New Research

Luke Skywalker’s prosthetic hand from The Empire Strikes Back

Advances in Prosthetic Limbs Brings Back a Sense of Touch

This new prosthetic mimicked rhesus macaques' sense of touch

None

Music Makes Working Out Hurt Less

Music doesn't solely work by distracting us or syncing our motions up with its encouraging beat

A false killer whale and a bottlenose dolphin hanging out at a zoo in Japan.

Dolphins Have Interspecies Hunting Parties

A real life tale of animal BFFs

Being Around Predators Changes the Shape of This Fish’s Penis

Armadillos have bony plates, stick bugs evolved camouflage, and the Bahamas mosquitofish evolved a bigger penis

None

Hibernating Turtles Are Still Aware of What’s Going on Around Them

Researchers assumed they entered a coma-like condition during winter hibernation, but turtles are paying attention to the things that matter most

How We Spot Friends in the Crowd Before Being Able to See Their Face

Facial recognition is already very much in place in all sorts of ways, from Facebook to surveillance cameras. Perhaps now they'll add body recognition too

None

There’s a New Breed of Botulism, And We Don’t Have a Cure for It

It's new, it's deadly, and it fights off our best anti-toxins

An artist’s idea of what PSO J318.5-22 may look like

This Baby Rogue Planet Is Wandering the Universe All by Itself

This planet, six times bigger than Jupiter, is sailing through space just 80 light-years away

Plants and animals living in the tropics will be pushed out of their natural temperature range the fastest.

What Does “Unprecedented Climate” Mean?

Starting in just 30 years, the coldest year will still be hotter than any year in the past 150 years

Why Cheating Feels So Good

There are a lot of things that are wrong yet feel so right. Cheating, for some people, is one of them. And researchers are trying to figure out why

These Male Marsupials Put So Much Energy Into Mating, It Kills Them

Males with the largest testes, most fit sperm and longest endurance in the sack tended sired more offspring with promiscuous females

Read a Great Work of Literature, And You Could Understand Real People Better

Literary fiction presents a myriad of characters and leaves it up to the reader to piece together all of those takes on reality

The ancient brain, preserved by flame

Archaeologists Just Found Someone’s 4,000-Year-Old Brain

Boiled in its own juices by fire, this brain has been preserved for the past 4000 years

Centipede Venom Is a More Potent Pain Killer Than Morphine

Of the nine possible sodium ion channels the centipede venom could have affected, it happened to correspond with just the right one for numbing pain

People Are Just As Superficial About Robots’ Looks As They Are About Humans’

Depending on a person's age and the robot's job, people feel differently about what the robot should look like

257,000 Years Ago, a Hyena Ate Some Human Hair (And Probably the Rest of the Person, Too)

The brown hyena who originally planted the evidence most likely ate the person, though it could have scavenged on a dead body

None

Early Easter Islanders Ate Rats—Lots of Rats

Perhaps the lack of fish food even explains the orientation of Easter Island's famous statues, which face inwards toward the islanders' food source

None

Ballerinas’ Brains Are Desensitized to Dizziness

Dancers may reshape their brains with years or training, or people who have a natural ability not to fall over may be most likely to become pro ballerinas

Water submerged tracts of this Thai forest, cutting off one part from another and creating forest islands.

When a Dam Turned a Forest Into Tiny Islands, Only Rats Were Happy

Although the rate of extinction the researchers observed is startling, it's unfortunately not surprising

Coastal Animals Have Two Internal Clocks, One for the Sun And One for the Tide

When researchers tamped with sea lice's internal clocks, the crustaceans were unruffled by the unwinding of their circadian cycles

Page 208 of 243