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Soumya Sagar

Soumya Sagar is a former medical researcher who conducted research in neurosurgery at some of the top hospitals in the U.S. His work has appeared in New Scientist, Science, Chemical & Engineering News and Live Science. He is a passionate science writer and a voracious consumer of knowledge, especially trivia. He enjoys writing about medicine, animals, archaeology, climate change and history. Animals have a special place in his heart. He also loves quizzing, visiting historical sites, reading Victorian literature and watching noir movies.

Stories from Soumya Sagar

A conservator inspects a stained-glass fragment depicting a bearded man’s face, attributed to master glazier John Thornton of Coventry.

Dismantled to Survive the Nazi Blitz, Coventry Cathedral’s Stained Glass Is ‘a Medieval Jigsaw Puzzle.’ Its 12,000 Fragments Are Now Digitized for Public View

First shattered during the Reformation, the 15th-century stained glass is rife with religious imagery, comical animal scenes and even portraits of the original donors who funded its construction

Adult skull from Majolicas Cave showing cut marks

Neolithic Cannibalism Wasn’t an Act of Desperation. Almost 1,000 Skeletal Fragments From Caves in Southern Spain Show How Eating Human Flesh Was a Continual Practice

More than five decades after hordes of prehistoric bones were unearthed from three caves in Granada, new forensic techniques show how communities continued to consume their dead across distinct cultural eras

The Altar Stone lies flat on the ground, sunk into the grass beneath the collapsed upright of the Great Trilithon and its lintel.

Where Did Stonehenge’s Mysterious, Six-Ton Altar Stone Really Come From? Geologists Rule Out the Scottish Hypothesis as the Search Deepens

A comprehensive investigation of the sandstone megalith’s “geological fingerprint” suggests it did not originate in northeast Scotland, as a surprising study concluded in 2024, sending scientists back into the field to track down the enigmatic slab’s origins

The Verica Stater coin, showing a figure on horseback and the inscription "Rex"

Was the British King Who Urged the Romans to Invade Actually a Queen? One Archaeologist Thinks So

Linguistic clues and ancient coins could suggest that Verica—a ruler who fled Britain and convinced Roman Emperor Claudius to launch an invasion across the English Channel—has been misgendered for centuries

Gentile Bellini’s 1480 portrait of Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II

Actually, You Can Go Back to Constantinople. A Landmark Exhibition Reconstructs the Imperial City With 1,600 Years of Treasures From Byzantine and Ottoman Times

“Constantinople to Istanbul: One City, Two Empires” at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum tracks the storied city’s evolution from a 4th-century capital to a bustling 19th-century metropolis—hippodromes, bathhouses and all

A mummy known as El Niño (The Boy), a seven-year old Inca child found in 1999 on the top of the Llullaillaco volcano in the Argentine Andes.

Forensic Analysis of Frozen Inca Mummies Reveals That Sacrificed Children Were Plied With Coca Leaves, Corn Beer and Ayahuasca Compounds Before Death

Five centuries after children were sacrificed on volcanic peaks in the Andes, chemical clues preserved in their hair and fingernails show how the empire used intoxicating blends to soothe the children during their final months

Andy Warhol poses with his beloved dachshund Archie in November 1973.

From Hunting Hounds to Modernist Muses, Dachshunds Have Done It All. See the World’s First Art Exhibition Dedicated Exclusively to the Sausage Dog

A new exhibition in Germany traces how the low-slung breed captured the imaginations of artistic heavyweights like Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol and David Hockney. The museum even lets well-behaved pups tour the galleries

Military specialists inspect a high-altitude ice field in the Dolomites, navigating treacherous terrain to disarm munitions left behind from World War I.

Melting Ice in the Italian Dolomites Exposes Hundreds of World War I Munitions, Vestiges of the Vertiginous ‘White War’

Following low snowfall and record-breaking summer heat, the Italian Army is hunting for unexploded shells and bombs. “When they re-emerge, they are very, very dangerous,” one expert warns

The George Inn in the village of Norton St. Philip in Somerset has been crowned the oldest pub in England.

