Julias, which was referred to as the birthplace of three apostles in the Bible and by historian Josephus Flavius.
Researchers believe they have finally cracked the identity of notorious London serial killer Jack the Ripper 130 years after his heinous crimes.
The murderer who brutally killed five women in Whitechapel in 1888 became one of the most infamous criminals in history and still brings tourists to London today.
Hundreds of thousands of years ago, the ancestors of modern humans diverged from a lineage that gave rise to Neanderthals and Denisovans.
Yet the exact relationship between these ancient groups has remained unclear.
Alt: New look at archaic DNA rewrites human evolution story
When water first flowed from the new community pump in Eenhana this spring, some locals were slow to celebrate. Groundwater has a tainted reputation in this fast-developing, northern Namibian town. Many people in the area still rely on hand-dug wells that double up as watering holes for cattle.
Mid-summer corn on the cob is everywhere, but where did it all come from and how did it get to be the big, sweet, yellow ears we eat today? Some of the answers come from carbon dating ancient maize and other organic material from the El Gigante rock shelter in Honduras, according to a team of anthropologists who show that 4,300 years ago maize was sufficiently domesticated to serve as a staple crop in the Honduran highlands.
The Amazon rainforest is home to strange weather. One peculiarity is that rains begin 2 to 3 months before seasonal winds start to bring in moist air from the ocean. Now, researchers say they have finally figured out where this early moisture comes from: the trees themselves.
Related: The Success of Paying People to Not Cut Down Trees
A summer 'vortex' of cold air over the Karakoram mountain range is causing the glaciers in the region to grow in spite of global warming, scientists have shown.
By the end of this century, temperatures in South Asia — a region where about one-fifth of the world's population lives — could become too hot and humid for people to survive, according to a new study.
A new study finds 6.5% of global GDP goes to subsidizing dirty fossil fuels
Fossil fuels have two major problems that paint a dim picture for their future energy dominance. These problems are inter-related but still should be discussed separately.
If you have seen or read The Martian, you may recall the stranded astronaut converting a hydrogen-based fuel into water. Well, we may have just discovered material that easily reverses this process.
There is a saying in computer science: garbage in, garbage out. When we feed machines data that reflects our prejudices, they mimic them – from antisemitic chatbots to racially biased software. Does a horrifying future await people forced to live at the mercy of algorithms?
Japanese scientists have come up with a cool solution to stop ice cream melting before you've had time to finish it.
The ice cream retains its original shape in 28°C (82.4 F) weather and still tastes 'cool', according to the report.
Beginning this year, Oscar Mayer stopped adding artificial preservatives to their hot dogs. Taking their place is celery juice, a natural source of the preservative sodium nitrite.
A novel device that reprogrammes skin cells could represent a breakthrough in repairing injured or ageing tissue, researchers say.
The new technique, called tissue nanotransfection, is based on a tiny device that sits on the surface of the skin of a living body.
SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk wants to put a million people on Mars in the next century. They'll be ferried to the Red Planet on a fleet of spaceships that can each carry 100 or more people, and make their living in an environment bereft of oxygen and full of danger.
While you can't breathe the air on Mars, with some creative thinking you could bring in many of the comforts of home.
Scientists have observed that superlattices can form incredibly during the routine synthesis of nanocrystals. This accidental discovery will mean the ability to form novel materials in a matter of seconds instead of days.
New findings add a layer of complexity to how highly specialized animals colonized these unique environments
Depressed by the negative political news cycle? Well, consider this a dose of happiness amid the chaos: honeybees are officially experiencing a population resurgence. According to Time, the United States has seen a three percent rise in honeybee colonies in the commercial sphere.
When trouble looms, the fish-scale geckos of Madagascar resort to what might seem like an extreme form of self-defense -- tearing out of their own skin. Now, new research shows the geckos' skin contains a hidden strength: bony deposits known as osteoderms, the same material that makes up the tough scales and plates of crocodilians and armadillos.
Researchers have successfully created a synthetic spider silk that is only slightly inferior to its natural counterpart. However, the production method itself is even more exciting than the silk as it works at room temperature and can be used to make other materials "green."
In Morocco, a big new solar-powered plant for turning seawater into drinking water is being built. Is the business case for renewable-energy-powered desalination technology becoming strong enough to unleash a boom?
Related: Device could make washing machines lighter and greener
Many sunscreens wear off over the course of a day, but a DNA material developed by US scientists gets better at absorbing ultraviolet (UV) light the longer it is exposed to it.1The transparent coating could protect skin – particularly damaged areas – from sunburn over long periods of time.
Most people are trichromats, possessing three types of cone cells to see color with. A woman in northern England has four types of working cone cells, which means she has the ability to see far more colors than most of us can.
New research sheds light on how psilocybin could help people overcome depressive symptoms. The psychedelic drug appears to promote a change from disconnection to connection and a change from avoidance to acceptance.
Yoga seems to reduce symptoms of depression, including focusing on negative feelings and emotional eating, suggesting the practice may be a useful complement to talking therapies and antidepressant drugs.
