It’s not as uncommon as one might think to see animals and birds getting drunk after eating too much fruit. After all, ethanol occurs naturally in fruit as a product of fermentation by wild yeast. Few studies, however, have explored how alcohol influences the relationship between plants...
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United States’ Founding Father Benjamin Franklin was a true Renaissance man. Known for inventing the lightning rod and bifocal eyeglasses, he also developed some of the earliest tricks to fight counterfeit paper money flooding the US colonies in the 18th century. In 1731, Franklin won a contract...
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Researchers recently decoded the “unknown Kushan script,” an enigmatic ancient writing system that has baffled linguists since its discovery in Central Asia in the 1950s, Scientific American reported. And now, scholars are hopeful that the discovery opens up new possibilities for unraveling the language and history...
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Nearly a year ago, a NASA spacecraft smashed into an asteroid seven million miles away from the Earth. The spacecraft was able to successfully alter the asteroid Dimorphos’ trajectory and change its orbit around its larger partner – the 2,560-foot-wide Didymos – by 32 minutes. The DART...
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Prehistoric saber-toothed cats and dire wolves suffered from a developmental joint disease that also affects their modern relatives and humans, according to Science Magazine. In a new study, veterinarian Hugo Schmökel and a team of palaeontologists analyzed the well-preserved bones of more than 1,000 saber-toothed cats...
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The debate about when humans first arrived in the Americas is getting more intense after a new study found evidence that they were already in South America some 25,000 years ago, Cosmos Magazine reported. Human arrival to the Americas is believed to have taken place around...
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Silence may be the absence of sound but a new study suggests people can actually hear it, Smithsonian Magazine reported. For their paper, scientists conducted a series of experiments on 1,000 participants using well-known auditory illusions typically employed to examine noise perception. For their experiments, the...
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Scientists are working to confirm whether a small meteorite discovered in the Sahara Desert originated from Earth before being flung into space – and later returning to the planet, Science Alert reported. First found in Morocco in 2018, the space rock – known as NWA 13188,...
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Early mammals living in the age of the dinosaurs were smaller and couldn’t compete with the giant lizards. But a new study showed that being small didn’t stop one cat-sized mammal from preying on a dinosaur three times its size, CBS News reported. First discovered in northeastern...
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The Anomalocaris canadensis was considered an apex predator of Earth’s oceans some 500 million years ago, even though it measured less than two feet in length. While it might not seem as impressive as a great white, the creature was among the largest ones during the...
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People can go to great lengths to acquire information even if that information will not benefit them in any way, Science Magazine reported. In a series of experiments, psychologist Stefan Bode and his team showed human volunteers a series of coin flips, where each side came...
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Scientists recently discovered that “a sausage-looking piece of the brain” is responsible for people experiencing out-of-body experiences, NPR reported. Neurologist Josef Parvizi had come across an epilepsy patient whose seizures were causing him some very strange symptoms, such as feeling as if “floating in space.” Initially, Parvizi...
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When digging up buried remains for individuals, it’s not uncommon for archaeologists to incorrectly label the ancient individual as a male or female. For example, a research team recently determined that the skeleton of a high-ranking individual buried in southwestern Spain between 3,200 and 2,200 years...
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Crows and magpies are building heavily fortified, near impregnable nests using anti-bird spikes, a discovery that scientists have called “the ultimate adaptation” to city life, the Independent reported. The bird species belong to the Corvidae family, which are known for their superior cognitive skills, including the...
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Most bird species are monogamous and have a single mate for at least one breeding season or longer. But just like humans, sometimes long-term partnerships don’t work out and end up in “divorce.” Now, an international research team unveiled that the main factors that lead to these...
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Watching instances of violence and catastrophe in the news doesn’t bode well for the human psyche. It would be an understatement to say that news nowadays is very glum, but in that darkness there is always that story about acts of kindness and heroism that generates...
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A new study on modern hunter-gatherer societies is dispelling the assumption that women have been mere caretakers and only tended to children, Science Alert reported. Scientists analyzed more than 60 existing foraging societies across the world within the past century and found that nearly 80 percent...
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Scientists recently discovered a far-away planet that appears to have survived being engulfed by the rapid expansion of its dying star, Cosmos Magazine reported. Some 520 light-years from Earth, astronomers found that the Baekdu star in the Ursa Minor constellation was burning helium rather than hydrogen. They...
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Scientists recently discovered that artificial intelligence can easily deceive netizens and is getting better at lying, El País reported. The emergence of AI models has been met with a mix of awe and concern about the impact they will have on humanity. For their study, a research...
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Humans and some animal species use a series of high-pitched sounds and sing-song words when talking to their babies. A new study found that bottlenose dolphin mothers are also capable of this “baby talk,” the Independent reported. A research team recorded the signature whistles of 19 mothers...
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