discoveries

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

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Scientists May Have Solved Mystery of Famous Statues

Scientists think Easter Island's giant heads were placed near sources of fresh water

(Newser) - Scientists may have solved one of the riddles about the famous giant statues of Easter Island —why long-ago inhabitants placed them where they did. A new study in PLOS One makes the case that the statues went up to designate sources of fresh water, one of the island's...

Millennials Least Likely to Share Fake News on Facebook
Seniors Cited
for Spread of Fake
News on Facebook
NEW STUDY
Jan 10, 2019 10:20 AM CST

Seniors Cited for Spread of Fake News on Facebook

Users 65 and older share more fake articles than any other group: study

(Newser) - The worst spreaders of fake news across Facebook aren't the young'uns you'd expect to be glued to social media. Facebook users older than 65 share the most—almost seven times as many bogus articles as those ages 18 to 29, according to research by NYU and Princeton....

Study: Mona Lisa's Gaze Doesn't Live Up to Legend

The 'Mona Lisa Effect' is a 'misnomer,' researchers find

(Newser) - It's a "scientific legend": that Mona Lisa's eyes follow you wherever you go, a phenomenon so well known that it birthed the term "Mona Lisa Effect." Except it's not true, at least in the case of Leonardo da Vinci's painting. That's the...

Holocaust Photos That Went Unnoticed for Decades Found

2K images will go online this spring

(Newser) - A repository of Holocaust-era documents says it has uncovered a trove of photographs of survivors of the Nazis' Dachau concentration camp and will make them available online in a searchable archive this spring. The International Tracing Service said Monday the 2,000 photos of survivors were taken in the first...

These May Be the 3 Deadliest Months in Human History
These May Be the
3 Deadliest Months
in Human History
in case you missed it
Jan 5, 2019 5:35 PM CST

These May Be the 3 Deadliest Months in Human History

In terms of people killed by their fellow man

(Newser) - When it comes to people killed by human hands, it's likely "the deadliest three months in human history," as USA Today puts it. That would be August through October 1942, according to a new peer-reviewed study. Researchers used detailed train transportation records to estimate 1.47 million...

Smaller Galaxy on Track to Smash Into Milky Way
Our Milky Way
Is Headed Toward
a Violent 'Merger'
NEW STUDY
Jan 4, 2019 10:39 AM CST

Our Milky Way Is Headed Toward a Violent 'Merger'

But we've got about 2 billion years to prepare

(Newser) - It'll be a fireworks show for the ages, but you won't be around to see it. Consider that a blessing in disguise: The display expected by astrophysicists at Durham University in the UK will only come as a nearby galaxy smashes into our own in about 2 billion...

They Honored Him by Skinning People. Now, 'Flayed Lord' Temple Found

Site buried in Popoloca Indian ruins was dedicated to Xipe Totec god

(Newser) - Mexican experts have found the first temple of the "Flayed Lord," a pre-Hispanic fertility god depicted as a skinned human corpse, authorities said Wednesday. Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History said the find was made during recent excavations of Popoloca Indian ruins in the central state...

3 New Species Named After Game of Thrones

Professor has been naming beetles for 50 years

(Newser) - A Nebraska entomologist has named three of his eight newest beetle discoveries after the dragons from the HBO series Game of Thrones and the George RR Martin book series, A Song of Ice and Fire, the AP reports. University of Nebraska-Lincoln professor Brett Ratcliffe named the new scarab beetle species...

New Kind of Snake Found in Bizarre Place
New Kind of Snake
Found in Bizarre Place
in case you missed it
Dec 30, 2018 4:16 PM CST

New Kind of Snake Found in Bizarre Place

Inside another snake

(Newser) - Scientists have introduced a new species of snake—a whole new genus, in fact—to the world. It's called Cenaspis aenigma, which National Geographic explains translates to "mysterious dinner snake." That speaks to the first unusual aspect of the discovery: Scientists found the never-before-seen snake inside another...

Harnessed Horse Unearthed in Pompeii Stable

General may have been preparing to flee

(Newser) - Archaeologists have unearthed the petrified remains of a harnessed horse and saddle in the stable of an ancient villa in a Pompeii suburb. Pompeii archaeological park head Massimo Osanna tells the ANSA news agency that the villa belonged to a high-ranking military officer, perhaps a general, during ancient Roman times....

