The Universe May Have Never Begun, Physicists Say
In the beginning, there was … well, maybe there was no beginning. Perhaps our Universe has always existed – and a new theory of quantum gravity reveals how that could…
AI Analysis of 100,000 Climate Studies Reveals How Massive The Crisis Already Is
Some problems are so big, you can’t really see them. Climate change is the perfect example. The basics are simple: the climate is heating up due to fossil fuel use.…
Neuroscientists Claim to Have Pinpointed The Brain States Unique to ‘Team Flow’
At some point in life, you have probably enjoyed a ‘flow’ state – when you’re so intensely focused on a task or activity, you experience a strong sense of control,…
Dropping Oxygen Will Eventually Suffocate Most Life on Earth
For now, life is flourishing on our oxygen-rich planet, but Earth wasn’t always that way – and scientists have predicted that, in the future, the atmosphere will revert back to…
Our Need For Water Is Tapping Ancient Underground Wells. How Long Can They Last?
Communities that rely on the Colorado River are facing a water crisis. Lake Mead, the river’s largest reservoir, has fallen to levels not seen since it was created by the…
Mummified Birds in The Atacama Desert Reveal a Truly Dark Side of History
The more we look into the harsh extremes of Chile’s Atacama Desert, the more we find. Phenomena both mystifying and wonderful, occasionally bordering on alien. But in this incredibly dry…
Archaeologists Find a Rare 2,700-Year-Old ‘Luxury’ Toilet in Jerusalem
Archaeologists recently discovered a 2,700-year-old private toilet inside the remains of an ancient royal estate in Jerusalem. It is a rare find, as thousands of years ago pooping in toilets…
Antarctic Ice Reveals Human Impact on The Atmosphere Long Before Industrial Fires
Our planet’s air during the preindustrial period was not quite as pristine as you might think, according to new research out of Antarctica. An analysis of six ice core drillings…
Climate Modelers Win Nobel Physics Prize at Critical Moment in World History
Japanese-American scientist Syukuro Manabe, Klaus Hasselmann of Germany and Giorgio Parisi of Italy on Tuesday won the Nobel Physics Prize for climate models and the understanding of physical systems. The…
UN Warns Over 5 Billion People Could Struggle to Access Water by 2050
More than five billion people could have difficulty accessing water in 2050, the United Nations warned Tuesday, urging leaders to seize the initiative at the COP26 summit. Already in 2018,…
Extreme Heat Exposure in Cities Has Tripled in Just a Few Decades, Scientists Warn
Extreme urban heat exposure has dramatically increased since the early 1980s, with the total exposure tripling over the past 35 years. Today, about 1.7 billion people, nearly one-quarter of the…
US Scientists Win Nobel Prize in Medicine For Pioneering Touch Discoveries
US scientists David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian on Monday won the Nobel Medicine Prize for discoveries on receptors for temperature and touch. The duo’s research, conducted independently of each other…
Giant, Catastrophic Oil Spill in California Ranks as One of The Worst in Decades
A huge oil spill is killing wildlife and threatening California’s beaches on Monday, in what officials said amounted to an “environmental catastrophe”. Birds and fish had begun washing up on…
There’s a Strange Paradox in The Way We Want to Connect With Strangers
Many of us come away from conversations with strangers feeling that the interaction has been awkward and unwanted on both sides. But what if we’re wrong? A new study suggests…
We Might Be Wrong About How Children Understand The Minds of Others at a Young Age
There’s a chance we’re overestimating how much children understand about the minds of others – in fact, we might be expecting too much of kids at too young an age.…
Scary Weather Will Be Inevitable if The Jet Stream Keeps Moving
The polar jet stream circles the northern hemisphere, swirling up to nine miles above our heads like a curvy, ethereal crown on the planet. This band of strong wind separates…
Two Decades of Data Show That Earth Is ‘Dimming’ as The Planet Warms Up
Earth is getting dimmer, researchers have found, and climate change is likely to blame. As the oceans get hotter, they appear to be generating fewer bright clouds, which means less…
This Simple Fix Can Reduce Everyone’s Email Stress, According to a New Study
In this day and age, it’s harder than ever before to disconnect from work. Once a person has signed off for the day, they might feel pressured to reply to…
Magnetic Stimulation Can Help The Brain to Remember, New Evidence Suggests
Research exploring how people forget things appears to have unintentionally stimulated better memory among its participants, a new study suggests. The experiment was originally conducted in 2012 and was supposed…
Engineers at Google’s DeepMind Have Made a Major Advance in Weather ‘Nowcasting’
When it comes to the weather report, it’s not just tomorrow’s weather that meteorologists try to discern. As well as long-term forecasts, weather models are often tasked with predicting meteorological…
Ancient Cave Sealed For 40,000 Years May Have Been Hideout of The Last Neanderthals
A cave chamber sealed off by sand for some 40,000 years has been discovered in Vanguard Cave in Gibraltar – a finding that could reveal more about the Neanderthals who…
Children Born Today Are in For a Life Full of Natural Disasters, Unless We Act Now
Younger generations are going to grow up in a very different world to that of their parents – and through no fault of their own. Compared to babies born in…
Startling Discovery Reveals Mysterious Citadel Hidden in Ancient Maya City
Modern-day imaging technology is able to uncover ancient buildings and structures not visible on the surface, and we just got another excellent example: the discovery of a hidden neighborhood in…
