New Research

The distribution of drug deaths in American counties from 2008 to 2009

Deaths From Drug Overdoses Are Soaring

Across America, the rate of drug overdose deaths has risen by 300%

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Remnants of 3.5 Billion-Year-Old Bacteria May Be the Oldest Evidence of Life on Earth

The microbial sediment layers outdate previous evidence of life around 300 million years

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Rethinking the Paleo Diet: Would You Eat the Contents of a Deer’s Stomach?

Animal stomachs for everybody!

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This Scientist Let a Flea Live Inside Her In Order to Study It

To what lengths would you go for science?

Learning Another Language Could Help Delay Dementia

Kids who know two languages think faster and more creatively. And research even suggests that being bilingual could fortify the brain against dementia

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Listen to “Huh”—a Universal Word—in Russian, Icelandic, Lao And Siwu

Researchers think "huh" is a great example of "convergent cultural evolution of linguistic items," or a word that came out of a conversational need

Porcupines can be vicious killers. But not this one. This one is adorable.

Porcupine Quills Can Kill

Researchers in Italy watched porcupines corner a dog and stab it to death

You don’t need to take Google’s personality test; you’re already revealing enough on Twitter.

Analyzing Your Tweets Could Help Advertisers Understand Your Personality And Sell You More Stuff

By scraping your tweets, these researchers can get insight into your personality

This Robot Is Powered by Pee

From bug eaters to pee drinkers, these robots of the future will be part of the food chain

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Americans Who Have Stereotypical Ideas About Race And Violence Are More Likely to Own Guns

These results held true even after controlling for conservative politics, being from the South and harboring anti-government sentiments and other factors

African elephants in Kruger National Park

Elephants Never Forget When You Slaughter Their Family

Culling an elephant pack can destroy the survivors' social skills

Snakes’ Vision Sharpens When They’re Under Stress

This likely allows them to optimize their vision for situations that require the most attention to detail, and in the meantime save that visual energy

Your Dog’s Trying to Tell You Something by the Way He Wags His Tail

The tail wag is a complicated form of communication—left and right matter

How Much of a Subway Map Can One Person’s Brain Process?

A group at MIT has figured out how to build a better subway map, by replicating how the brain processes a map

Oysters Don’t Have Ears But Still Use Sound to Choose Their Homes

Oyster larvae find their homes by responding to the unique sounds of a reef

Stop That Foot Massage! Feet Are Not an Erogenous Zone

If you've been begrudgingly giving foot massages, you might want to check with your partner to see if they actually like them

Damming and dredging a California river for gold

The Gold Rush Left Behind Mercury That’s Still Contaminating California

Leftover mercury will continue to flush through the environment, eventually making its way into the San Francisco bay, for the next 10,000 years

Reindeer Eyes Change Color to Match the Season

Reindeers' wintery blue eyes are about 1,000 times more sensitive to light than their summery gold ones

Our Brains Evolved to Recoil at the Sight of Snakes

Around 60 million years ago, our primate ancestors figured out that the sight of a snake meant trouble

A Family Tree of You And Your 13 Million Closest Relatives

A big data project to connect all the people

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