Where Is England’s Oldest Pub? An Archaeologist Drilled Into 600-Year-Old Timbers to Answer the Contentious Question

Tree-ring dating shows that a historic tavern in Somerset has been continually operating as an inn since the 1430s, when local monks built it to lodge wool merchants

The stuffed toys that inspired the world of Winnie-the-Pooh

As Winnie-the-Pooh Turns 100, the Original Stuffed Toy Remains in New York. Will the Silly Old Bear Ever Return to Britain?

A century after A.A. Milne first published his classic children’s tales, British admirers and royal emissaries have made a polite push to bring Christopher Robin’s original toys back home, if only for a royal vacation

Das bunte Leben, 1907, by Wassily Kandinsky seen ahead of its auction at Christie's in London

Looted by Nazis and Recently Restituted, a Kaleidoscopic Kandinsky Painting Just Sold for Nearly $42 Million

“Das bunte Leben,” the Russian artist’s dreamlike panorama, bridges folklore and early modernism. The sale follows a 2023 ruling concluding that the work was seized from its rightful Dutch Jewish owners

A still from a video shows a fire raging at the Eagle's Nest.

A Fire Ravaged the ‘Eagle’s Nest,’ an Alpine Retreat Built for Top Nazis. What Happens Next?

Police have detained a 33-year-old German citizen in connection with the blaze, which gutted the infamous historic building. In recent years, the mountaintop guesthouse hosted a restaurant, beer garden and exhibit about the site’s dark past

Pygmy raccoons live only on Mexico's Cozumel Island.

These Adorable, Critically Endangered Pygmy Raccoons in Cozumel Are Teaching One Another to Turn Trash Into Toy Balls

The observations offer rare evidence of a skill being passed among raccoons. But the work also highlights the effects of human pollution at the popular tourist destination

Since calorie restriction is known to slow aging, researchers wanted to know if GLP-1s—which curb appetite—could do the same.

GLP-1 Weight-Loss Drugs Can Slow Aging and Extend Life Span, Mouse Study Suggests

Older female mice—equivalent in age to 60-year-old women—given daily injections of the active ingredient in Ozempic lived about 12 percent longer than animals that didn’t receive the drug

The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco is coated in a protective paint called International Orange.

Why Does Rain Eat Through Protective Coatings on Metal Structures? Researchers Propose a New Idea: Electrically Charged Droplets

Scientists long attributed rain damage to physical abrasion and chemical degradation from acidic substances. A new study offers a third idea, which could help researchers develop longer-lasting coatings and preserve important objects

While no prediction tool is 100 percent accurate, experts have developed interactive maps to guide your leaf-peeping activities.

Leaf-Peeping Season Is Almost Here. These Interactive Maps Can Help You Figure Out When Fall Foliage Will Peak in Your Area

From the magnificent mountains of New England to the desert landscape of northern New Mexico, the tools can help you make the most of nature’s upcoming wardrobe change

The ration kept an individual's daily intake of sugar at around 40 grams, about ten cubes of sugar. After the restriction ended, consumption of the sweetener nearly doubled.

World War II Sugar Rationing Data Hints That Limiting Intake of the Sweet Stuff Early in Life Lowers the Risk of Dementia and Cancer

For roughly a decade leading up to September 1953, the United Kingdom limited sugar purchases. Scientists studied health outcomes in people born during the ration and right after

A catfish with melanoma, a kind of skin cancer

A Strange, Never-Before-Seen Cancer Seems to Be Spreading Among Catfish in a New England Lake

More than a decade ago, fishers and biologists noticed jet-black tumors on the skin of brown bullhead catfish in Lake Memphremagog. Genetic testing hints that they are caused by the first contagious cancer ever documented in fish

The 1611 oil painting Air

Scientists Just Learned That This Bat Eats Birds Midflight. A Renaissance Painter May Have Known About It Hundreds of Years Ago

Last fall, scientists reported the first known recordings of greater noctule bats hunting and feasting on songbirds during night flights. But a 17th-century artwork by Jan Brueghel the Elder seems to depict the species flying with feathered prey in its mouth

Microscope images of an artificial cell, colored green, dividing into two

Scientists Say They’ve Made Cells That Feed, Grow and Reproduce, Bringing Them One Step Closer to Building Life From Scratch

The human-made cells show many hallmarks of life, but they can’t make all their necessary internal structures or divide for very many generations

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