Humans

People in Europe were tweeting about a “dry cough” more than usual as early as January 2020, newly analysed data reveal. While social media has played a key role in disseminating health information during the relentless COVID-19 pandemic, the new findings show it has the potential to be useful in other ways, too. Authorities could

The Shís’gi Noow or “sapling fort” was built by the Tlingit people in Alaska at the start of the 19th century: one last physical barrier to advancing Russian forces. Now, thanks to modern-day radar and imaging techniques, it’s been rediscovered. After the pivotal battle there in 1804, which marked the start of six decades of

It was said that all he touched turned to gold. But destiny eventually caught up with the legendary King Midas, and a long-lost chronicle of his ancient downfall appears to have literally surfaced in Turkey. In 2019, archaeologists were investigating an ancient mound site in central Turkey called Türkmen-Karahöyük. The greater region, the Konya Plain,

One was kickstarted by a school kid and her placard; another took flight after a hashtag went viral. Years later, these powerful social movements – demanding action on climate and racial justice – are in full swing, with millions of people raising their voices, fists, and hand-painted posters in support. While subsets of communities have

Deep within, on a cellular scale, your body is in a constant state of activity to keep you alive. Among those processes is the turnover of cells, replacing the cells that die with fresh new ones so that you don’t crumble to bits like a zombie. A new calculation reveals just how intensive that process

Sharing a car with someone is one of the riskiest things you can do without cohabitating, as far as coronavirus transmission goes. While taking a car may feel like a slightly safer alternative compared to public transportation, it’s still a small, enclosed space. Even if all passengers are wearing masks, some small particles can escape from

From advertising to the workplace, it is often assumed that men and women are fundamentally different – from Mars and Venus, respectively. Of course, we all know people who are more androgynous, having a mix of personality traits that are stereotypically considered to be male or female. Importantly, such “psychological androgyny” has long been associated

Bronze Age Europeans may have used rings and blades as an early form of currency, based on a study of objects from 113 different hoards of artefacts – and these objects might even have been standardised in terms of their weight and size to minimise the chances of getting ripped off. There’s no evidence early

Having survived for 5,000 years, the oldest archeological site in the Americas is under threat from squatters claiming the coronavirus pandemic has left them with no other option but to occupy the sacred city. The situation has become so bad that archeologist Ruth Shady, who discovered the Caral site in Peru, has been threatened with

A funerary temple belonging to Queen Nearit has been discovered in the ancient Egyptian burial ground Saqqara next to the pyramid of her husband, pharaoh Teti, who ruled Egypt from around 2323 BCE to 2291 BCE, the Egyptian antiquities ministry said in a statement.  Made of stone, the temple has three mud-brick warehouses on its southeastern

Scientists have identified the traits that may make a person more likely to claim they hear the voices of the dead. According to new research, a predisposition to high levels of absorption in tasks, unusual auditory experiences in childhood, and a high susceptibility to auditory hallucinations all occur more strongly in self-described clairaudient mediums than

Say a red gummy bear has a baby with a yellow gummy bear – what percentage of red and yellow do the parents give to their children? Well, assuming gummy bear genetics works the same way we do, they’ll have one set of chromosomes from their mum and one from their dad – so 50

Curiosity affects everything from our relationships to our education, but it’s not easy to pin down and put under a microscope to study. With the help of Wikipedia though, researchers have now done just, exploring two main types of curiosity. Using Wikipedia browsing as an activity to observe, and a maths technique called graph theory

The oldest-known animal drawing in the world is a 45,500-year-old depiction of a hairy, warty pig on a cave wall in Indonesia, a new study finds. The mulberry colored painting, drawn with the red mineral ochre, shows the profile of what is likely a Sulawesi warty pig (Sus celebensis), a wild stubby-legged beast with facial warts that can

They say the truth is out there, but nobody ever said it would be easy to find. Now, after a search lasting decades, a giant trove of long-classified records held by the CIA in relation to reported UFO activity has finally come to light. This huge public release of what the CIA claims is its

Scattered across the world are a number of bewildering ‘mystery spots’ that appear to defy gravity – places where cars seem to drift uphill, and cyclists struggle to push themselves downhill. Also known as gravity hills, these bizarre natural phenomena can be found in places like Confusion Hill in California and Magnetic Hill in Canada, and

