discoveries

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

Stories 3621 - 3640 | << Prev   Next >>

No Sweat: 5 Most Incredible Discoveries of the Week

Including a 'strange-winged' dinosaur and a bird polluted with flame retardant

(Newser) - Are archaeologists close to uncovering a royal tomb in an ancient Mexican city? Could you beat the blues by smelling someone's armpits? Those questions are both on the list this week:
  • Tiny Dinosaur Was Named 'Strange Wing' for a Reason : A pint-sized two-legged dinosaur that lived in China
...

Scientists Find Planet's Most Polluted Bird

Cooper's hawk found with higher levels of flame retardants than any other

(Newser) - The Vancouver area is home to what is thus far known to be our planet's most polluted wild bird. Researchers studying the livers of local birds of prey found that the Cooper's hawk was tainted with polybrominated diphenyl ethers, chemicals that function as flame retardants. Of the 13...

Tiny Dinosaur Had Wings Like a Bat

They were made of skin, not feathers

(Newser) - A pint-sized dinosaur has a big surprise: It apparently sported a pair of bizarre wings. Dinosaurs normally used wings mostly made of feathers for flight. But the newly discovered creature evidently had wings made of skin instead, like those of a bat or some ancient flying reptiles. It's not...

Invention May Make Air Travel Much Quieter

Membrane could block 1K times more sound energy than plane alone

(Newser) - Does the buzzing of a plane's engines drive you bonkers? Researchers have come up with a product that could save you some grief. They've developed a thin membrane capable of blocking low-frequency noise that tends to bounce around the cabin. The honeycomb-like material typically used on a plane'...

Archaeologists Resurrect Key Pocahontas Site

The church where she wed John Rolfe is coming back to life

(Newser) - A group of archaeologists in Jamestown, Virginia, is busy doing the opposite of what one would normally expect: building something new, rather than searching for what once was. Popular Archaeology reports that an effort is underway to rebuild a potion of the church where Pocahontas wed John Rolfe in 1614...

Teotihuacan Find Boosts Hope of Royal Tomb

Liquid mercury in pyramid could symbolize path to underworld

(Newser) - A 600-foot tunnel below a pyramid in the ancient Mexican city of Teotihuacan has given up 50,000 artifacts —but its latest reveal could indicate something far more significant lies in wait. After six years of toiling below the Pyramid of the Plumed Serpent, archaeologist Sergio Gomez says he'...

Genome Reveals Secrets of Last Mammoths
 Genome Reveals Secrets 
 of Last Mammoths 
in case you missed it
Apr 26, 2015 5:01 PM CDT

Genome Reveals Secrets of Last Mammoths

Low genetic variation perhaps led to decline on Wrangel Island

(Newser) - The last of the woolly mammoths in Siberia died out about 10,000 years ago, but a smaller number living on Wrangel Island, off the coast of what is now Russia, managed to stick around for another 6,000 years. Researchers set out to investigate the two groups and the...

Here&#39;s Where You&#39;ll Find the Most Binge Drinking in US
Here's Where You'll Find the Most Binge Drinking in US
in case you missed it
Apr 26, 2015 12:37 PM CDT

Here's Where You'll Find the Most Binge Drinking in US

Heavy-drinking women have made an impact on the numbers

(Newser) - Even though the percentage of people who drink alcohol doesn't seem to be going up, binge drinking is, and the lead author of a recent study on the subject has uncovered two facts he finds "alarming": In many US counties, 25% of residents or more are binge drinkers,...

Feeling Down? Smell a Happy Person&#39;s Sweat
Feeling Down? Smell a
Happy Person's Sweat
study says
Apr 25, 2015 8:52 AM CDT

Feeling Down? Smell a Happy Person's Sweat

Study suggests chemicals in body odor can affect others

(Newser) - Scientists think they've figured out a way for people to feel happier, but applying it in real life might be a little weird: It involves getting a whiff of a happy person's armpits. It seems that we humans secrete chemicals in sweat that reflect our emotional states, and...

New Frog Species Looks Oddly Familiar
 New Frog 
 Species Looks 
 Oddly Familiar 
in case you missed it
Apr 25, 2015 7:29 AM CDT

New Frog Species Looks Oddly Familiar

Is that you, Kermit?