Aging infrastructure could have an adverse impact on public health
Two seemingly unrelated national policy debates are afoot, and we can’t adequately address one unless we address the other.
Picture an archaeological site, what comes to mind? Sandstone walls, standing in the desert heat? Stonehenge, watching over a grassy field?
When thinking about archaeological sites, we tend to conceive of them as dead silent – empty ruins left by past cultures.
Fighter from almost 3,000 year ago was ready to impale his enemies, expecting battles after death, with a 'mirror' on his eye.
The extraordinary find of this Bronze Age warrior - ready for combat on his journey to the next life between 2,700 and 2,900 years ago - is intriguing archeologists in Omsk city.
Imperial researchers have tested a 'blued' gauntlet from a 16th-century suit of armour with a method usually used to study solar panels.
Metalworkers have used various techniques to prevent steel from rusting, some of which turn the metal black-blue. This 'blueing' effect can be created in several different ways, including by applying heat or (in later years) chemicals.
From the pyramids of Giza to the tombs of Luxor, Egypt's ancient monuments have held on to mysteries for thousands of years.
Experts now believe they are on the brink of finding a hidden 'recess' in the Great Pyramid of Giza.
Most people know of the great construction achievements of the dynastic Egyptians such as the pyramids and temples of the Giza Plateau area as well as the Sphinx. Many books and videos show depictions of vast work forces hewing blocks of stone in the hot desert sun and carefully setting them into place.
From the Giza pyramids to the pharaonic tombs of Luxor, Egypt's ancient monuments are holding onto mysteries which researchers now aim to unravel with cutting edge technology.
For more than 200 years since Napoleon Bonaparte landed in Egypt with a retinue of scholars who laid the groundwork for modern Egyptology, experts have used science to unlock the secrets of the country's ancient treasures.
The supposed remains of Sa-Nakht, a pharaoh of ancient Egypt, may be the oldest known human giant, a new study finds.
Myths abound with stories of giants, from the frost and fire giants of Norse legends to the Titans who warred with the gods in ancient Greek mythology. However, giants are more than just myth; accelerated and excessive growth, a condition known as gigantism, can occur when the body generates too much growth hormone.
Unearthed on the edge of the Arctic, she is the only woman so far found in an otherwise all-male necropolis, buried in a cocoon of copper and fur.
She has long eyelashes, a full head of hair - and impressive teeth.
A 4,000-year-old Mesopotamian artifact that looks just like a fidget spinner and that a museum labeled as a "spinning toy" for 85 years is actually — unexpectedly — an ancient weapon, curators told Live Science.
NASA is extremely interested in building a true astroid defense network that could spring into action as soon as a threat is detected, destroying or diverting a space rock before it can do any serious damage here on Earth. The actual development of a protection system is still in its infancy — with many proposed plans for dealing with troublesome astroids but no real-world testing to back any of them — but that won’t stop NASA from testing its detection capabilities during an upcoming near-earth astroid flyby in October.
A NASA job advert has made for excited headlines, but the agency isn’t hiring someone to protect us from aliens – it wants someone to protect alien microbes from us
Alt: Want to Protect Earth from Aliens? NASA Is Hiring
What is our universe made of, and has its composition changed over time? Scientists have new insights about these fundamental questions, thanks to an international collaboration of more than 400 scientists called the Dark Energy Survey (DES). Three scientists from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, are part of this group that is helping to further our understanding of the structure of the universe.
It's been about nine months since a team of CERN researchers succeeded in their goal of measuring the spectrum of light emitted from hydrogen's mirror particle, antihydrogen.
They were just getting started. Now the researchers have detailed evidence of the structure of antihydrogen using spectroscopy, setting a landmark in our quest to determine why there is something in the Universe rather than nothing.
Scientists have found the strongest evidence to date for a stratosphere on an enormous planet outside our solar system, with an atmosphere hot enough to boil iron.
An international team of researchers, led by the University of Exeter, made the new discovery by observing glowing water molecules in the atmosphere of the exoplanet WASP-121b with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.
Neptune’s wild, windy weather has taken a turn for the worse, with a new storm erupting in a surprising spot near the beautifully blue planet’s equator.
Estimated to stretch roughly as wide as Earth, the young storm system is a big, bright cloud that’s probably raining methane ice into the planet’s interior.
It may not be obvious while lying in the sun on a hot summer's day, but a considerable amount of heat is also coming from below you – emanating from deep within the Earth. This heat is equivalent to more than three times the total power consumption of the entire world and drives important geological processes, such as the movement of tectonic plates and the flow of magma near the surface of the Earth. But despite this, where exactly up to half of this heat actually comes from is a mystery.
When it comes to building things, Eric Loth has his head in the clouds. This engineering professor at the University of Virginia wants to construct a wind turbine standing more than five times higher than the Statue of Liberty, with rotor blades longer than the Washington Monument is tall. – Super-Colossal Wind Turbines May Be on the Horizon – Aug.03.2017 https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/super-colossal-wind-turbines-may-be-horizon-ncna789001?cid=sm_npd_nn_fb_mc_170806 via NBC News
You’ve heard about the carbon footprint, but what about the carbon paw-print? According to a new study, U.S. cats’ and dogs’ eating patterns have as big an effect as driving 13.6 million cars for a year.
