If you’ve ever thought your poo is just a bunch of dead cells, think again. Most of it is alive, teeming with billions of microbes. Here’s what studies in healthy adults reveal makes up our poo.   Water Our faeces is largely (75 percent) made up of water, although this differs from person to person.

Humanity’s artistic heritage just got a new historical milestone. In a cave wall deep in the forests of the isle of Borneo, archaeologists have just confirmed that a depiction of some sort of cow is the world’s oldest known figurative piece of art.   It dates back to between 40,000 and 52,000 years ago, during

Thanks to the way research is conducted, our perception of human psychology is based largely on subjects who are largely western, educated, industrialised, rich, and democratic. Which is a little… WEIRD.   UC Santa Barbara anthropologist Michael Gurven argues this has to change, and has turned to an isolated indigenous population in the Bolivian Amazon

Sam Ballard swallowed the slug on a dare. The young rugby player from Sydney was a “larrikin” – a “rough-and-tumble” free spirit, his mother said. So when the creature crawled across a table at a party in 2010 and his buddies dared him to eat it, her son accepted the challenge, she said.   “Twenty-year-old

Somewhere on the bottom of the world, 33-year-old Colin O’Brady is readying for a task that no human has successfully accomplished. He’s about to travel 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometres) across Antarctica alone, without any resupply support.   Everyone who has ever attempted that solo journey has either given up or died. “This is something that

You might be pretty distracted by the news of the world this week. You might not want to read any news at all, although we always think that science is a safe exception. Either way, since you’re here already, we’ve prepared an easy and shareable wrap of last week’s discoveries in science.   If you’d

Explaining consciousness is one of the hardest problems in science and philosophy. Recent neuroscientific discoveries suggest that a solution could be within reach – but grasping it will mean rethinking some familiar ideas.   Consciousness, I argue in a new paper, may be caused by the way the brain generates loops of energetic feedback, similar

When your old Aunt Petunia passes away, there’s a good chance her body will either be reduced to ash inside a purpose-built kiln or buried in an expensive (but not too expensive) wooden box next to the decaying remains of Uncle Harold.   If only she’d lived in another time, or another place, things could

The pyramids of Egypt are an architectural marvel. Yet, made up as they are of blocks that averaged 2.3 metric tonnes (in the case of the great pyramid), exactly how the ancient Egyptians constructed them thousands of years ago remains somewhat of a mystery.   A new archaeological discovery may, however, shed some light on how

Neanderthals are often depicted as barrel-chested, hunched-over cavemen, but a close inspection of their fossils is telling a different story. For the first time, an international team of researchers has reconstructed the ribcage and upper spine of a Neanderthal man who died roughly 60,000 years ago.   The findings suggest that contrary to popular images,

You might not realize it, but every time you stand up, your body is working behind the scenes to stop you from fainting. Due to the sudden drop in blood pressure, special neurons called baroreceptors swing into action to compensate – and scientists just figured out more about how they operate.   Considering the details

Millions of people around the world are affected by arachnophobia – the unreasonable fear of spiders, which evidence suggests could be an innate human response embedded by evolution inside the brain.   But while the fear may be a relic of an ancient survival mechanism, the anxiety it provokes is something most arachnophobes today would

At its peak, the ancient city of Teotihuacán in what we now know as Mexico boasted an estimated 125,000 inhabitants, making it one of the busiest hubs of the old world. Nobody knows for sure where that thriving populace disappeared to, but the discovery of a secret tunnel and chamber buried beneath the city’s Pyramid

Disney has something of a cult following, so it shouldn’t be much of a surprise that some people want to stay in the entertainment giant’s theme parks… forever. As a report in the Wall Street Journal has just confirmed, some people really try to do that – by having loved ones scatter their cremains.  

The Best Illusions of the Year competition is nothing to sneeze at – every year a group of experts (along with internet users) vote for the most interesting and mind-melting illusions, submitted from all over the world.   And this year is no exception; we have everything from trippy snakes to a three-way ambiguous object.