Famous Viking Map of North America Turns Out to Be an Epic Loki-Worthy Deception
The Vinland Map, once thought to be one of the earliest depictions of North America after its discovery by Europeans, has gone from being famous to being infamous: It turns…
DNA Has Finally Revealed The Mysterious Origins of The Ancient Etruscans
DNA evidence has finally ended the debate about where the ancient Etruscans – an ancient civilization whose remains are found in Italy – came from. According to almost 2,000 years…
By 2500, Earth Will Be Alien to Humans if We Don’t Act Now, Scientists Warn
There are many reports based on scientific research that talk about the long-term impacts of climate change – such as rising levels of greenhouse gases, temperatures and sea levels –…
There’s a Pretty Glaring Issue With Tesla’s Autopilot, Says New Study
It’s something that has long been suspected. Now, we have evidence from a new study – once the Autopilot self-driving tech is enabled on Tesla cars, human drivers tend to…
There’s a Reliable Method For Triggering Lucid Dreams, Scientists Have Found
They’re incredible. Amazing. Magical. But perhaps the most fantastic thing about lucid dreams – in which the dreamer becomes aware they’re dreaming – is how realistic they seem. Sadly, only…
These Engineers Have Invented an Entirely New Approach to Recycling Plastic
Our planet and everything that lives on it is buckling under the weight of all the plastic waste we’re producing. The volume of these non-biodegradable materials discarded after use is…
It’s Not ‘Weakness’ to Change Your Mind About Something Like Vaccines. Here’s Why
Culturally, this is an era in which people are held in high esteem when they stick with their beliefs and negatively labeled as “flip-floppers” or “wishy-washy” when they change what…
Parental Burnout in The US Is Among The Highest in The World, And We May Know Why
Nobody ever said parenting was easy, but depending on circumstances, some people can find it much harder than others. In recent years researchers have begun to recognize ‘parental burnout‘ –…
Incredible Fossil Footprints Are The Earliest Known Trace of Humans in North America
A new discovery offers definitive evidence that humans were in North America far earlier than archaeologists previously thought – a whopping 7,000 years earlier. Fossil footprints found on the shore…
Ice Melt at The Poles Is Now Causing Hidden Changes to Earth’s Crust on a Huge Scale
As the polar ice sheets melt, the process is not just raising sea levels – it’s also warping the underlying surface of Earth, a new study reveals, and some of…
Study Discovers Startling Amounts of Microplastics in The Feces of Babies
Microplastics are everywhere. Even what should be untouched wildernesses – the icy plains of Antarctica, the crushing depths of the deepest ocean chasms – has been polluted by our garbage.…
The Epic Span of Early Polynesian Sea Voyages Has Been Mapped in New Genetic Study
Easter Island’s famous megaliths have relatives on islands thousands of miles to the north and west – and so did the people who created them, a study said Wednesday. Research…
This Microchip With Wings Is The Smallest Flying Structure Humans Have Ever Built
Now, perhaps more than ever, engineers and scientists have been taking inspiration from nature when developing new technologies. This is also true for the smallest flying structure humans have built…
A Major Advance in Computing Solves a Complex Math Problem 1 Million Times Faster
Reservoir computing is already one of the most advanced and most powerful types of artificial intelligence that scientists have at their disposal – and now a new study outlines how…
Viral Songs And Infectious Disease Have More in Common Than You’d Think, Study Finds
Catchy songs that ‘go viral’ are downloaded in a way that closely resembles the spread of an actual virus, according to new research out of Great Britain. The data was…
A Giant Volcano Didn’t Stop Ancient Maya From Taking The Ashes And Building a Pyramid
About 1,500 years ago, Maya builders crafted a massive pyramid out of rock that had been ejected by a volcano, in an eruption that was so powerful it chilled the…
We May Finally Know What Caused That Huge Ozone Hole in The Arctic Last Year
The unusually large hole that opened up in the ozone layer over the Arctic last year seems to have been triggered by record-breaking winter temperatures in the North Pacific ocean,…
Hidden Traces of a Massive Ancient City Are Still in Mexico’s Landscape Today
Modern roads and developments share more similarities with ancient urban centers than we often realize – which is certainly the case with the sprawling Teotihuacan settlement, once located around 40…
Mysterious, Never-Before-Seen Signals Picked Up By New Gravitational Wave Detector
A tabletop gravitational wave detector based around a piece of ringing quartz has recorded two mysterious signals in its first 153 days of operation. It’s unclear exactly what these signals…
Mysterious Skeletons of an Unknown People Rewrite The History of Japanese Ancestry
Researchers have rewritten Japanese history after uncovering a third, and previously unknown, group of ancestors that migrated to Japan around 2,000 years ago, of modern-day Japanese populations. Ancient Japan can…
Large-Scale Study Shows The Moon Exerts a Powerful Influence on How We Sleep
Sleep is one of the most vital things a human does, but millions of us don’t do enough of it. Some of the distractions that prevent us from getting enough…
New Study Explains Why Human Languages Share a Lot of The Same Grammar
There are around 7,000 human languages that we know of worldwide, and while they’re all unique, they’re also more similar than you might have realized – particularly when it comes…