Dramatic new hypothesis could change the way we understand human history.
It's an idea that could transform our understanding of how humans went from small bands of hunter-gatherers to farmers and urbanites. Until recently, anthropologists believed cities and farms emerged about 9,000 years ago in the Mediterranean and Middle East. But now a team of interdisciplinary researchers has gathered evidence showing how civilization as we know it may have emerged at the equator, in tropical forests. Not only that, but people started farming about 30,000 years earlier than we thought.
A new species of mega-herbivore dinosaur discovered in Alberta, Canada, preserves incredible details of its skin, scales and spines.
It was camouflaged which suggests that, despite its tank-like appearance, it hid to avoid predation.
Alt: It's Official: Stunning Fossil Is a New Dinosaur Species
Are birds that feed fish good Samaritans or just confused? Experts weigh in.
First it was the hawklet adopted by bald eagles. Then it was the lioness nursing the leopard cub. And now in the latest example of interspecies care, there’s video of a cardinal feeding goldfish.
Some of the first clues to the power of dragon blood came from a curious observation. Komodos generally eat carrion, which may be tainted with disease, but they rarely succumb to illness. Investigations showed that this is because the lizards’ blood is loaded with antimicrobial peptides, or AMPs – an all-purpose immune defence.
The fight against President Trump’s border wall gained urgency this week when the Department of Homeland Security announced plans to fast-track construction. Photos are a particularly effective reminder of just what is at stake, and yesterday the American Society of Mammalogists tweeted pictures of species that the wall threatens.
When the sun goes down, moths, beetles and other nocturnal insects that spread pollen between plants go to work. But the latest research reveals that these creatures might be at risk from artificial lighting.
The finale of every sunset is green. Try to catch it, if you can. The story of the so-called green flash begins by answering this question: Why is the sky blue?
Indigenous activists shut down construction of a massive dam project in Brazil for four days in July and received assurances from officials that their demands for halting construction of the dam, prior consultation, land rights and return of sacred funerary urns would be met.
New research suggests naturally occurring earthquakes and those caused by unconventional oil and gas recovery in the central US share the same shaking potential and can thus cause similar damage.
The finding contradicts previous observations suggesting that induced earthquakes exhibit weaker shaking than natural ones.
All methods point to a supervolcano that’s very much alive. From 1976 to 1984, GPS satellite data showed that the caldera floor was swelling upward. Magma was flowing from the deeper chamber into the shallow reservoir, causing the above ground to inflate. This influx of hot material, which happens to be less dense, was also reflected in gravity data. To a satellite orbiting directly above the inflow, the Earth will seem to pull on it a little less than expected. Meanwhile ground instruments measured increasing heat and gases rising from the active features.
In an extensive excavation of a complete Roman neighborhood found near the outskirts of the city of Vienne in the south-east of France, archaeologists have uncovered the remains of affluent houses and public buildings, including extravagant and beautiful mosaics. The huge site, which dates back to the 1 st century AD, is exceptionally well preserved and has been described by Benjamin Clement, the lead archaeologist at the dig as, ‘undoubtedly the most exceptional excavation of a Roman site in 40 or 50 years’
At the eastern end of the vast Tibetan Plateau lies a sprawling monastery named Larung Gar, which is the largest Tibetan Buddhist institute in the world and a monumental landmark to Tibetan culture, religion, and history.
New insights into the lifeways – and death rites – of the ancient people of Ireland are being provided through funerary studies led by a researcher at the Department of Anatomy at New Zealand’s University of Otago.
DNA samples from thousands of years ago show the Ancient Greeks descended from two even more distant peoples, solving a genetic mystery that had scientists scratching their heads for years.
Rock art images of bulls, bison, horses, lions, rhinoceros, and other animals from caves like Lascaux and Chauvet in France and Altamira in Spain have become popular icons showcasing the antiquity of human-animal relationships, as well as human creativity.
The first review of the global impact of humans on tropical forests in the ancient past shows that humans have been altering these environments for at least 45,000 years. This counters the view that tropical forests were pristine natural environments prior to modern agriculture and industrialization. The study, published today in Nature Plants, found that humans have in fact been having a dramatic impact on such forest ecologies for tens of thousands of years, through techniques ranging from controlled burning of sections of forest to plant and animal management to clear-cutting
A stone bracelet believed to have been made by a Paleolithic man could revolutionise our understanding of early human development.
Scientific analysis suggests that the enchanting find is a 65,000 to 70,000 years old.
Experts already believe it is the oldest piece of jewellery of its kind in the world, crafted by an extinct branch of early humans known as Denisovans.
DNA is shedding light on the people who built Greece's earliest civilizations.
Researchers analysed genetic data from skeletons dating to the Bronze Age, a period marked by the emergence of writing, complex urban planning and magnificent art and architecture.