discoveries

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

Stories 4061 - 4080 | << Prev   Next >>

Morning People Are Liars at Night
 Morning People 
 Are Liars at Night 
study says
Jul 18, 2014 7:50 AM CDT

Morning People Are Liars at Night

Conversely, night owls are more likely to lie in the morning, study finds

(Newser) - Think morning people are somehow morally superior? Think again, say researchers whose new study, the Morality of Larks and Owls , finds a strong link between a person's ethical inclination and chronotype—which refers to when people are most naturally inclined to be asleep or awake. When outside of one'...

Gene Injection Gives Pigs 'Biological Pacemakers'

Heart cells were reprogrammed to beat normally

(Newser) - A promising experiment on pigs could help save the bacon of people with heart trouble who are having problems with electronic pacemakers. Researchers at the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute injected genes into the hearts of pigs with irregular heartbeats, reprogramming regular heart cells into pacemaker cells that temporarily restored a normal...

Mystery Crater Spotted Near 'End of the World'

Scientists in Siberia out to investigate and to debunk speculation

(Newser) - It's tailor-made for crazy conspiracy theories: A big mysterious crater has formed in a part of Siberia known as the "end of the world," reports the Siberian Times . Video of the 260-foot-wide hole has caused such a stir in the region that a team of Russian scientists...

'Flying' Dino Had 4 Wings, Long Feathers

Turkey-sized raptor may have been expert glider

(Newser) - Take the velociraptors made famous by Jurassic Park, make them a bit smaller, add feathers, then change the limbs to wings and you will have something resembling a newly discovered dinosaur species found in China. Researchers say Changyuraptor yangi, a carnivore that lived around 125 million years ago, has the...

Elephant Ancestor's Bones Alter Our Continent's History

Gomphotheres appear to have roamed North America as recently as 13,400 years ago

(Newser) - North America's prehistoric Clovis people were known hunters of large mammoths and mastodons. But another elephant ancestor, the smaller gomphothere, may also have fallen prey to the ambitious hunter-gatherers. An archaeological dig begun in 2007 in northwestern Mexico now carbon dates that site—which has given up Clovis spear...

Some People Ignored Writing for Thousands of Years

Ancient Assyrians still used clay markers, 2K years later

(Newser) - What if people still used typewriters in the year 4,000? Or wrote with a stone and chisel today? That's roughly the equivalent of what archaeologists discovered in Turkey, where a dig dating to 600 to 900 BC turned up clay tokens alongside cuneiform tablets, the Smithsonian reports. The...

Scientists Create 'Super Black' That Our Eye Can't See

Nanotubes absorb 99.96% of light

(Newser) - Imagine an object so black that you could stare right at it and see nothing at all. That object can now exist, thanks to a British nanotechnology company. Surrey Nanosystems has created a new "super black" coating that absorbs 99.96% of light, which is to say, all light...

Why Skulls of Kids Encircled Ancient Villages

Bronze Age villages placed skulls to ward off flooding, researchers say

(Newser) - Visitors to some ancient villages in Switzerland and Germany weren't greeted by a nice garden or an archway. They encountered skulls—children's skulls, researchers say. According to a new study , certain lakeshore villages placed children's skulls and bones outside of town in an effort to ward off...

Silent but Healthy: Sniffing Farts Is Good for You
Silent but Healthy: Sniffing Farts Is Good for You
study says
Jul 12, 2014 1:00 PM CDT

Silent but Healthy: Sniffing Farts Is Good for You

Or say scientists at the University of Exeter

(Newser) - To put it one way, small doses of hydrogen sulfide help keep cells healthy and thus help ward off maladies such as dementia, diabetes, and even cancer. To put it another way, "smelling farts could be the best thing you do today," as per CNET . As the Independent ...

Mysterious Coin Stash Unearthed&mdash; After 2K Years
 Mysterious Coin Stash 
 Unearthed—After 2K Years 
in case you missed it
Jul 12, 2014 11:14 AM CDT

Mysterious Coin Stash Unearthed—After 2K Years

26 Roman and Late Iron Age coins found in Derbyshire

(Newser) - A cave in Britain may have been the perfect hiding place for a stash of coins … because 2,000 years passed before anyone found them. A climber sheltering from the rain happened upon four coins in Dovedale, Derbyshire, reports the Ashbourne News Telegraph , which led to a National Trust...