Chocolate is not a new thing. The delicious, addictive treat we know today has long been traced to the ancient peoples of Central America, as far back as 4,000 years ago. But new research indicates chocolate’s origin story is actually far, far older than this – and suggests it was domesticated somewhere else entirely, south

Deep in the enormous citadel of an ancient Peruvian culture, archaeologists have uncovered a corridor containing 19 mysterious black wooden statues. Some are wearing masks of clay, tucked into special alcoves that line the walls. The eerie line-up was discovered in the ruins of the great Chimú culture capital city of Chan Chan, which is

As beautiful and unspoilt as the Antarctic wilderness is, it can also be very lonely (unless you’re a penguin). After news of a researcher at the Bellingshausen Station on King George Island allegedly stabbing and injuring a colleague, we wonder if cabin fever got the better of the team working there.    The injured man was

For as long as Buttermilk Creek has wound its way through Texas Hill Country, its spring-fed waters have carved through the region’s dark, dense clays, cutting away layers of earth to expose the rock – and the history – below.   Here, archaeologists have uncovered evidence of a human settlement stretching back as far as

Ending a romantic relationship is never easy, and there’s something about a bad relationship that makes it especially hard to break off. Researchers are still not entirely sure what that “something” is, but a new study suggests it may be a curious sign of altruism.   You might assume people who stay in an unhappy relationship

One of the most precious archaeology finds in human history has survived the devastating fire that tore through the National Museum of Brazil in early September. The skull of Luzia is believed to be one of the oldest human remains ever recovered in the Americas.   It is also one of the museum’s most prized possessions;

Some people like to jump out of aeroplanes. Others like to surf down the side of an active volcano on a wooden board. And some people, apparently, seem happy to replicate the most cursed sea journey in our recent collective memory: the voyage of the Titanic.   When it embarked on its maiden voyage from

Four years after a mummified torso decorated with unique tattoos was uncovered in a Luxor tomb, Egyptian authorities have officially confirmed the remains once belonged to a highly respected religious figure who died in her late twenties or early thirties.   The unusual remains represent an early example of complex religious tattoos in ancient Egypt,

A team of archaeologists has discovered what’s thought to be the oldest intact shipwreck ever found, some 2,000 metres (1.2 miles) under the waters of the Black Sea. The amazingly preserved wreck is estimated to be around 2,400 years old.   Some 23 metres (75 feet) long, the sunken ship looks to be ancient Greek

After nine years of construction and controversy, China is set to officially unveil the world’s longest sea bridge on Tuesday at a ceremony in Hong Kong. At more than 34 miles (54 kilometres) long, the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge is part of a master plan to create a global science and technology hub by connecting two

They were treasured as five weathered survivors of the Dead Sea Scrolls: priceless fragments of a sacred scripture so ancient, it’s older than the Old Testament. The only problem is they’re fakes. In a gigantic blunder, the US$500 million Museum of the Bible in Washington, DC has revealed five of its highly coveted Dead Sea

Humans are a scared bunch. Everything from spiders, to blood and guts can set us off, as Halloween every year reminds us. But in 2018 what are Americans most afraid of? Well, move over spiders and snakes – a new survey suggests we’re way more scared of the bigger picture issues like government corruption, the

Earth’s core is solid and we were totally wrong about the date of the Pompeii disaster. Those are just two of the breakthroughs scientists made this past week – confirming once again that a lot can change in just seven days. After all, that’s the reason we love science so much.   To keep you

Renowned physicist Stephen Hawking passed away earlier this year, but his final book, Brief Answers to the Big Questions, only came out this week. In it, Hawking makes a number of bold claims about the future of gene editing, artificial intelligence, and even religion. Here’s how experts evaluate his predictions.   Superhuman Overlords Hawking raised eyebrows when he

The US Mega Millions lottery jackpot swelled to US$1.6 billion after the 24 drawings held since the end of July failed to yield a winner. And there’s been no sign yet of a winner of the latest drawing, held Oct. 19.   This princely sum is drawing such attention that more people have been buying tickets,

Knowing which side of the road people drive on is important for anyone who’s thinking about using a vehicle in a foreign country. There are 163 countries and territories that drive on the right side of the road, while 76 of them drive on the left.   Many of the countries that drive on the

Deep in western Russia, if you know where to look, you’ll find a small collection of ragged scrap metal and crumbled concrete. Which isn’t that exciting. But if you rifle through the rubble, you will find a large, metal disc bolted to the ground. This isn’t just any old disc – it’s the welded-shut cap of

