The human face is unique yet universal, mechanical yet expressive, modern yet ancient. For over 4 million years, our features have slowly morphed into what we see today in the mirror, a brief stop on the way to who knows what.   From early hominins to modern Homo sapiens, a new review written by leading

When severe weather threatens, meteorologists use maps to show where storms are located and where they’re headed. They want their audiences to know if they’re in the path of the storm.   But research has shown a substantial percentage of people can’t place themselves on a map, a potential problem if a tornado or violent

A deep-rooted preference for sons over daughters has skewed the world’s sex ratios more than we thought.  A massive five-year analysis has found that since 1970, sex-selective abortions in a dozen countries have resulted in 23 million ‘missing’ girls.   These are women that were never born, and yet today, their absence is palpable, especially

Two incredible tombs in Egypt have been discovered in such an exceptional state of preservation that even the murals on the walls have retained their dazzling hues. One of the tombs is in the Akhmim necropolis in the province of Sohag – discovered because a gang of tomb robbers carrying out an illegal excavation was

Working on an oil rig, hundreds of kilometres out to sea, things can get a bit lonely. Visitors of any sort are unusual. Those on four legs even more so. Last Friday, workers on a Chevron oil rig in Thailand were shocked to discover a lost dog, swimming in the ocean 220 kilometres from the

Britain was something of a late bloomer as far as the Neolithic Revolution goes. While Europe sweated it out growing crops and dragging stones into circles, communities over the channel were still happily foraging and hunting for food.   An analysis of ancient remains by an international team of researchers has filled in missing details

The “over versus under” toilet paper argument has been waged in bathrooms everywhere since it was first invented. Plenty of space online in the form of polls and listicles has been dedicated to the proper way to orient our toilet paper.   The subject even has its own section on Wikipedia filled with arguments for

An archaeological survey in Oxfordshire, England has produced another macabre mystery: 26 ancient skeletons in burial pits, suspected to be around 3,000 years old, dating back to the Iron Age before the Roman occupation of Britain.   What makes the find even more intriguing is evidence suggesting the pits were used for ritual burials. The

In his 89 years of life, Dutch physician Jan Karbaat crowned himself “a pioneer in the field of fertilisation”. Today, his reputation is anything but. Last week, DNA tests confirmed what 49 adults have long suspected. Decades ago, when each of their mothers had sought treatment from Karbaat, the fertility doctor had impregnated them not

In a bid to learn more about the way the human brain develops, scientists in China have added a human brain gene to the genome of rhesus monkeys. It’s called MC HP 1, or microcephalin, and it’s involved in regulating the foetal growth of the brain.   The addition does seem to have made the

Singer-songwriter Ariana Grande has posted images on Instagram showing what she suggests is a scan of her brain after a battle with post-traumatic stress disorder. Grande, who has been open about how she has struggled with PTSD symptoms since a 2017 attack at her concert in Manchester, England, shared her brain scans Thursday in Instagram Stories.  

Tattoos provide unusual snapshots, frozen in time, of a person’s life. Children, immortalized on a bicep tattoo, grow up. Quotations once considered profound may lose meaning after years resting on someone’s ribcage.   And QR codes linking to YouTube footage of a favorite sports team kicking ass may suddenly stop working after several hours. At least,

When we study ancient societies, it can sometimes be difficult to tell who fulfilled which of the various day-to-day roles. For Ancient Egypt, we have a wealth of information, including pictorial records along with sculptures and figurines, buried with the deceased so they could have workers in the afterlife.   But these depictions can be

Human societies are so prosperous mostly because of how altruistic we are. Unlike other animals, people cooperate even with complete strangers. We share knowledge on Wikipedia, we show up to vote, and we work together to responsibly manage natural resources.   But where do these cooperative skills come from and why don’t our selfish instincts

Katherine Bouman had a secret: An algorithm she’d developed had stitched together a picture of a black hole. She told nobody except her colleagues. Until today. That’s when Event Horizon Telescope team, of which Bouman is a member, unveiled the first image of a black hole.   Bouman, 29, a postdoctoral researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian

The idea of balancing forces comes up again and again in our society, from the idea of yin and yang to any one of the growing number of Star Wars movies. Now scientists have identified three key positive motivations that drive us, and they’re calling it the Light Triad.   There’s already a widely recognised

