discoveries

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5 Most Incredible Discoveries of the Week

From a new autism clue to a staggering find in a squalid apartment

(Newser) - This week: The Forbidden City gives up one of its secrets, and a scientist reveals he's created a kind of artificial blood—in Transylvania, no less.
  1. Secret to Building the Forbidden City Revealed : How on earth did 15th-century laborers transport hundred-ton rocks from a quarry more than 40 miles
...

Astronaut Snaps Photo of Huge Typhoon

Death toll from Haiyan in Philippines was at 100 and rising quickly

(Newser) - Super Typhoon Haiyan is done with the Philippines, but it will take some time to get a handle on the death toll—now at 100 and rising—and the damage. In the meantime, US astronaut Karen L. Nyberg took a photo from the International Space Station that provides the best...

NASA 'Dumbfounded' by 6-Tailed Comet

(OK, technically it's a 'comet-like' asteroid)

(Newser) - The Hubble telescope has spotted a spectacular, perplexing object in the middle of the Asteroid Belt: a rock with six "comet-like" dust tails streaming behind it. "We were literally dumbfounded when we saw it," David Jewitt, the head of the astronomy team studying the P/2013 P5, said...

Big Meteor Strikes Way More Common Than Thought

Chelyabinsk-size strike happens every 30 years or so

(Newser) - A meteor strike like the one in Chelyabinsk, Russia , earlier this year might seem like a once in a lifetime event, but a new study in Nature says that isn't the case. Using data from sensors around the world, researchers found that big asteroids have hit Earth's atmosphere...

Insects Caught in the Act —in 165M-Year-Old Fossil

Offers rare look at froghoppers' mating evolution

(Newser) - Meet the world's longest-lasting couple: Two insects who've been doing the deed for 165 million years. Yep, Chinese scientists have uncovered an ancient fossil of the love birds, er, froghoppers—the oldest instance of insects caught in the act in rock form, Popular Science reports. "This one...

Fight Dementia: Go Bilingual

Speaking 2 languages helps even if you can't read

(Newser) - If you could be reading this in another language, good news: You may have an extra weapon against dementia. A study in India suggests that being bilingual delays three kinds of dementia by 4.5 years on average, NBC News reports. "Being bilingual is a particularly efficient and effective...

Massive 'King of Gore' Dinosaur Found in Utah

Lythronax argestes was a ferocious beast, the largest of its ecosystem

(Newser) - Tyrannosaurus rex may have ruled the land in its day, but a newly discovered species, its closest known relative, was the top dog some 10 million years earlier. Lythronax argestes—which translates to "the king of gore from the southwest"—lived 80 million years ago in the central...

Babies' Eye Contact May Offer Clue to Autism

Researchers see dropoff at 2 months, earliest sign yet

(Newser) - A new autism study makes what looks to be a significant discovery: The first signs show up as early as two months of age in the form of reduced eye contact by babies, reports the New York Times . If the findings hold up, they could provide doctors with the earliest...

New Body Part Discovered
 New Body Part Discovered 
Nov 6, 2013 7:07 AM CST

New Body Part Discovered

Belgium surgeons confirm the existence of the knee's anterolateral ligament

(Newser) - Two Belgian surgeons have discovered a new body part—though there's potentially a 3% chance you don't actually have it. In a paper published in the Journal of Anatomy , they confirm the existence of the knee's anterolateral ligament. They were far from the first to speculate on...

Transylvania Scientist: I've Made Artificial Blood

It's been successful in mouse transfusions

(Newser) - Synthetic blood that can perform all the tasks of the real thing may be far off. But in the meantime, scientists have been working, with varying degrees of success, on an artificial substance that can at least transport oxygen around the body in emergencies. Now, a scientist in Transylvania—where,...

Secret to Building the Forbidden City? Sleds

Workers used them to push massive rocks over ice long distances

(Newser) - How on earth did 15th-century laborers transport hundred-ton rocks from a quarry more than 40 miles away to the building site of China's Forbidden City? Wisely, it turns out, reports Nature . A newly translated ancient document reveals the trick: They put the slabs on wooden sleds and pushed them...

New Fossil Find: 'Platypus-Zilla'

3-foot-long creature lived between 5M and 15M years ago: scientists

(Newser) - As if platypuses weren't weird enough already, scientists in Australia have come upon a fossilized tooth of what they're calling "platypus-zilla"—a creature some three feet long, or at least twice the size of your everyday platypus. "It probably would have looked like a platypus...

There Are Billions of Earth-Like Planets in Our Galaxy

At least 8.8 billion planets like ours in the Milky Way, study finds

(Newser) - Space is vast, but it may not be so lonely after all: A study finds the Milky Way is teeming with billions of planets that are about the size of Earth, orbit stars just like our sun, and exist in the Goldilocks zone—not too hot and not too cold...

King Tut &#39;Spontaneously Combusted&#39; in His Coffin
King Tut 'Spontaneously
Combusted' in His Coffin
new research
Nov 4, 2013 7:14 AM CST

King Tut 'Spontaneously Combusted' in His Coffin

Thanks to a bungled mummification, scientists find

(Newser) - The story of King Tut's death—and what followed—just got even more interesting, all thanks to a single piece of flesh. That remnant of Tutankhamun is the only one of its kind known to exist outside Egypt, and British experts decided to analyze it after stumbling upon a...

5 Most Incredible Discoveries of the Week

Including new insights into tail wags and dark matter

(Newser) - Expressive tail wags, a hot new planet, and some new species highlight this week's discoveries:
  • How Dogs' Tails Speak Volumes : Wagging tails are little more complicated than you might think. A new study finds that dogs are able to pick up on friend or foe depending on whether a
...

Yellowstone's Magma Patch Bigger Than Thought

Underground 'reservoir' a good 50 miles long and 20 miles wide

(Newser) - That Yellowstone has a big blob of molten rock lurking beneath it isn't news to scientists. A new analysis, however, shows that this blob is more than twice as big as they originally thought, reports Nature . Figure about 50 miles long, 20 miles wide, and shaped like a "...

How Dogs' Tail Wags Speak Volumes (to Dogs)

Pooches can pick up on cues depending on whether it goes left or right

(Newser) - Wagging tails are little more complicated than you might think. A new study finds that dogs are able to pick up on friend or foe depending on whether a tail is wagging to the left or right, reports the BBC . Research from a few years back suggested that a dog...

Earth-like Planet Discovered, but It's Hotter Than...

...Hell, at less than a million miles from its sun

(Newser) - Astronomers have discovered a planet where a certain red guy with horns could make himself right at home. It's a planet much like our own Earth—about the same size, with the same mixture of rock and iron, and it orbits a star like our sun—except that Kepler...

Dark Matter Experiment Finds Best Nothing Yet

First run of South Dakota experiment comes up empty

(Newser) - The team running the biggest, most sensitive dark matter detector yet announced its first round of results yesterday—specifically, the lack thereof. Scientists at the Homestake Gold Mine in South Dakota cooled a vat full of 368 kilograms of liquid xenon to minus 150 degrees Fahrenheit, watched it for three...

'Lost Rainforest' Yields Bizarre Species

And remote Australian rainforest could hold even more

(Newser) - A rainforest sits atop Australia's Cape Melville mountain range, surrounded by granite boulders—some as big as cars or houses—piled in walls as tall as 300 feet, making it quite challenging to explore. Researchers from Queensland's James Cook University had to travel there via helicopter; once in,...

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