Humans

What makes one person more creative than another? Creativity is hard to define and perhaps even more difficult to measure, but scientists think they’ve come up with a remarkably simple way of assessing at least one aspect of it. It’s a test that you can take yourself in a couple of minutes, and it works

In the hands of a trained archeologist, a well-preserved grave can be read like an obituary, detailing the health, death, travels and even fortunes of a life long gone. Advances in technology have been pushing the limits on how well-preserved a body needs to be in order for experts to extract a biography. In the case

Archaeologists have discovered the 2,200-year-old wreck of an ancient Egyptian ship that sank after being struck with giant blocks from the famous temple of Amun. The so-called galley, along with a burial ground, were discovered beneath the Mediterranean Sea in Thonis-Heracleion, a city that fell into the water long ago. The ship is called a

In a strange turn of events, researchers in Mexico have announced they plan to rebury an unusual archaeological monument found in the outskirts of Mexico City – covering up an important historical discovery until some unknown time in the future. The discovery in question is a tunnel built centuries ago as part of the Albarradón

In 2018, a message in a bottle dating back to 1886 – 132 years ago – was found half-buried in the sand of a Western Australian beach. According to its contents, it spent more than a century swimming around, before it was discovered nearly 950 kilometres (590 miles) from where it was thrown off a

Spanish prison authorities were baffled after a prisoner who was declared dead by three separate doctors woke up in the morgue – just hours before his own autopsy was set to commence. The prisoner, then-29-year-old Gonzalo Montoya Jiménez, was found unresponsive in his cell during a morning roll call on 7 January 2018 and had

One of the most important open questions in science is how our consciousness is established. In the 1990s, long before winning the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics for his prediction of black holes, physicist Roger Penrose teamed up with anesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff to propose an ambitious answer. They claimed that the brain’s neuronal system forms

Scientists on Thursday unveiled the most exhaustive database yet of the proteins that form the building blocks of life, in a breakthrough observers said would “fundamentally change biological research”. Every cell in every living organism is triggered to perform its function by proteins that deliver constant instructions to maintain health and ward off infection. Unlike

Average life expectancy in the US plummeted by a year and a half in 2020 – the largest single-year decline since World War II, according to a new report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Life expectancy went from nearly 79 years in 2019 to just over 77 years in 2020, the report found.

The Tollund Man is one of the most famous ‘bog bodies’ ever discovered in northern Europe. Even though the 30- to 40-year-old human was buried in a bog more than 2,400 years ago, the acidic peat has mummified his body to a remarkable degree, preserving his hair, brain, skin, nails, and intestines – even the

At the bottom of the Treporti Channel, meters beneath the waves of the Venetian Lagoon, a series of surprising ancient structures has just been uncovered. Aligned for a distance of around 1,200 meters (3,937 feet), they suggest that, once upon a time, before sea levels rose and flooded the area, a Roman-era road stretched across

Once early humans figured out how to tame a wild flame – to cook food, warm the camp, extend daylight, and keep predators away – some scientists think the skill spread like wildfire. If they’re right, it means early human populations right across Africa, Europe, and Asia were trading knowledge at least 400,000 years ago.

By now you might have heard the factoid that modern humans share a pretty large chunk of our genomes with bananas. But delving down much deeper, how much of our genome is uniquely Homo sapiens. A new study has suggested that number could be as small as 1.5 percent, with the rest being shared with our

After an impressive start, vaccination rates in the United States have begun to plateau, even though there’s more than enough medicine to go around and a dangerous variant on the loose. If the nation is to reach President Biden’s goal of vaccinating 70 percent of the public, some researchers say we need to start appealing

Many people suffer from acne during puberty and adulthood. It is often said that some foods, like chocolate, can aggravate acne. Is there any truth to this – can diet really affect acne? We asked five experts in dermatology, acne, and microbiology if diet can make acne worse; here is what they said. What is acne?

