Newsdesk Archive
Analysis of ancient tree rings from the French Alps has revealed a massive solar storm – the largest ever identified to date – occurred about 14,300 years ago.
The evidence from Kalambo Falls demonstrates a remarkable ability by early hominins (ancient human relatives) to source wood and shape it with tools. They were able to produce, not only an assortment of other tools, but also sophisticated wooden structures.
The rejected law, which was anticipated to take effect in 2025, would have done away with criminal penalties for people possessing natural psychedelics for personal use. It also would have required the state to form a group to study and make recommendations about the drugs’ therapeutic use.
These Stone Age herders were also skilled artists. They carved thousands of images into rock surfaces on cliffs and boulders, documenting their daily lives. Results are published in a new paper in PLOS ONE.
The world's most diverse forest, the Amazon, may also host more than 10,000 records of pre-Columbian earthworks (constructed prior to the arrival of Europeans), according to a new study.
A new analysis of these footprints, using two different techniques, confirms the date, providing seemingly incontrovertible proof that humans were already living in North America during the height of the last Ice Age.
Paleolithic human populations survived even in the coldest and driest upland parts of Spain, according to a study published October 4, 2023 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Manuel Alcaraz-Castaño of the University of Alcalá, Spain, Javier Aragoncillo-del Rió of the Molina-Alto Tajo UNESCO Global Geopark, Spain and colleagues.
Traces of ancient DNA appear to have been found within the 6-million-year-old fossil bones of an extinct turtle. This is staggeringly old evidence of DNA and may suggest that genetic material can last much longer than previously appreciated. The study is published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.
Fluorescence in mammals is much more common than previously thought, new research suggests.
Their findings support previous research conducted in Arabia suggesting this green, overland route, which is now desert, was favored by traveling Homo sapiens heading north. The paper, "Human dispersals out of Africa via the Levant," has been published in the journal Science Advances.
Agriculture in Syria started with a bang 12,800 years ago as a fragmented comet slammed into the Earth's atmosphere. The explosion and subsequent environmental changes forced hunter-gatherers in the prehistoric settlement of Abu Hureyra to adopt agricultural practices to boost their chances for survival. That's the assertion made by an international group of scientists in one of four related research papers, all appearing in the journal Science Open: Airbursts and Cratering Impacts.
In a paper, "The Stonehenge Altar Stone was probably not sourced from the Old Red Sandstone of the Anglo-Welsh Basin: Time to broaden our geographic and stratigraphic horizons?," published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, the research team details how newly acquired information is overturning a hundred-year-old theory.
For decades, scientists have vigorously debated whether an asteroid strike or massive volcanic eruptions ended the reign of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago...Now, researchers have devised a new way to identify the true dino killer: Let computers take a crack at it. See the study here.
Scientists say they have identified Europe's oldest shoes, sandals woven from grass thought to be around 6,000 years old. They were among a haul of ancient objects discovered in a bat cave in Spain plundered by miners in the 19th Century, but were analysed in a new study.
Dozens of planet-sized objects have been discovered in the Orion Nebula via observations that could herald the existence of a new astronomical category...The objects are too small to be stars, but also defy the conventional definition of a planet because they are not in orbit around a parent star.
Life-size carvings of camels have been found in the Saudi Arabian desert, but archaeologists aren't sure who created them and when....Radiocarbon dating of two trenches and two hearths nearby indicate that the Sahout site was repeatedly occupied between the Pleistocene (2.6 million to 11,700 years ago) and the Middle Holocene (7,000 to 5,000 years ago), according to the study.
Civil war has broken out in the field of consciousness research. More than 100 consciousness researchers have signed a letter accusing one of the most popular scientific theories of consciousness – the integrated information theory – of being pseudoscience. Immediately, several other figures in the field responded by critiquing the letter as poorly reasoned and disproportionate.
Image by: Martin420 (Wiki Commons)
In 1976, Alexander “Sasha” Shulgin was on a roll. The “godfather of psychedelics” had left the Dow Chemical Company, where, after developing the first biodegradable pesticide, he’d been given the freedom to research psychedelic compounds.
New images have been made of one of Scotland's most significant prehistoric burial sites. Carn Glas, near Inverness, is thought to date to the Neolithic period and be about 5,000 years old.
Galaxies from the early universe are more like our own Milky Way than previously thought, flipping the entire narrative of how scientists think about structure formation in the universe, according to new research.
Our planet has changed a lot over billions of years, from the location of the continents to the makeup of the atmosphere, and a new study looks in detail at the history of the Sahara desert – which wasn't always an arid wilderness.
More research is showing that we carry genes from other kinds of ancient humans, and their DNA affects our lives today.
A recent study, published in the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, delves into the mysterious world of DMT (dimethyltryptamine) experiences reported on Reddit. Researchers sought to understand the profound sense of familiarity that some users encounter during DMT-induced experiences and the potential implications of this enigmatic phenomenon.