Researchers have spotted a miniature stomach, duodenum, and small intestine hidden among the cells of lung tumor samples. Tumors are notoriously mixed up; cells from one part often express different genes and adopt different sizes and shapes than cells from another part of that same tumor. This discovery back in 2018 was still a surprise,

Linus Torvalds, the Linux creator who’s himself known for angry tirades, said that if he could fix one thing about the internet, it would be modern social media — a flame-spitting recrimination by the inventor of the software that keeps much of the social web running.   “I absolutely detest modern media — Twitter, Facebook,

The bronze weapons of the famous Terracotta Army in China have been remarkably well preserved over the last 2,000 or so years. So well preserved, in fact, that up until now there have been hypotheses that ancient China had some kind of high-tech preservation technique that kept them in such good condition. Now scientists think

A family pet is being nursed back to health after it was found abandoned, malnourished and living in “deplorable” conditions, which had led to disease, authorities said. Authorities said the animal was discovered in a vacated home last month in Wilmington, a port city in North Carolina.   The pet? A freshwater fish. The former

The scientific method cannot be bought. But that hasn’t stopped some publishers from trying. By preying on up-and-coming scientists who are desperate to publish or perish, these so-called predatory journals will print just anything for the right price.   It’s a modern threat to the reliability of scientific research, and the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC)

By implanting transparent skulls into mice, scientists think they may be able to glean new insights into how the brain works as a whole – research that could lead to new treatments for Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and other brain disorders.   “This new device allows us to look at the brain activity at the smallest level zooming in on specific neurons

The US government has ended its 30-year practice of breeding and then killing lab kittens used as vessels to harvest parasites. Over 3,000 kittens were bred by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) for the sole reason of being infected with a parasite called Toxoplasma gondii (T.gondii,) activists from the White Coat Project said in May

After five decades of intense and expensive policing, the United States’ so-called ‘war on drugs’ has only created a bigger problem, a new study has found. The research is based on a unique geographic model, called NarcoLogic, that was designed to figure out how cocaine smuggling networks have adapted to US drug interception over the years.

A mathematician in the UK has found the penultimate solution to a fiendish number problem that’s puzzled the world for centuries, if not even longer. Researcher Andrew Booker, who studies pure mathematics at the University of Bristol, discovered a new solution to a famous Diophantine equation involving the sums of three cubes.   The problem,

Nobody likes a know-it-all, but new research shows that people who are able to admit that their own knowledge and views might not be correct, are actually more knowledgeable. The new study, led by first author and psychologist Elizabeth J. Krumrei-Mancuso from Pepperdine University, examines the concept of intellectual humility, which can be characterised as

Hundreds of years ago, the west coast of South America was ruled by the Incas – a mysterious empire considered to be the most elaborate society to exist in the Americas before the arrival of Columbus. This is not their story.   For long before the Incas held dominion over the sweeping lands stretching from

Have you reached the right time in your relationship to move in with your significant other? Or even get married? A mesmerising new data visualisation can help you see how your relationship timeline matches up with both modern couples and those from the 1970s.   Put together by statistician Nathan Yau based on 3,510 responses

Their bones were discovered in a cave in Southeastern France in the 1990s. All up, six Neanderthals: two adults, two adolescents, and two children. Across Europe, there are over 200 sites that feature the ancient remains of Neanderthals such as these, but few of them tell the same grisly story this cave contains, according to

When it comes to protecting yourself from mosquitoes at your next garden party, there might be one deterrent you’re not thinking of – blasting Skrillex’s Scary Monsters and Nice Spirits at full volume all night.   You might annoy everyone present, but according to researchers in Malaysia and Thailand, it works as a bizarre form

In February, Arifa Sultana, 20, gave birth to a baby boy. Then, 26 days later, she gave birth again to a set of twins, The Guardian reported. According to the outlet, Sultana has a second uterus, a condition also known as uterus didelphys.   According to Scientific American, about one in 2,000 people have a

The share of US adults reporting no sex in the past year reached an all-time high in 2018, underscoring a three-decade trend line marked by an aging population and higher numbers of unattached people.   But among the 23 percent of adults – or nearly 1 in 4 – who spent the year in a