A cup of mud that has been buried beneath the floor of a cave for millennia has just yielded up the genome of an ancient human. Analysis reveals traces of a woman who lived 25,000 years ago, before the last Ice Age; and, although we don’t know much about her, she represents a significant scientific

In a time rife with disasters, when more people than ever can find an audience online, conspiracy theories seem to be growing more outrageous by the day. We’re also more prone to believing such things under heightened stress, which is unfortunate given how damaging many of these ideas are proving to our democracies and each

In our daily lives, we spend a lot more time tapping at a screen and typing on a keyboard than writing with pencil and pen, so does handwriting tuition still offer anything useful? Absolutely, according to a new study. Researchers tasked 42 adult volunteers with learning the Arabic alphabet from scratch: some through writing it

A rare group of humans known as “superagers” can grow up without their minds growing old. Even in their 60s, 70s, and 80s, a lucky few maintain incredibly youthful memories, recalling new experiences, events, and situations just as well as people decades younger. New research now suggests that’s because their brains have somehow resisted the

We know that our minds can imagine faces everywhere there’s a hint of two eyes and a nose – from cloud formations to car bonnets to plug sockets – and it’s technically known as face pareidolia. A new study gives us insight into what’s actually going on in the brain when this happens. Scientists wanted

Thousands of medieval Islamic tombs in eastern Sudan were arranged in hard-to-detect patterns, with sacred “parent” tombs hosting subclusters of emanating burials, according to archaeologists who studied the funerary monuments with a method designed for cosmology.  The team used satellite imagery to identify the locations of more than 10,000 monuments in the Kassala region of eastern

Human poop can reveal more than you might think, even when it’s really, really old. In a new study of a Central American Maya civilization, samples of ancient feces have shown how the size of this community varied significantly in response to contemporary climate change. Researchers identified four distinct periods of population size shift as

For four years between 2015 and 2019, roughly 2,500 Icelanders were involved in two major experiments to see how a shorter working week would affect productivity. Now the results are in – and the experiments seem to have been a resounding success. Some key points: reducing a 40-hour working week to 35 or 36 hours

For many people, summer vacation can’t come soon enough – especially for the half of Americans who canceled their summer plans last year due to the pandemic. But when a vacation approaches, do you ever get the feeling that it’s almost over before it starts? If so, you’re not alone. In some recent studies Gabriela

Seven Viking tombs holding well-preserved skeletons, including possible twin infants, have been discovered in the Swedish town of Sigtuna.  The archaeologists discovered the 1,000-year-old remains of eight people – four adults and four children – inside the tombs; they were likely Vikings who had converted to Christianity. “The Christian character of the now-excavated graves is obvious because

As humans, we like to think we have some pretty unique traits in the animal kingdom. Language enables us to communicate efficiently with one another. Culture preserves and accumulates knowledge through generations. Technology and tools help us solve problems. Symbols and art reveal clues about our complex experiences.  A growing body of evidence suggests the

Scientists are continually discovering more about how we pick up language from the earliest ages, and a new study looks specifically at how very young children integrate different sources of information to learn new words. Those sources can be everything from whether or not they’ve seen an object before (which points to whether or not

How does the human brain keep track of the order of events in a sequence? New research suggests that ‘time cells’ – neurons in the hippocampus thought to represent temporal information – could be the glue that sticks our memories together in the right sequence so that we can properly recall the correct order in

To go to the edge of death and back again is a journey few people take so much remains a mystery about near-death experiences. Now new research suggests that some near-death experiences may be related to an animalistic survival strategy called thanatosis, where creatures and critters play dead or feign death to evade threatening predators.

It’s easy to get distracted – whether you’re daydreaming about a special someone while you should be working, or completely going blank and just taking a brain break. Now, scientists have gained a better idea of what actually happens in our brains when we ‘zone out’, and it looks a lot like a part of

A wooden stick carved into the shape of a snake dating back about 4,400 years has been discovered by a lake in southwest Finland. The stick may have been used for mystical purposes by a shaman. “I have seen many extraordinary things in my work as a wetland archaeologist, but the discovery of this figurine

Scientists have discovered a unique form of cell messaging occurring in the human brain that’s not been seen before. Excitingly, the discovery hints that our brains might be even more powerful units of computation than we realized. Early last year, researchers from institutes in Germany and Greece reported a mechanism in the brain’s outer cortical cells

