Indian scientists recently discovered that Asian elephants bury their dead, shedding light on the complex social dynamics of these majestic creatures, New Scientist reported. In their study, researchers discovered five buried calves in drainage ditches on tea estates in north Bengal, India. The buried mammals had...
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The history of mathematics will need a slight revision, according to a new study. The decimal point is a ubiquitous symbol in modern mathematics for dividing whole numbers into fractions. Throughout history, various civilizations have used a version of decimals, but the current and consistent system is...
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Human children love to playfully poke grown-ups, often their parents, until they elicit a reaction. So do apes, the Washington Post reported. In a landmark study, researchers found that humans’ distant cousins like to tease each other. This conclusion provides scientific backing to first-hand observations reported by researchers...
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Microplastics are ubiquitous in our daily lives: They can be found everywhere, including in cosmetics, table salt, seafood and recently, human arteries. Now, scientists found that those microscopic plastic particles have seeped all the way down into sediment layers dating back to the 18th century, Futurism...
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Scientists recently identified a new form of magnetism present in everyday materials that could have major technological applications, New Atlas reported. Known as “altermagnetism,” this new form exhibits a unique combination of properties that differ from the more familiar ferromagnetism and antiferromagnetism. In ferromagnetism, electron spins align...
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Violence is ubiquitous throughout human history: Now, a new study on Stone Age Europeans is showing that farmer-settler groups brutally wiped out nomadic hunter-gatherers thousands of years ago, Science Alert reported. To arrive at this conclusion, an international research team conducted a thorough DNA analysis of...
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The Matebele ants of sub-Saharan Africa have a fearsome reputation. Named after a southern African tribe, the ants hunt termites with military-like precision and they can go on up to five hunts a day. Death and injury are guaranteed, but the industrious insects are also very skilled...
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Bacteria could hold the key to rapidly mineralizing carbon dioxide (CO2) underground, according to new research, potentially aiding in more durable storage of greenhouse gases, New Scientist reported. Researchers from the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology isolated Geobacillus bacteria from a compost pile in...
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Many modern humans have trouble paying attention, either in childhood or as adults. Turns out, ancient humans did, too. In fact, attention-deficit/ hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) actually proved useful for our ancestors and that’s why it passed through natural selection to exist to this day, a group of...
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A new study found that those altruistic tree-planting projects might be having negative consequences for the local ecosystems, New Scientist reported. Scientists recently analyzed data from the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative (AFR100), a project in which 34 countries in the continent pledged to reforest 133.6...
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Tool making has come a long way since the early humans thousands of years ago relied on stone axes and weapons for their survival. Still, Japanese archaeologists wanted to know just how useful these ancient tools were and used precise replicas of these archaic instruments to...
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NASA is seeking adventurous volunteers for a year-long simulation of life on Mars, set to take place in spring 2025, Gizmodo reported. The CHAPEA (Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog) project will see a four-person crew living in a Mars-like habitat at NASA’s Johnson Space Center...
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Scientists in Australia recently came up with a novel solution to safely deter herbivores from eating certain plant species, Cosmos magazine reported. Due to a lack of natural predators, there are many native and invasive herbivores in Australia ravishing the country’s flora and threatening biodiversity. Ecologists from...
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In 2010, researchers uncovered four 1,700-year-old speckled chicken eggs at a Roman pit in Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom, as well as pottery vessels and leather shoes. All four eggs were intact when they were first found. Unfortunately, three of them broke despite careful efforts to extract them...
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Primatologists have held the belief that a vast majority of primate societies are dominated by the male species. But a recent study is challenging those long-standing assumptions, Scientific American reported. A research team analyzed dominance patterns in 79 living primate species, taking into account factors such as...
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In Paris, London and Madrid, tourists use Segways or scooters to see the cities. In Medellín, Colombia, some use wheelchairs to get a whole new view of the cityscape – and of mobility, the World reported. “It puts you in the shoes of someone with a...
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Blue whales are the largest animals on Earth, capable of reaching lengths of 110 feet long. Unfortunately, they are also listed as an endangered species as a result of intense commercial whaling over the 20th century. But even as their numbers rebound, there is a blue whale...
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Artificial intelligence recently deciphered part of a 2,000-year-old charred scroll found in the ancient Roman city of Herculaneum, a breakthrough that some scholars say could “rewrite the history” of the ancient world, NBC News reported. Earlier this month, three computer-savvy students won a $700,000 prize for...
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Scientists recently analyzed data from nearly 590,000 dogs in the United Kingdom to determine what sort of factors determine a pooch’s lifespan, Smithsonian Magazine reported. The sample included purebreds and crossbreeds, including more than 280,000 deceased canines. Researchers wrote that the study targeted size, face shape,...
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Scientists have long thought that Christopher Columbus and the Spanish conquistadors brought syphilis back from the New World to Europe in the late 1400s, Insider reported. The continent experienced a huge outbreak of the sexually transmitted disease that killed up to five million people during this...
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