5 Most Incredible Discoveries of the Week

Including a shipwreck search that yields a surprise

(Newser) - Insights about prehistoric creatures make the list, along with a not-so-great discovery about one of today's common animals:
  • Biggest-Ever Flying Bird Is Unearthed : New research reveals that the biggest flying bird ever discovered had a wingspan bigger than that of some small planes. The bird, named Pelagornis sandersi, lived
...

Gene Tweak Made Roosters Fat—and Infertile

Leading to a shortage of chickens, and higher prices

(Newser) - The breed of rooster that sires around a quarter of America's chickens hasn't been getting the job done and a genetic tweak is to blame. Aviagen Group, the world's largest chicken breeder, made a change to the standard Ross male that has caused fertility issues, causing a...

Herds of Dinos Thrived in ... Alaska?
 Herds of Dinos 
 Thrived in ... Alaska? 
NEW RESEARCH
Jul 9, 2014 12:35 PM CDT

Herds of Dinos Thrived in ... Alaska?

Thousands of 'world-class' hadrosaur prints discovered in Denali

(Newser) - Forget seeing Russia from Alaska: Scientists have found a trove of tracks left behind by dinosaurs that once roamed our northernmost state—and some of them are pretty big. A paleontology team discovered a "world-class" trail in the northeast corner of Denali National Park that was littered with thousands...

Explorers Looking for Shipwreck Find Plane

Crew parachuted off plane, hoped plane would crash in remote area

(Newser) - A trio of explorers on the hunt for sunken ships managed to solve a six-decade-old mystery—involving a plane. The group uncovered a US Air Force C-45 plane that crashed in the east end of Lake Ontario on its way to Griffiss Air Force Base near Rome, New York, on...

Odd Ditches Made Before Amazon Rainforest Grew
Odd Ditches Made Before Amazon Rainforest Grew
new study
Jul 8, 2014 5:31 PM CDT

Odd Ditches Made Before Amazon Rainforest Grew

Study: Before it was jungle, it was savannah

(Newser) - Some 3,000 years ago, the Bolivian Amazon didn’t look like a jungle at all—it was more like an African savannah. A new study reveals how the ancient landscape took shape, and sheds new light on the mysterious ditches the early Amazonians built there for purposes unknown. The...

Study: Blood Proteins Signal Alzheimer's Is Coming

UK researchers ID 10 proteins that can predict disease onset

(Newser) - Alzheimer's may be well on its way to being a detectable disease by way of a blood test. The BBC reports on the "major step forward": Researchers at King's College London studied differences in the blood of 1,148 people—476 with Alzheimer's, 220 with mild...

Study: Your Skin 'Smells' Odors

And at least one such odor appears to help it heal

(Newser) - It's already known that the nose is not the only part of the human body with olfactory receptors; scientists have found them in the heart, blood, and lungs, and some have suggested they could exist throughout our bodies, reports Discovery News . Now a team of scientists in Germany has...

Biggest-Ever Flying Bird Unearthed at Airport

Pelagornis had wingspan up to 24 feet

(Newser) - The biggest flying bird ever discovered had a wingspan bigger than that of some small planes—and appropriately enough, its fossil was found at an airport. The bird, named Pelagornis sandersi, lived around 25 million years ago and had a wingspan of up to 24 feet across, around twice that...

In Iraq, Clues to Long-Lost Temple Emerge

Doctoral student works amid threat of ISIS attack in Kurdistan

(Newser) - An archaeologist is closing in on the location of an ancient temple so venerated that when it was sacked in 714 BC, its king tore off his crown, "pulled out his hair, pounded his chest with both hands"—then killed himself, according to an early account. The long-lost...

Oldest Known Erotic 'Graffiti' Found in Greece

Phalluses, sexual boasting dating back to 5th century BC leave little to the imagination

(Newser) - Think phallic graffiti art exclusively belongs to the baseless present? Think again. An archaeologist has uncovered what the Guardian touts as the earliest erotic graffiti on the planet, found in Greece—and predating, in one case, even Athens' Acropolis . Since 2011 , Dr. Andreas Vlachopoulos has been directing fieldwork on the...

Stories 4061 - 4080 | << Prev   Next >>
Most Read on Newser