Archaeologists in Kazakhstan have discovered a 3,800-year-old hexagon-shaped structure that they describe as a "pyramid." The maze-like structure is not as tall as Egypt's monuments, but currently stands about 10 feet (3 meters) high and likely served as an elite burial site.
In recent years, researchers have gained the power to pull DNA from ancient hominins, including our early ancestors and other relatives who walked on two legs. Ancient DNA technology has revolutionized the way we study human history and has quickly taken off, with a constant stream of studies exploring the genes of long-ago people.
The vast subterranean ocean of Europa, one of Jupiter’s many moons, contains carbon, one of the crucial ingredients for life, scientists have discovered.
A study led by researchers at MIT, the University of Florida, and in Brazil aims to settle the debate over dark earth's origins. The team has pieced together results from soil analyses, ethnographic observations, and interviews with modern Indigenous communities, to show that dark earth was intentionally produced by ancient Amazonians as a way to improve the soil and sustain large and complex societies.
A new study suggests that Spain's ancient peoples shared complex beliefs about death and the afterlife. The research has been published in PLOS One
A pair of interlocking logs that haven't seen sunlight in half a million years could challenge some fundamental assumptions about the technology and culture of our Stone Age ancestors. See the study here.
More than 1.3 billion years ago, two continents collided at modern-day Argyle in Western Australia, causing pressures so intense that it forced carbon deep underground to form diamonds with glittering pink, red and brown hues. Or, at least, that’s the theory proposed by a study in Nature Communications.
A study in the journal Cell sheds new light on the evolution of neurons, focusing on the placozoans, a millimetre-sized marine animal. Researchers at the Centre for Genomic Regulation in Barcelona find evidence that specialized secretory cells found in these unique and ancient creatures may have given rise to neurons in more complex animals.
We know there's ice on the Moon – what's less clear is where it came from. A new study suggests that waves of electrons, arriving indirectly from Earth and the Sun, are contributing to the formation of frozen water on the lunar surface. The research has been published in Nature Astronomy.
"From coca to kava, we should be able to access all plant allies—and understand their beneficial properties."
A recent meta-analysis suggests that subanesthetic doses of ketamine can offer rapid and sustained anxiety relief, becoming noticeable within a few hours and lasting up to two weeks. The study has been published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology.
The relationship between size and number also shows up in everything from ecosystems to language...After collecting data on all of the major types of cells in the body, researchers have revealed a familiar mathematical pattern in these cells’ relationship. There is an inverse relationship between cell size and number, meaning smaller cells are more numerous than larger cells.
The giant asteroid that snuffed out the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous period (145 million to 66 million years ago) left flowers relatively unharmed, and the blooms thrived in the aftermath, a new study has found.
The European starling boasts a remarkable repertoire. Versatile songbirds that learn warbles, whistles, calls, and songs throughout their lives, starlings rank among the most advanced avian vocal learners. Now a new study published in Science finds that starlings, along with other complex vocal learners, are also superior problem solvers.
Could the lives of the eight billion people currently on Earth have depended on the resilience of just 1,280 human ancestors who very nearly went extinct 900,000 years ago?
Dinosaurs have a reputation for being the most terrifying prehistoric predators, but a newly discovered skull sheds light on a fearsome beast that dominated 40 million years before the first 'terrible lizards' walked the Earth. See the research here.
A follow-up to a major study into the mysterious experiences of death has identified potential flickers of awareness in the minds of cardiac arrest patients as medical staff attempt to resuscitate them. This research was published in Resuscitation.
This July in Bend, Oregon, Josh Goldstein facilitated one of the first magic mushroom sessions under the state's new regulatory framework for people to access their active ingredient - psilocybin.
When the Lapita people set sail from the Bismarck Archipelago for the vast blue horizon of the Pacific Ocean, they were beginning the most incredible journey the world has ever seen. Now, indigenous archaeologists in Vanuatu are mapping out their ancestors’ histories.
Archeologists discovered the mysterious arch at the end of a narrow, underground passageway that was sealed with sediment shortly after it was built in the Middle Bronze Age.
The project, called “A portrait of Tenochtitlan, a 3D reconstruction of the capital of the Aztec Empire”, is the result of 1.5 years of study, in which a team of specialists have used open-source software such as Blender, Gimp, and Darktable, to bring Tenochtitlan back to life how it looked in AD 1518. Visit “A portrait of Tenochtitlan” by Clicking Here
An online survey involving a vast number of adults revealed that after initiating psychedelic use, participants often reduced or stopped their intake of alcohol, antidepressants, and cocaine. Conversely, their consumption of cannabis and tobacco products increased. The study was published in the International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction.