A grave dating back to early medieval Italy is a sad testament to the horrors of medicine in the Dark Ages. The skeletal remains of a young woman were found with the skeleton of a foetus between her thighs – and a hole in her skull researchers have determined was likely the result of a

These days we have more information at our fingertips than ever before, so it’s a real puzzle why so many people insist on rejecting the facts. Maybe the answer is: we don’t know how a fact comes to be.   A new survey from the Pew Research Center has found that many Americans cannot recognise

When a person dies, cremation is an increasingly popular option. The practice eclipsed burials in the US in 2015 and is expected to make up more than half of all body disposals by 2020, according to the Cremation Association of North America.   But instead of storing a loved one’s cremains in an urn or

Feeling down in the dumps? If you want to stop wallowing in your own misery, new research suggests that the best method is to stop focusing on yourself and think kind thoughts about other people instead.   Yes, it sounds like the PSA at the end of a children’s show, but among the methods tested

By now, you may have already seen some of the ‘noisy GIFs’ floating around the internet. They don’t actually contain any sounds, but plenty of people seem to nonetheless be able to ‘hear’ the noise produced in the image.   The skipping powerlines is definitely the most popular one we’ve seen, but you might also be

Although we’ve all enjoyed the odd energy drink, a beverage known as Power Natural High Energy Drink SX might give you more of a kick than you expect. Zambian authorities have just banned the drink after tests showed it was spiked with sildenafil citrate – a medication better known as Viagra.   A few months

A young Colombian child by the name of Itzamara Vega already has the whole world talking about her, and she was only born in February.  At just 35 weeks of age, still nestled in her mother’s womb, Itzamara was diagnosed with an incredibly rare condition – one that’s been recorded less than two hundred times.  

A science teacher from a remote village in Kenya has won a US$1 million global prize recognising and celebrating the impact and importance of the world’s best educators. Peter Tabichi, a maths and physics teacher from Kenya’s famine-prone Rift Valley, was selected out of 10,000 teachers from almost 180 countries to win the Varkey Foundation

For a while now, scientists have been debating what to do with one of the most famous tools used to describe scientific certainty, the concept of ‘statistical significance’. Some think it’s fine as is. Others want to make it smaller, while yet others argue in favour of ditching it altogether.   Assuming we did bite

As we humans grow older and wiser, it’s not unusual to feel as if time were whizzing by, quietly gathering speed with every year. Mechanical engineer Adrian Bejan from Duke University now thinks he has figured out why, and just like ageing, he suspects the experience is both universal and inescapable.   Adhering to the physical

In 1869, a Siberian called Dmitri Mendeleev presented a brand new version of the periodic table of elements to his peers at the Russian Chemical Society. He had tabulated the elements in order of their atomic weight, forming the basis for a fascinating chart that revealed patterns amongst the primary building blocks of matter. It’s been

Nobody ever said having a brother was easy, but for girls who start life by sharing a womb with a male twin, the consequences can be drastically life-altering, scientists say. According to the largest study of its kind, women who share their mother’s womb with a twin brother end up being less likely to graduate

Do human beings have a magnetic sense? Biologists know other animals do. They think it helps creatures including bees, turtles and birds navigate through the world. Scientists have tried to investigate whether humans belong on the list of magnetically sensitive organisms. For decades, there’s been a back-and-forth between positive reports and failures to demonstrate the

How exactly do our brains sort between the five taste groups: sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami? We’ve now got a much better idea, thanks to research that has pinned down where in the brain this taste processing happens.   Step forward: the insular cortex. Already thought to be responsible for everything from motor control

A sunken ship found in the Nile river may have lain undisturbed for over 2,500 years, but now it is finally ponying up its secrets. Scientists think that this ship has revealed a structure whose existence has been debated for centuries.   In fragment 2.96 of Herodotus’ Histories, published around 450 BCE, the Ancient Greek historian

Birth order, according to conventional wisdom, molds personality: Firstborn children, secure with their place in the family and expected to be the mature ones, grow up to be intellectual, responsible and conformist.   Younger siblings work harder to get their parents’ attention, take more risks and become creative rebels. That’s the central idea in psychologist