discoveries

Read the latest news stories about recent scientific discoveries on Newser.com

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Scientists Explain the 'Halos' Around LA's Ocean Barrels

Tests suggest barrels hold caustic alkaline waste, which reacts with seawater

(Newser) - Beneath the waves off Los Angeles, thousands of corroded metal barrels surrounded by ghostly white halos have puzzled scientists for years. Now, new research suggests these underwater mysteries hold a toxic secret—but not the one once assumed. The barrels, first noticed in 2011 and later found to number...

Venice's Winged Lion May Not Be a Lion
Venice's
Winged Lion
May Not
Be a Lion
new study
Sep 14, 2025 8:59 AM CDT

Venice's Winged Lion May Not Be a Lion

Researchers trace origins to ancient China, suggest it was a 'zhenmushou' tomb guardian

(Newser) - Venice's famed winged lion statue—often snapped by tourists in St. Mark's Square—may have begun its journey not in Italy but thousands of miles away in ancient China, a new study suggests. What's more, the statue may not depict a lion exactly, per PhysOrg . Archaeologists...

Octopus Study Left One Biologist 'in Awe'
Octopus Study Left
One Biologist 'in Awe'
new study
Sep 13, 2025 4:30 PM CDT

Octopus Study Left One Biologist 'in Awe'

Researchers managed to analyze their limb use in the wild

(Newser) - Humans may be right-handed or left-handed. It turns out octopuses don't have a dominant arm, but they do tend to perform some tasks more often with their front arms, new research shows. Scientists studied a series of short videos of wild octopuses crawling, swimming, standing, fetching, and groping—among...

You Can Ease Motion Sickness With the Press of a Button
You Can Ease Motion Sickness
With the Press of a Button
in case you missed it
Sep 13, 2025 12:30 PM CDT

You Can Ease Motion Sickness With the Press of a Button

Soft and happy music shown to ease symptoms by 57%, versus 43% for rest alone

(Newser) - Stuck battling car sickness? A new study out of China suggests you could ease your misery with the press of a button—just turn on some music. Researchers at Southwest University found that people who listened to cheerful or soothing music recovered from motion sickness significantly faster than those...

AI Finds Signs of Awareness in Coma Patients Before Docs

Artificial intelligence can track facial twitches to reveal early signals

(Newser) - A new study suggests artificial intelligence could spot signs of consciousness in comatose patients—well before doctors do. Researchers at Stony Brook University developed a tool called SeeMe, which uses AI to analyze subtle facial twitches in patients with brain injuries, per Scientific American . These micromovements, sometimes imperceptible to...

Scientists Tap 'Secret' Fresh Water Under Ocean

There's a massive hidden aquifer off the East Coast

(Newser) - Deep in Earth's past, an icy landscape became a seascape as the ice melted and the oceans rose off what is now the northeastern United States. Nearly 50 years ago, a US government ship searching for minerals and hydrocarbons in the area drilled into the seafloor to see what...

Scientist Makes a Surprise Find About Giraffes
Scientist Makes a Surprise
Find About Giraffes
in case you missed it
Sep 6, 2025 5:30 AM CDT

Scientist Makes a Surprise Find About Giraffes

They belong to four distinct species, not a single one as long believed

(Newser) - Giraffes have been grouped as one species for centuries, but new research splits them into four distinct ones, reports Discover . The unusual development is accompanied by a sobering dose of reality: Three of the four face extinction. The new information comes from the International Union for Conservation of Nature,...

Ocean Plate May Explain Riddle of Portugal Quakes
Ocean Plate May Explain
Riddle of Portugal Quakes
new study
Sep 5, 2025 1:28 PM CDT

Ocean Plate May Explain Riddle of Portugal Quakes

Scientists detect a fissure off the coast

(Newser) - Portugal has a history of powerful earthquakes, a fact that has long baffled scientists because it's not near any known fault lines. A new study, however, may finally provide the answer: Researchers found a fissure in the tectonic plate on the ocean floor about 120 miles off the...

Allergy Nasal Spray May Help Ward Off COVID
Allergy Nasal Spray
May Help Ward Off COVID
new study
Sep 2, 2025 2:38 PM CDT

Allergy Nasal Spray May Help Ward Off COVID

Small study finds lower infection rates with azelastine

(Newser) - A widely available nasal spray used for allergies may offer unexpected protection against COVID, a new study suggests. Researchers at Saarland University Hospital in Germany tested the antihistamine azelastine, an over-the-counter product, on 450 adults, most in their early 30s. Half the group used the spray three times daily,...

Settlement Found Under the Sea Is 'Like a Time Capsule'

Archaeologists plumb Denmark's Bay of Aarhus to find Stone Age artifacts, submerged under rising seas

(Newser) - Below the dark blue waters of Denmark's Bay of Aarhus, archaeologists are searching for coastal settlements swallowed by rising sea levels more than 8,500 years ago. And this summer, divers descended about 26 feet below the waves close to Aarhus and collected evidence of a Stone Age settlement...