During the Later Stone Age in what is now Namibia, rock artists imbued so much detail into their engravings of human and animal prints that current-day Indigenous trackers could identify which animals' prints they were depicting, as well as the animals' general age and sex. See the study here.
Scientists are calling the Virgin Galactic mission that carried the bones of Australopithecus sediba and Homo naledi to the edge of space a major ethical breach.
NASA commissioned a study team in 2022 to investigate such hard-to-easily-classify reports, and tomorrow, they're revealing the highly anticipated findings at a media briefing
Somewhere between plants and animals lies a group of organisms among the most captivating life forms on Earth: Mushrooms.
An international research team from Spain and France has carried out the chemical and technological analysis of the largest known collection of red and yellow mineral pigments, commonly called ochre, dated to the Middle Stone Age, between 300,000 and 40,000 years ago, and found at Porc-Epic cave, Ethiopia. See the research here.
Explorer Ludovic Slimak has dedicated decades to unearthing the mystery of our prehistoric ancestors. Now he has found a missing piece that radically reshapes our understanding – not just of the Neanderthals but of humanity itself
More than 100 ancient paintings and engravings, thought to be at least 24,000 years old, have been found in a 500-meter-long cave in "Cova Dones" or "Cueva Dones"—a site located in Millares near Valencia in Spain. See the research here.
New research published in Quaternary Science Reviews has investigated how Paleolithic communities (Magdalenians) living in Cova del Parco (Iberian Pre-Pyrenees, southwest Europe) during the Late Pleistocene (16,400–12,700 years before present) may have been affected by the changing landscape in response to climate.
The hidden animals were revealed on cave walls in Spain with 'Magic Eye'-style techniques.
Australian patients with chronic health issues prescribed medical cannabis showed significant improvements in overall health-related quality of life and fatigue in the first three months of use, along with improvements in anxiety, depression, and pain. See the study here.
Ancient rocks excavated from a site inhabited by early humans some 1.4 million years ago may represent attempts at achieving perfect geometry. The research has been published in Royal Society Open Science.
Excavation of an ancient Greek temple has yielded a variety of figurines, possibly offerings to Poseidon.
A team of researchers has just uncovered another striking connection between math and nature: between one of the purest forms of mathematics, number theory, and the mechanisms governing the evolution of life on molecular scales, genetics. See the study here.
In the Arab world, psychedelics are considered “haram,” or forbidden. Haya Al-Hejailan is working to reframe them as medicines.
The study, which was led by researchers at the University of Portsmouth and the University of Montpellier, sheds new light on the evolution of life on our planet and the rise of atmospheric oxygen.
The monument dates to between 4000 and 3000BC and is thought to be the only complete example in Britain.
A new technique analysing modern genetic data suggests that pre-humans survived in a group of only 1,280 individuals. See the paper here.
New research provides evidence that psychedelic experiences are related to “hypersynchrony” in the brain....The study also opened up an exciting avenue for understanding consciousness.
This will be the last Super Blue Moon until 2037.
Bees may be the source of pollen near remains, but evidence still suggests bodies were buried with care. See the research here.
The study, conducted by researchers at New York University’s Langone Center for Psychedelic Medicine and the Centre for Psychedelic Research at Imperial College London, suggests that “co-use of MDMA with psilocybin/LSD may buffer against some aspects of challenging experiences and enhance certain positive experiences”.
Image by: William Rafti (Wiki Commons)
Jujuy is located in what has become known as the "lithium triangle", a stretch of the Andes straddling the tri-border area between Argentina, Bolivia and Chile, which holds the world's biggest reserves of lithium.
The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has a message for young people.
Dreams are one of the most universal yet elusive human experiences...Most people rarely, if ever, realize that they’re dreaming while it’s happening, what’s known as lucid dreaming. But some enthusiasts have cultivated techniques to become self-aware in their sleep and even wrest some control over their dream selves and settings.
Archaeologists have discovered evidence of unique early Neolithic burial practices in Galería del Sílex in Spain, following an analysis of ceramic vessels found with human remains in two pits. The study has been published in Quaternary Science Reviews.
Peruvian archaeologists have uncovered the 3,000-year-old remains of what is believed to be one of the first priests of the ancient north Andean region.
Research led by Complutense University, Madrid, has discovered an array of ancient cave paintings hidden among previously described cave art. In a paper, "Animals hidden in plain sight: stereoscopic recording of Paleolithic rock art at La Pasiega cave, Cantabria," published in Antiquity, the team fills in details missing from previous photographic images.
A new fossil ape from an 8.7-million-year-old site in Türkiye is challenging long-accepted ideas of human origins and adding weight to the theory that the ancestors of African apes and humans evolved in Europe before migrating to Africa between nine and seven million years ago. See the study here.