When you think of a time capsule you might think of something buried for decades or even a hundred years, but just stepping back as far as the mid-1990s can offer up a surprising peek into the past – as students at Shenandoah University in Virginia just found out.   Maybe you weren’t born in

Send those history books for a reprint, sharpen your Wikipedia editing skills, and adjust your answer for the next pub trivia night. It turns out that the destruction of Pompeii probably happened sometime after 17 October 79 CE and not, as has been previously thought, on August 24.   That’s based on a newly discovered

If you’ve managed to avoid Christmas music so far, that’s only going to get harder the closer to December we get. Prepare yourself for more stores blasting out All I Want for Christmas, and Frosty the Snowman.   Christmas music is something you either love or hate. If you find the tunes pretty annoying, then

Unassuming farmland in Østfold County, Norway, was hiding a secret for centuries – and now it’s been rumbled. Using high-resolution ground-penetrating radar, archaeologists have found an ancient Viking cemetery, complete with what appears to be a well-preserved ship burial.   A popular mode of interment among the Norse Vikings, ship burials consisting of a longboat

They were teenage computer geeks, bespectacled kids from Seattle who taught themselves programming from a Teletype terminal, learned the basics of business from Fortune magazine and dreamed of “a computer in every home and on every desk.”   Paul Allen was the self-described “idea man,” the shy son of librarians. Bill Gates was the business-oriented

Books are pretty amazing – gateways to other worlds, compact parcels bursting with knowledge. And if you grow up surrounded by books, you’re going to get a bit of a boost in life compared to non-readers.   At least, that’s the conclusion of a new study, which found that teens who leave school before graduating,

It’s been several months since the late Stephen Hawking passed away, but posthumous writings by the groundbreaking scientist show the great man still had much more to tell us. Just days after Hawking’s final academic paper was published online, the world-famous physicist is back in the spotlight for a different reason: a stark, controversial prediction

The remains of a child unearthed in a 5th century CE Italian cemetery are indicative of the unease that must have been felt in the region as a malaria outbreak ravaged the population.   The 10-year-old child was given what is known as a “vampire burial” – with a large rock placed in the body’s

A revolution in genomics is creeping into economics. It allows us to say something we might have suspected, but could never confirm: money trumps genes. Using one new, genome-based measure, economists found genetic endowments are distributed almost equally among children in low-income and high-income families. Success is not.   The least-gifted children of high-income parents

In a time of crazy political and world news, it’s often easy to overlook some of the ridiculously cool things happening in science. To make sure you don’t miss out, we’ve put together this shareable image highlighting the best science news of the past week.   From ‘moonmoons’ (yes, that’s a real thing) and Stephen

Biologists have grown human retina tissue from scratch to learn how the cells that let us see in color are made. The work may lay the groundwork for therapies for eye diseases such as color blindness and macular degeneration. It also establishes lab-created “organoids”—artificially grown organ tissue—as a model to study human development on a cellular

It’s a question that’s been repeated in high schools and colleges throughout time, published throughout the media, and even has studies to back it up – do you look the same when you orgasm as you do when you, say, stub your toe?   According to urban myth, the answer would be yes. But new research shows

The genetic sleuthing approach that broke open the Golden State Killer case could potentially be used to identify more than half of Americans of European descent from anonymous DNA samples, according to a provocative new study that highlights the unintended privacy consequences of consumer genetic testing for ancestry and health.   The idea that people

How does the brain make sense of all the information we’re bombarded with every second of every day? It’s a complicated question, but researchers have invented two new illusions that give us some clues – one optical and one auditory. And they both trick the brain into travelling back in time to fill in gaps

Carving giant, monolithic statues under the hot Polynesian Sun is thirsty work. So without freshwater rivers and springs to sustain them, how did thousands of the traditional Rapa Nui people of Easter Island survive?   We might finally have an answer to this historic mystery, and it’s one that reconciles early European accounts of the

It might sound a little offensive, but your body is a museum, full of ancient relics no one really needs anymore. From your wisdom teeth to that weird way some of us can wiggle our ears, so much of how we ended up as humans reflects what our animal ancestors needed for survival.   As