Everyone mistakenly judges a book by its cover, and even archeologists are prone to quick assessments. That seems to have been the case with an ancient papyrus fragment that turned out to be the oldest surviving copy of a gospel detailing Jesus’ childhood. Researchers Lajos Berkes and...
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Cherries were an important part of George Washington’s life. The founding father and first president of the United States loved an alcoholic drink known as “Cherry Bounce.” Meanwhile, most children in the country have heard the legend of how he cut down his father’s cherry tree. Now,...
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In 2017, Mai Fahmy was studying leeches in Madagascar’s rainforests for her PhD, when she saw some extremely bizarre behavior. While observing a single leech on a leaf, Fahmy noticed that the limbless creature contorted its body in a peculiar way – and proceeded to jump...
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Just like on Earth, temperatures on Mars’ equator are higher. That’s because the atmosphere is thinner and there’s more sunlight. Now, the European Space Agency (ESA) shared pictures showing frost atop volcanoes in the Martian tropics. “We thought it was impossible for frost to form around Mars’s...
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In the rugged heathlands of southern Australia, an unexpected hero has emerged in the battle against a costly agricultural pest. Giant lizards known as heath goannas are stepping up as nature’s clean-up crew, providing a much-needed solution to a pervasive problem for sheep farmers. These scavenging...
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Domesticated animals deserve a lot of praise for humanity’s advancements over thousands of years. A lot of that credit goes to horses, which have contributed to transport, hunting and warfare. Historians lately have been investigating the origins of this human-horse bond. Now, a new genetic study has...
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Dyes were an important trading commodity in the ancient Mediterranean, especially when that pigment was a peculiar shade of purple called “Tyrian purple.” During the Roman period, the dye was worth around three times its weight in gold and emperors coveted it so much that they...
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Shipworms have been the bane of ships, ports and dykes for thousands of years. The marine creatures are the termites of the sea: They are capable of digesting wood – a feat that few animals can do. Measuring up to six inches in length, they have gone...
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The ancient Maya city of Chichén Itzá was a dominant political and cultural center on what is now Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula that peaked between 800 and 1000 CE. Recently, archaeologists recently uncovered chilling evidence of ritual child sacrifice at the Maya metropolis, where genetic analysis points...
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The colonization of space by mankind is not likely coming anytime soon. That’s because the human body is not yet able to handle long-haul spaceflights in zero to low gravity, or walking on alien planets, such as Mars – where the lack of a magnetic field...
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African elephants are talkative creatures, wandering around the savanna, trumpeting and rumbling to each other to communicate information and even coordinate group movements over long distances. Now, scientists have learned that they call each other by name. “Our finding that elephants are not simply mimicking the sound...
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Small and nearly useless arms did not deter the mighty Tyrannosaurus rex from terrorizing the planet millions of years ago. They also did not appear to have impacted another apex predator, the horned Carnotaurus sastrei that lived around what is now South America’s Patagonia region. And now...
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Carrion crows are not known for their beauty or love of song. But they have more than their share of smarts. Now, researchers have figured out that these birds can vocally count to four, according to a new study published in Science. “Our results show that humans are...
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Being big and complex doesn’t necessarily translate to having the largest amount of genetic material. Case in point: A new study has found that a small, humble fern growing in the forests of a South Pacific island has a genome that is 50 times larger than...
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Muslims around the world are celebrating the holiday of Eid al-Adha this week to commemorate the Prophet Ibrahim’s willingness to sacrifice his son, Ismail, as an act of obedience to God. The celebration generally involves the slaughter and consumption of sheep, so the animals are in...
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In 2013, a meteor fell to Earth in Siberia, injuring more than 1,000 people and causing more than $33 million in damage to infrastructure. Though this type of event is rare, asteroids present the biggest risk to planets. Now, scientists have found that Mars is even...
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Living creatures who carry fetuses to term experience an energy spike, long thought to be caused by the fetus. But now, a team of Australian researchers found that it is the bearer’s own body that demands such high amounts of energy, according to a new study. While...
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In 2009, archeologists Ayman Daramany and Kevin Cahail discovered a fragment of a granite sarcophagus beneath the floor of a Coptic monastery in Abydos, an ancient city in central Egypt. After intensive study, they realized that the sarcophagus bore the cartouche of the High Priest...
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Bronze cuckoos annoy other birds. Too lazy, perhaps, to build their own nests, they lay their eggs in the carefully constructed homes of small songbirds. When the cuckoo egg hatches, the chick then pushes the host bird’s eggs out of the nest and tricks the new...
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There once walked (and swam) a giant thunderbird in Australia, standing more than eight feet tall and weighing about 36 stone (504 lbs or 228 kg). Scientists had long thought the extinct animal, Genyornis newtoni, was an ancestor of emus and ostriches. But in the 1990s,...
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