The team extracted DNA from the samples by adapting a protocol previously used for other porous materials, such as bone. The results are published in Scientific Reports.
A recent case study published in Frontiers in Psychology sought to compare the experiences of a near-death experience (NDE) and an experience induced by the psychedelic drug 5-MeO-DMT.
The find provides a rare glimpse into the role played by sound and dance in ancient societies. See the research here.
When archaeologists recently carried out an excavation at Vinjeøra in southern Trøndelag County, they made a surprising discovery that they had only dreamed of finding.
Studies suggest that H. sapiens last shared a common ancestor with Neanderthals somewhere between 600,000 and 800,000 years ago, though the exact date of the split is debated. Neanderthals arose as a distinct population between 400,000 and 350,000 years ago and went extinct around 40,000 years ago, though exactly why isn't clear.
In a new study, published in August 2023, we sought to understand changes that were happening in California during the last major extinction event at the end of the Pleistocene, a time period known as the Ice Age.
A new study found that giving mice 5-MeO-DMT, a short-acting psychedelic, leads to a long-lasting increase of dendritic spine density in the medial frontal cortex region of their brains... The study was published in Neuropsychopharmacology.
Research led by the Universidad de Alcala, Spain, has revisited Early Neolithic human remains found within the Galería del Sílex cave in Spain's Sierra de Atapuerca cave system. See the paper here.
A new and improved DNA analysis of the famous 'Iceman' mummy suggests this ancient individual is not who we thought he was. The study was published in Cell Genomics.
A team of Australian and Indonesian researchers have found that reflective shell beads, sewn onto clothing and other items, was a common trend across the islands of Alor, Timor, and Kisar. This means there were shared ornament traditions across the region 12,000 years ago. See the research here.
A new study has shown that arithmetic has biological roots and is a natural consequence of how our perception of the world around us is organised. The results explain why arithmetic is true and suggest that mathematics is a realisation in symbols of the fundamental nature and creativity of the mind.
In a study published in Nature Water, the archaeological team describe a network of ceramic water pipes and drainage ditches at the Chinese walled site of Pingliangtai dating back 4,000 years to a time known as the Longshan period.
A big freeze previously unknown to science drove early humans from Europe for 200,000 years, but they adapted and returned, new research shows.
The tantalising theory that a fifth force of nature could exist has been given a boost thanks to unexpected wobbling by a subatomic particle, physicists have revealed.
A new study published in the journal Science by an international team finds that past changes in atmospheric CO2 and corresponding shifts in climate and vegetation played a key role in determining when and where early human species interbred.
A stretch of the Albanian shore of the lake once hosted a settlement of stilt houses some 8,000 years ago, archaeologists believe, making it the oldest lakeside village in Europe discovered to date.
The Deniliquin structure, yet to be further tested by drilling, spans up to 520 kilometres in diameter. This exceeds the size of the near-300km-wide Vredefort impact structure in South Africa, which to date has been considered the world’s largest. See research here.
In the first and only clinical trial of a psychedelic for migraine, Dr. Schindler and colleagues found a roughly 50% reduction in weekly migraine days, as well as significantly reduced attack intensity, for two weeks following administration of a single, low (non-psychedelic) dose of psilocybin. No serious or adverse events were reported. See research here.
In a new paper published in Meteoritics & Planetary Science, researchers take a closer look at the minerals contained within the meteorite, its bulk elemental composition and water content.
Did an extinct ‘small-brained ape-man’ species develop a sophisticated culture millennia before we did?
A bone found in a cave by an international team of anthropologists in France may represent a previously unknown lineage of Homo sapiens. The study is published in the journal Scientific Reports.
Mars may be a dry and barren wasteland now, but new evidence has emerged that this wasn't always the way – and, moreover, that climate conditions changed, perhaps seasonally, in a way that may have been conducive to the emergence of life. See research here.
In 1994, tektites and concentric fault lines in southern Virginia revealed an 85-kilometer-wide impact crater under Chesapeake Bay. Science News reported that “a structure this size would rank as the largest crater in the United States” and would be among the largest on Earth
Archaeologists in Germany have discovered the missing piece of an ice age carving deep in a cave. But the new addition of the ivory carving, originally thought to depict a horse, has actually complicated matters: Now, researchers aren't sure if it portrays a cave lion or a cave bear.
It resembles neither the lineage that split to form Neanderthals, nor Denisovans, nor us, suggesting our current version of the human family tree needs another branch. The study was published in the Journal of Human Evolution.
A Middle Eastern child interred in a stone-lined grave around 9,000 years ago wore an elaborate necklace that illustrates the complexity of social life in an early farming community, researchers say. See study here.
The bottlenose dolphin is thought to have washed up on an ancient shoreline after the last Ice Age. Archaeologists have described the prehistoric discovery in Causewayhead, Stirling, as "the find of a lifetime".