Humans and dogs have come a long, long way together. For tens of thousands of years, as our species hunted, foraged, farmed, and explored, canines have been by our side. Today, while many large predators face endangerment and extinction from human hunting and competition, dogs, which are descended from grey wolves, remain the most prolific

The new year is going to be better. It has to be better. Maybe you’re one of the 74 percent of Americans in one survey who said they planned on hitting the reset button on January 1 and resolving to improve. Those New Year’s resolutions most commonly focus on eating healthier, exercising, losing weight and

A stroll in the city is no walk in the park. A small psychology study suggests urban environments can slow your step and possibly increase your mental load. An amble through nature, on the other hand, appears to ease your mind and quicken your pace. The findings support the idea that natural settings are mentally

The audio on the otherwise shaky body camera footage is unusually clear. As police officers search a handcuffed man who moments before had fired a shot inside a pizza parlor, an officer asks him why he was there. The man says to investigate a pedophile ring. Incredulous, the officer asks again. Another officer chimes in,

Archaeologists claim that they have identified the deadly dance floor where John the Baptist – a preacher who foretold the coming of Jesus - was sentenced to death around CE 29.  The Bible and the ancient writer Flavius Josephus (CE 37-100) both describe how King Herod Antipas, a son of King Herod, had John the Baptist executed. Josephus

While we’ve all lived through the same pandemic the past few months, not all of us have responded to the fallout in the same way.  A recent small study suggests that there are some distinct differences in the way people with ‘dark’ personality traits have reacted to COVID-19 . These dark personality traits include narcissism,

When falling asleep, it’s not unusual to imagine a calm, provincial scene, like a flock of sheep jumping over a fence. Some people with a rare and poorly understood condition find that task nearly impossible. While they can describe what a sheep is and remember what it looks like, they cannot visualise something in their

From daily tooth-brushing to the 11 am coffee, we all have dozens of habits that get us through our daily routine. Some are great – weekly gym visits are often encouraged – others not so much, like smoking a pack a day, or dialling the number of the pizza place way too often. Because we recognise

The way a person talks or types might reveal little clues about their personality.  A meta-analysis of psychological research involving more than 80,000 people has found a small but noticeable link between certain word choices and extraversion, one of the big five personality traits. When talking in person or online, the study found extraverts tend

By now, we’re all abundantly aware that 2020 has been a tough year. Many of us have been indulging in little acts of self-care just to get through it all – whether it’s a scented candle or a nice face mask. But with all the noise and advertising out there, it can be challenging to

Are you looking forward to starting or changing something in 2021? Whatever your New Year’s resolutions, there’s an evidence-based way to make them stick for longer – and it’s all in the phrasing. Rather than telling yourself you’ll stop or avoid doing something, tell yourself you’re going to start doing something instead. For example: a

Although we humans generally have control of our skeletal musculature, there’s at least one we don’t always have a handle on. In the middle ear sits the tensor tympani, and it seems most people are unable to contract it voluntarily. Those that can contract their tensor tympani – a small muscle located above the auditory

With just a handful of days left in this strange beast of a year that will most certainly go down in history books, we thought it would be nice to reflect on the marvellous things scientists still delivered, despite everything. Of course, scientific achievements are usually years in the making. Nevertheless, here’s a round-up of

To the disgust of many of our readers, we have discovered that keeping leeches as pets is actually a thing. And yeah, it’s certainly… a bit different. But in light of humanity’s disconnect with nature, and our concerning lack of knowledge about parasitic creatures, the idea that some of us are nurturing these parasites is also, uh, fascinating. “They’re

A young German pilot said Sunday he traced a giant syringe in the sky as a way of marking the start of Germany’s roll out of vaccines against the coronavirus.  Samy Kramer, a 20-year-old amateur pilot, had carefully plotted out the route he needed to take in advance in order to create the effect in

A 2,000-year-old fast-food stall unearthed from the ash of Pompeii has given researchers new clues about the snacking habits of the ancient Romans.  The ornate snack bar counter, decorated with polychrome patterns and frozen by volcanic ash, was partially exhumed last year but archaeologists extended work on the site to reveal it in its full