In 1933 a mysterious fossil skull was discovered near Harbin City in the Heilongjiang province of north-eastern China. Despite being nearly perfectly preserved – with square eye sockets, thick brow ridges and large teeth – nobody could work out exactly what it was. The skull is much bigger than that of Homo sapiens and other

Many of us hang on to keepsakes from loved ones who have died, and new research suggests that this habit is deeply human – and thousands of years old. The newly published study on this subject focuses on ‘deliberately deposited objects’ or ‘problematic stuff’ – items dug up by archaeologists that wouldn’t normally be there

For most of us, hair naturally loses pigment as we get older. We often think that stress may also play a role, but until now, that hasn’t actually been demonstrated in humans;  a new study brings some evidence to the table. Gray and white hair is typically caused by the pigment cells in our hair

More than 120,000 years ago in the Levant, Homo sapiens lived side-by-side with a type of ancient human we didn’t know about – until now. That’s according to new fossil evidence of this human uncovered by archaeologists – fragments of ancient skull and jaw bones, and teeth, which seem to fit both Neanderthal and Homo

More than half of all buildings in the United States are situated in hazardous hotspots, prone to wildfires, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, and earthquakes, according to new research. Areas vulnerable to such natural disasters make up only one-third of the US mainland, and yet most modern development to date has occurred in these very spots. In

Consider the statements below. What do they describe? A trip on psychedelics? A dream? I felt I could reach through the screen to get to another place. Lasers became entire fans of light sweeping around, and then it felt as if the screen began to expand. I saw old stone buildings … like a castle

The risk of death from an encounter with a shark may be grossly exaggerated in popular culture, but that’s likely small consolation to a man who lived and died 3,000 years ago. His remains now represent the oldest known shark victim ever found. According to an analysis of his bones, the man had a particularly

Over 3.5 million dead and counting. Long-term health problems, livelihoods destroyed and a long way yet to go. This is the age of COVID-19. Was it simply a natural disaster, part of living in a fast-paced, globalized world? Or can we identify preventable mistakes? The key is the term “natural disaster“: it’s a misnomer. Disasters

Tens of thousands of years ago, humans lived in and explored caves in very different ways to how we do it today. They may not have owned modern flashlights, but it doesn’t mean they dwelled in complete darkness. To try and learn more about ancient cave-dwelling life – from the painting of rock art to

They say death and taxes are the only sure things in life, but is the former really so absolute and inescapable? After all, with considerable gains in human life expectancy, and scientists discovering new ways to reverse aging and potentially extend human lifespans, one could be forgiven for thinking that the legendary elixir of immortality

Fear is a common response to darkness, especially in children, and now scientists think they might have figured out the brain mechanisms behind it,  mechanisms that work in a couple of areas of the brain in particular. The amygdala section of the brain is responsible for processing emotion and regulating our fear response, and a

When the Black Death ravaged Europe midway through the 14th century, it wiped out around half of the population with deaths so swift, people had to bury countless victims in mass graves. At least that’s the story archaeological remains have told us until now. Researchers have just unearthed new evidence suggesting mass burials are only

Getting rid of hiccups is no easy feat. Once your diaphragm starts involuntarily spasming, there’s little you can do to stop the ensuing “hupps” and “hics” other than wait it out. If you want to speed up the process, you can always try holding your breath, drinking upside down, sucking on a lemon, or eating

Despite us having mapped and categorized so much of mammal biology already, there are still new surprises lying in wait. Now, scientists have found two new types of glia – a type of support cell – in mouse brains. Glial cells are usually thought of as the support act in the brain and the spinal cord, adding

The novel coronavirus may have already arrived in the US by late December 2019, adding to the evidence that the virus was already lurking here at least a month before the country’s first reported case, according to a new study. The study researchers analyzed more than 24,000 blood samples collected in the US from January 2 to

The main signs of COVID-19 are fever, a cough, fatigue and a loss of your sense of taste and smell. Signs of COVID-19 in the skin have been noted too. But there’s another part of the body where the virus appears to have an impact: the fingernails. Following a COVID-19 infection, for a small number