That's No Goldfish, but a One-of-a-Kind Shark
You've Never Seen
a Shark Like This
in case you missed it
Aug 30, 2025 6:00 AM CDT

You've Never Seen a Shark Like This

First known shark with xanthism and albinism observed in Costa Rica

(Newser) - It looks like a giant goldfish. But what anglers pulled in during a fishing trip near Costa Rica's Tortuguero National Park last year was, as far as we know, one of a kind. The nurse shark, cut loose from a fishing line, is what Gizmodo calls a "rare...

Ultraprocessed Foods May Harm Male Hormones, Boost Body Fat
Ultraprocessed Food
Shows a 'Big Shocker' for Men
NEW STUDY
Aug 29, 2025 4:14 PM CDT

Ultraprocessed Food Shows a 'Big Shocker' for Men

Study links packaged foods to weight gain, hormone disruption for men

(Newser) - A new study suggests that diets high in ultraprocessed foods may negatively affect not just overall metabolic health, but also male reproductive health. In their research published Thursday in the journal Cell Metabolism , scientists from the University of Copenhagen enrolled 43 healthy men, ages 20 to 35, and assigned...

A Chicken-or-Egg Mystery on Early Life May Be Solved

Lab experiment shows how simple chemistry may have bridged gap between RNA, protein synthesis

(Newser) - A new study published this week in Nature offers potential answers to a long-standing question in biology: How did the first proteins form on Earth, setting the stage for life? Researchers at University College London, led by chemist Matthew Powner, have demonstrated in the lab that simple chemistry could...

The Toll of Deforestation: 500K Dead Humans
The Toll of Deforestation:
500K Dead Humans
NEW STUDY
Aug 27, 2025 1:10 PM CDT

The Toll of Deforestation: 500K Dead Humans

Tropical land clearance brings deadly heat to millions, per new research

(Newser) - Deforestation in the world's tropical rainforests has claimed over half a million human lives due to heat-related illnesses in the past 20 years, a new study reveals. Researchers found that as rainforests are cleared in areas like the Amazon, Congo, and Southeast Asia, local temperatures rise. The loss...

Stonehenge's Stones May Have Been Moved by Cattle
Stonehenge's Stones May
Have Been Moved by Cows
NEW STUDY
Aug 27, 2025 11:00 AM CDT

Stonehenge's Stones May Have Been Moved by Cows

Isotope analysis of a cow tooth suggests animal hailed from Wales, just like the 'bluestones'

(Newser) - A single ancient cow tooth uncovered at Stonehenge is offering fresh clues about the monument's mysterious Welsh origins—and suggesting cattle were used to transport the monument's massive stones across the UK. Researchers from University College London and other institutions analyzed a bovine jawbone discovered in 1924...

Billionaires Face Lower Tax Rates Than Most Americans

Researchers find that ultra-wealthy benefit most from recent tax changes in the US

(Newser) - America's wealthiest citizens are paying a lower share of their income in taxes than the rest of the country, according to a new study by economists at UC Berkeley. Researchers found that billionaires—specifically the top 400, as listed by Forbes —had an average effective tax rate...

They May Have Been First in South America, Disappeared

Remains in Colombia reveal isolated group with no known descendants

(Newser) - Colombian researchers have identified a previously unknown human lineage after sequencing ancient DNA from remains unearthed near Bogota. The group, dubbed the Checua after the excavation site in Nemocon, is estimated to have lived about 6,000 years ago. While most other remains from the region share ancestry with...

Where Aliens Might Actually Pick Up Our Deep Space Signals

Researchers map Earth's strongest space transmissions to guide SETI efforts

(Newser) - A new analysis by researchers at Penn State and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory takes a closer look at where and when alien civilizations might catch signals from Earth, reports IFL Science . The study, published in Astrophysical Journal Letters and discussed at the 2025 Penn State SETI Symposium, maps...

Scientists Create 'Superfood' to Boost Honeybee Survival Rates
Scientists Have a New Plan
to Save the Honeybees
NEW STUDY
Aug 22, 2025 10:24 AM CDT

Scientists Have a New Plan to Save the Honeybees

Lab-made 'superfood' helps colonies produce more surviving young bees

(Newser) - Researchers at the University of Oxford have created a new "superfood" designed to help honeybees survive amid environmental pressures like habitat loss and changing climate. The supplement, developed after 15 years of study, contains the six sterols—special lipids essential to bee development—that bees typically obtain from...

Most Distant Star in Universe May Not Be a Star After All

New JWST data hints that Earendel could be lots of stars banded together in a cluster

(Newser) - Astronomers have called into question the identity of the most distant star in the universe ever detected, Earendel, first spotted by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope in 2022. New research using the agency's James Webb Space Telescope suggests this far-flung light source, located 12.9 billion light-years away...

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