It’s been one heck of a year, but we’re on the home stretch. Now, let’s celebrate by looking at something very strange that seems to make no sense whatsoever to my poor befuddled brain. What we have here is the winner of this year’s Best Illusion of the Year Contest for 2020, and it is

For Thai rescue worker Mana Srivate, performing resuscitation has been part of his job for 26 years. A few days ago, things went down a little differently – he achieved his first successful resuscitation of a baby elephant. “When the baby elephant [started] to move, I almost cried,” Mana told Reuters. The young Indian elephant (Elephas

In the ancient past, Europe was a very different place – once upon a time, Britain was yet tethered to the European continent. Only millennia later, when that connection had long been severed, did modern humans start to rediscover ancient artefacts of stone age peoples that once dwelled in lands now hidden below the waves.

While many of us might long to just sleep through this entire winter, humans – unlike a lot of other mammals – don’t have the capacity to hibernate. But a newly published study has investigated if early humans had this ability at some point. The results – although preliminary – surprisingly suggest that they did,

The skulls of two baboons, mummified more than 3,000 years ago, have helped narrow down the location of a fabled “land of plenty”, which once supplied ancient Egypt with gold, frankincense, myrrh and monkeys. Known as the land of Punt, or ‘God’s land’, this faraway fantastical realm may have actually existed outside its renowned mythology,

Like listening to music, something is calming about being outdoors, and it might have to do with how we see and perceive natural patterns. When the shape of something is repeated at ever smaller scales, like the branching of a tree, the spiral of a shell, or the fingers of a river, studies have shown

How much are you conscious of right now? Are you conscious of just the words in the centre of your visual field or all the words surrounding it? We tend to assume that our visual consciousness gives us a rich and detailed picture of the entire scene in front of us. The truth is very

Humans have been trying to ‘let it go’ long before Queen Elsa began singing in her icy isolation. Now that many in the world are facing their longer quarantines, it’s become much harder to stop ruminating on all our fresh concerns. A new psychology study has come at just the right time. Brain imaging and

In the event of a zombie apocalypse, it’s imperative that you have a plan. If you’re influenced by the movies, then you might be inclined to take your chances and head for the nearest pub or shopping mall in order to outwit a growing horde of bloodthirsty zombies.  Your average shopping mall is equipped with all

Your dog may be the apple of your eye, but let’s be honest: she is an animal, with her own instincts and idiosyncrasies, and there are going to be times when she makes you want to tear your hair out. However much you want to, however, new research suggests that you should never yell at

An archaeological site in northeast Spain holds one of the oldest-known Muslim cemeteries in the country, with the discovery of 433 graves, some dating back to the first 100 years of the Islamic conquest of the Iberian Peninsula.  The finds confirm that the region, along the frontier between the warring Islamic and Christian worlds in

One of only three artefacts ever recovered from inside Egypt’s Great Pyramid has been found in a misplaced cigar tin in a Scottish university collection, academics revealed on Wednesday. The fragment of cedar wood, which has been found to date back 5,000 years to the building of the pyramid at Giza, was first discovered in

Eight years and one month ago, a Master of Fine Art student at the University of Hertfordshire fitted a beer can with photographic paper and created a low-tech pinhole camera. She then placed the can on a telescope at the university’s Bayfordbury Observatory and eventually forgot about the project.  Now, the resulting photograph has been rediscovered

A team of cryptography enthusiasts announced Friday they had successfully cracked one of the coded messages sent over 50 years ago by the “Zodiac Killer,” who terrorized northern California in the late 1960s and remains unidentified. The message was sent in November 1969 to the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper by the alleged serial killer, its

Mexican archaeologists said Friday they had found remains of 119 more people, including women and several children, in a centuries-old Aztec “tower of skulls” in the heart of the capital. The new discovery was announced after an eastern section of the Huei Tzompantli was uncovered along with the outer facade, five years after the northeastern

Imagine being a potato farmer in Ethiopia, Kenya, or Nigeria. On a small piece of land, which you depend on for food and income, you have spent months planting, weeding, and watering. Up to twice a week, you manually spray your field, sometimes with limited equipment, or hire someone to do it, spending much of