Visit This Natural Wonder, Face $740K Fine

'Sarlacc's Pit' is dangerous, mostly unexplored

(Newser) - A massive cave discovered in British Columbia's Wells Gray Provincial Park and said to be among Canada's largest has been given an unofficial name. "Sarlacc's Pit" resembles the lair of Sarlacc in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, though Star Wars fans—and everyone else—should...

Scientists' Quest: Making Chickens Happy

Study in Canada may result in better living conditions, even if only briefly

(Newser) - How do you measure a chicken's happiness? Is it in the way it runs for food? How much time it spends preening? To size up what might make chickens happy in their brief lives, researchers at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, are putting 16 breeds through physical...

Saturn&#39;s &#39;Rain&#39; Is Quickly Killing Its Rings


Saturn's Rings
Just Got a
Death Date
NEW STUDY
Dec 19, 2018 10:30 AM CST

Saturn's Rings Just Got a Death Date

NASA study predicts they'll be gone in 100M years

(Newser) - NASA's Voyager spacecrafts recorded data suggesting Saturn's rings were disappearing when they whipped past the planet decades ago. Now, confirmation: The rings have likely existed for only a fraction of the planet's 4.5 billion years and will be gone in an astrological flash, reads a new...

Farthest Observed Object in Solar System Is 'Farout'

Dwarf planet is 11 billion miles away

(Newser) - Astronomers have spotted the farthest object ever observed in our solar system—and they've nicknamed the pink cosmic body "Farout." The International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center announced the discovery Monday. "Farout" (pronounced far-out) is a dwarf planet about 120 astronomical units away—that's...

Beneath Egypt's Big Find: 5 Hidden Shafts

Hope is that one holds a sarcophagus

(Newser) - Egypt on Saturday announced the discovery of a "one-of-a-kind [find] in the last decades": a private tomb belonging to a senior official from the 5th dynasty of the pharaohs, which ruled roughly 4,400 years ago. Antiquities Minister Khaled al-Anani announced the find at the site of the tomb...

Century Later, Mystery of Lost US Warship Is Solved

Mine from a German U-boat sunk USS San Diego, say researchers

(Newser) - A century later, we can now blame a mine from a German U-boat for the lone major US warship sent to the ocean's depths during World War I. The USS San Diego got there fast: The armored cruiser listed and sank within 30 minutes of an explosion off the...

Baboon Experiment May Have Big Implications
Baboon Experiment May
Have Big Implications
new study
Dec 6, 2018 8:14 AM CST

Baboon Experiment May Have Big Implications

Two survive 6 months with pig hearts

(Newser) - A new study involving pigs and baboons could mean big news for humans downs the road. Researchers successfully implanted pig hearts into baboons, and two of the recipients lived for six months before being euthanized, reports Scientific American . Writing in Nature , the researchers from Germany, Sweden, and Switzerland call the...

His Toothbrush Holder Turns Out to Be 4K Years Old

Dates back to 1900 BC and the Indus Valley in what is now Afghanistan

(Newser) - Some people might use an old mug to hold toothbrushes and toothpaste. A man in England used a 4,000-year-old piece of pottery, by accident. Karl Martin picked up the pot along with another at a flea market for all of $5, reports Atlas Obscura . Martin is a valuer at...

Number of Vincent Van Gogh Photographs Cut in Half

Image long believed to show famous artist is actually his brother

(Newser) - The number of verified photos of painter Vincent van Gogh just got cut in half. New research suggests that a photo of a boy heretofore believed to show Vincent at age 13 actually portrays his brother, the then-15-year-old Theo van Gogh, the Telegraph reports. That leaves just one photo of...

Spiders Share Surprisingly Similar Trait to Mammals
Spider Milk? Researchers
Make Surprising Discovery
new study
Nov 30, 2018 8:45 AM CST

Spider Milk? Researchers Make Surprising Discovery

Researchers discover a breed in which the mothers nurse their offspring

(Newser) - It was an arachnid mystery: Scientists studying a particular type of spider couldn't figure out how the babies kept growing in the nest even though mom wasn't bringing back any food to them. Then a researcher spotted a baby clinging to its mother's abdomen. "I had...

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