(Newser) - If a new frog species discovered in Costa Rica looks familiar to you, you're not alone. The Hyalinobatrachium dianae is causing quite a stir because of its resemblance to a certain Muppet, Mashable reports. Yes, Kermit has found a twin in this frog with bright green skin and bulging...

5 Most Incredible Discoveries of the Week

Including how thinking may boost brain tumors

(Newser) - Babies' capacity for pain and the surprising motivation of straight men are on the list this week:
  • Babies Feel Pain Same as Adults Do : The belief that babies don't have fully developed pain receptors may have been smashed by Oxford scientists who poked and prodded newborns' feet and found
...

Incredibly Rare Pocket Shark Caught in Gulf

Only previous catch was 36 years ago

(Newser) - Scientists know very little about the pocket shark—they're not even sure what it keeps in its pockets—but a Gulf of Mexico catch has doubled the number of known specimens. At 5.5 inches, the species is small enough to fit in your pocket, the National Oceanic and...

Researchers Discover New Tick-Borne Disease

Anaplasma capra is a new species of bacteria common in goats

(Newser) - Ticks can carry more than Lyme disease, as a newly published study reminds us. Researchers from China and the University of Maryland School of Medicine uncovered a previously unknown tick-borne illness after last spring examining 477 Chinese patients who had suffered tick bites. They determined 6% of the patients had...

Researcher Says He's First to Tell Male, Female Dinos Apart

It all comes down to a stegosaurus's plates

(Newser) - If the sight of broad, wide plates along the back of a stegosaurus fails to drive you wild with desire, that's probably because you're not a female stegosaurus. In what the University of Bristol calls the "first convincing evidence for sexual differences in a species of dinosaur,...

Farmer Finds Perfect Jaw of Ancient Marine Creature

Kronosaurus swam in Australian waters more than 100M years ago

(Newser) - An unexpected upside to a drought in Queensland, Australia: Researchers now have a better sense of what a fearsome sea creature of yore looked like. A cattle farmer stumbled across a fossil in his field that turned out to be the lower jaw of Kronosaurus Queenslandicus, which plied the local...

Babies Feel Pain Same as Adults Do
Babies Feel Pain
Same as Adults Do
study says
Apr 21, 2015 4:00 PM CDT

Babies Feel Pain Same as Adults Do

They might even be more sensitive to it, study says

(Newser) - Researchers say their new study confirms what babies have been trying to tell us all along: Of course, they feel pain. In fact, they may be more sensitive to it than adults, according to a post at Science Daily . Oxford scientists used MRI scans to study the brains of newborns...

Breakfast Club Script Found in School Cabinet

1985 flick was filmed in a sister school in Illinois

(Newser) - Officials clearing out filing cabinets at Illinois' Maine South High School ahead of a move to a neighboring building last month uncovered a piece of movie history: a first draft of John Hughes' screenplay for the 1985 classic The Breakfast Club, dated Sept. 21, 1983. If you're wondering how...

Largest Structure Ever Found Is a Really Cold Hole

Some call the discovery independent evidence of dark energy

(Newser) - Researchers using NASA's Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer and a telescope in Maui have discovered what they are calling the "largest individual structure ever identified by humanity," reports the Royal Astronomical Society . So large, in fact, that the only way to measure its size is in light-years—1....

Men Gamble Big When a Hot Guy Is Around

 Men Gamble Big 
 When a Hot Guy 
 Is Around 
study says
Apr 19, 2015 9:41 AM CDT

Men Gamble Big When a Hot Guy Is Around

They want to look more attractive themselves, researcher says

(Newser) - Brad Pitt, it seems, would be a dangerous gambling partner. Scientists have found that heterosexual men take greater risks with money—in pursuit of bigger rewards—after seeing pictures of good-looking guys. Researcher Eugene Chan says it's a matter of competition for sex: "Men want to appear more...

Pharaoh's Ancient Chapel Found in Egypt

It was built by Nectanebo I, of the last native dynasty before Alexander the Great

(Newser) - Researchers have made an impressive find in Cairo: part of a chapel built by a pharaoh some 2,300 years ago, Phys.org reports. That pharaoh was King Nectanebo I, whose reign lasted from 379 to 360 BC, daijiworld.com reports. The chapel, part of a temple site in the...

Stories 3621 - 3640 | << Prev   Next >>
Most Read on Newser