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A facial reconstruction of a man whose decapitated skeleton was found in Musselburgh, Scotland, in 2010

New Research

Archaeologists in Scotland Discovered the Skeleton of a Roman-Era Man Who Was Decapitated Nearly 2,000 Years Ago. Now, You Can See What He Might Have Looked Like During His Lifetime

A digital facial reconstruction of the man, whose head was severed after his death, will soon go on view in Edinburgh. It depicts an individual in his early 50s, with graying hair and brown eyes

Simulation of gas structures as electrons were removed from helium by radiation emitted by early stars and black holes.

See a Stunning Simulation of the Early Universe, Which Will Help Astronomers Shed Light on the Cosmic Dark Ages

The model, created by researchers at the Center for Astrophysics, Harvard & Smithsonian, and other institutions, captures how the first stars and black holes gradually illuminated the universe after millions of years of darkness

Native Hawaiians dancing at Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park.

Native Hawaiians Descend From a Group of ‘Ultravoyagers’ Who Sailed About 4,400 Miles From Easter Island, Genetic Study Suggests

Researchers studied DNA from more than 1,000 modern-day Polynesians and found that Native Hawaiians and Easter Islanders were most closely related. The findings help trace the epic settlement of the Polynesian islands while also revealing genetic vulnerabilities among their communities

Renowned tattoo artist Henk Schiffmacher is once again leading the "Poor Man's Rembrandt Project," which enjoyed successs during its first iteration in 2023.

A ‘Poor Man’s Rembrandt’ for a Few Hundred Bucks? At Amsterdam’s Rembrandt House Museum, a Pop-Up Tattoo Studio Is Inking 17th-Century Masterpieces on Human Canvases

Visitors can choose from dozens of designs pulled from Rembrandt’s works, including lions, windmills and even his self-portraits. One participant was selected for a full-back tattoo of “The Descent from the Cross”

Over the past couple of years, Swift had been falling out of orbit faster than expected.

After Observing the Sky for 22 Years, a Beloved NASA Space Telescope Is Expected to Meet a Fiery Death This Week

The Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory launched in 2004 and detected thousands of astrophysical phenomena, leading to some huge discoveries. Earlier this year, experts attempted a first-of-its-kind rescue mission to save the falling telescope, but it failed

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

Engineers carefully removed the three masts of the SS Richard Montgomery, which sank in 1944 in the Thames Estuary near Sheerness, England.

Engineers Delicately Removed the Masts From This Bomb-Laden World War II Shipwreck in the River Thames. But 1,500 Tons of Explosives Are Still in Place

The operation marks a major milestone in efforts to address the risks posed by the sunken American military cargo ship, which still contains a massive cache of unexploded munitions

Dozens of Bangka slow lorises have been rescued and re-released on Bangka Island in recent years.

Scientists Feared This Cute but Venomous Primate Had Gone Extinct Nearly 100 Years Ago. It Was Hiding in Plain Sight All Along

The Bangka slow loris is still close to extinction, but new research suggests it continues to survive on a tropical Indonesian island. Conservationists are calling for stronger habitat protections and a breeding program, among other measures

 Portia fimbriata sleeps upside-down beneath a silk web.

Do Spiders Dream? These Arachnids Twitch, Curl Their Legs and Move Their Eyes When Asleep, Hinting at a Complex Brain State

A species of jumping spider appears to enter a deep sleep phase that resembles rapid eye movement (REM) in humans, the stage in which we typically dream

The original court indictment of Christabel Robyns, accused of witchcraft

New Research

As Most of England Relaxed Its Stance on Witchcraft, One Hardline City Bucked the Trend. It Even Went After ‘Service Magicians,’ Who Used Magic to Investigate Petty Crimes

New historical research shows how the city of Exeter hunted down accused witches while the rest of the country relented. Its prosecution of benign local sleuths shows how far the authorities were willing to go

An artist's illustration of Invictibellatrix amberina on what's now the Isle of Wight, off the south coast of England, around 120 million years ago.

After Sitting in a London Museum Since 1924, This Dinosaur Fossil Was Named a New Predatory Species—an ‘Unconquered Female Warrior’

Invictibellatrix amberina was a long-clawed, tiger-size dinosaur that lived around 120 million years ago. It’s helping scientists piece together the global spread of megaraptors, which later became apex predators

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

Cool Finds

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

Researchers found the bone flute in an archaeological layer of Troy that dates to the eighth century B.C.E.

Cool Finds

Crafted From Bone, This 2,800-Year-Old Flute Unearthed in Troy May Have Been Played Around the Time That Homer Composed ‘The Iliad’ and ‘The Odyssey’

After more than 150 years of excavations, the object is the first musical instrument ever discovered in the ruins of the ancient city, which is located in modern-day Turkey

The paw print was found in the rubble of a Bronze Age home in Tavşanlı Höyük.

A Dog Left a Paw Print on This Mud Brick 4,000 Years Ago. Archaeologists Discovered It in the Rubble of a Bronze Age House

The brick was found at Tavsanli Hoyuk, an archaeological site in western Turkey. Humans and dogs in this region have had a close relationship for thousands of years

A flying fox in Madagascar

Madagascar’s Giant Bats Seem to Be Shrinking. After Measuring 121 Specimens, Scientists Suggest Hunting by Humans Is to Blame

In a new study, researchers looked at museum specimens of the island’s flying foxes, spanning 150 years of history. They found a significant decline in size—right when commercial hunting ramped up

Teghaza 001 was discovered in the Sahara Desert in 2022.

This Rosy Stone Spotted in the Sahara Turned Out to Be a 4.1-Billion-Year-Old Meteorite From Mars, One of the Oldest Ever Found

Martian samples this old are extremely rare and offer clues about the Red Planet’s youth. This meteorite further hints that our celestial neighbor was once a watery world, suggesting it could’ve had the conditions to host life

The first rooms of the "Art of Manga" exhibition introduce visitors to manga, which is read right-to-left and usually published in black and white.

Manga Are Black, White and Read All Over. Treasures of the Globally Popular Japanese Comic Book Medium Are on View in New York

The Brooklyn Museum’s “Art of Manga” exhibition highlights the “mangaka,” or creators, who have shaped the medium. Hundreds of original illustrations are making a rare trip to the United States

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

New Research

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

Researchers say that CTE is very preventable, since less than 1 percent of brains from the general public show signs of it.

Three in Four Former NFL Players Who Died From 2008 Through 2023 May Have Had CTE, a Brain Disease Caused by Repeated Head Injuries

The researchers also estimate that around one in four of the former football players had dementia, a common feature of late-stage CTE

Two crows performed a task in which they determined whether dots were moving to the left or right of a screen. Some of the dots moved in random directions as a distraction.

Crows Can Make Decisions Based on Visual Information at Lightning Speed—Roughly Twice as Fast as Humans Can, Study Suggests

Even though the brain structures of birds and mammals are different, a new study suggests that crows and primates have similar decision-making nerve cell circuitry

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