discoveries

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

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How Your Coffee Grounds Can Help Save the World

Heating used grounds with potassium hydroxide enables methane storage

(Newser) - As if coffee isn't amazing enough already. A team of researchers—who, yes, got the idea over a cup of coffee—are reporting in the journal Nanotechnology that soaking spent coffee grounds in potassium hydroxide and then heating the grounds in a furnace creates a material that can store...

Earth Has 3T Trees —and That's Not Good

Study shows Earth has lost nearly half its trees since farming began

(Newser) - Congratulations, environmentalists, tree-huggers, and people who enjoy breathing oxygen: the Earth has seven times more trees—approximately 3 trillion—than previously estimated, according to a new study in Nature . Scientists from around the world created the first "data-driven global tree census" by combining satellite images with tree counts from...

Unsheared Sheep So Wooly He Nearly Died

Overgrown Aussie sheep wouldn't have survived summer

(Newser) - It was the most massively overgrown sheep anybody had ever seen—and the biggest challenge of Ian Elkins' career. When animal authorities in Canberra found and rescued the wandering sheep, they called for help and the four-time Australian Shearing Championship winner answered, the Guardian reports. Elkins says he sheared a...

Tech Could Help Seniors' Brains Stay Young

According to a new study

(Newser) - Teaching mom and dad to use Facebook and Instagram may make you want to yank out your hair, but it could help keep parents mentally fit as they age, according to new research out of Austria. People over the age of 50 scored better on cognition tests in 2012 than...

How Old Is Your Heart? Odds Are It's Older Than You

Half of Americans have hearts that are at least 5 years older than their age

(Newser) - With one-third of Americans obese, the US now ranks 30th in the world for life expectancy, the New York Times noted earlier this year. So it may not come as a surprise that roughly half of Americans have hearts that are at least five years older than their actual age....

Backyard Dig Yields Live Cannonball

In New Jersey

(Newser) - The Atlantic City bomb squad was dispatched to a southern New Jersey home over the weekend after a man dug up a live cannonball in his backyard. Police say the Lower Township man was digging behind his West Bates Avenue home when he discovered the explosive Saturday. Police say the...

World's Oldest Wooden Statue Twice as Old as Pyramids

New dating puts Shigir Idol at 11K years old, 1.5K years older than thought

(Newser) - When scientists first tried in 1997 to date the famous Shigir Idol wooden sculpture —originally found in a Siberian peat bog in 1890—radiocarbon dating suggested the art was so old the findings were widely disputed. Now, armed with better tech, scientists turned to one of the world's...

Scientists Study Lost Site of Largest Native American Massacre

Cavalrymen killed at least 250 Shoshone men, women, children in Idaho in 1863

(Newser) - By the end of that frigid day in January 1863, the blood of at least 250 men, women, and children stained the ground in Idaho. But rather than occupying a dark place in American history, the victims of the nation's single largest Native American massacre—Shoshone Indians slaughtered in...

Study of Rare, Terrible Brain Disease Yields Huge Find

Multiple system atrophy quickly destroys the brain

(Newser) - Multiple system atrophy, or MSA, is a rare and horrible disease that will destroy your brain and inevitably kill you, and the study of it has now yielded a major breakthrough in our understanding of brain diseases. Researchers have discovered that MSA is caused by a prion, a kind of...

First Big Predator Was 'Angry' Water Bug

You wouldn't want to swim with 'Pentecopterus decorahensis'

(Newser) - Earth's first big predatory monster was a weird water bug as big as Tom Cruise, newly found fossils show. Almost half a billion years ago, way before the dinosaurs roamed, Earth's dominant large predator was a sea scorpion that grew to 5 feet 7 inches, with a dozen...

Coming Soon: Melt-Resistant Ice Cream

Also ice-crystal-resistant, to boot

(Newser) - Soon, you may be able to enjoy an ice cream cone without having to worry about sticky fingers. Scientists from the University of Edinburgh and the University of Dundee have discovered that a naturally occurring protein, known as BslA, can be used to make melt-resistant ice cream, ABC News reports....

Doctors Make Nasty Find in Guy Constipated for 10 Years

His colon had swelled to twice its normal size

(Newser) - Know anyone who's had constipation for 10 years? Hopefully not, but just in case: A guy in China with that very condition just went to the hospital, where doctors found an 11-pound stool lodged in his colon, Fox News reports. Doctors at Second People’s Hospital in Chengdu, China,...

'Important Part' of WWII History Found 80 Feet Below

'It's a really very, very exciting discovery,' says dive team leader

(Newser) - The Northwestern Hawaiian Islands are a chain of almost entirely uninhabited islands, atolls, and shoals that stretch across some 1,250 miles of the Pacific. Amid that large expanse has slumbered what's considered the largest shipwreck to have occurred in the islands: the Mission San Miguel, a naval tanker...

There Is One Proven Way to Prevent a Hangover

Neither water nor fatty foods appear to make a difference

(Newser) - Bad news for those who like to imbibe copious amounts of alcohol. The only proven way to prevent a hangover is to, well, imbibe smaller amounts of alcohol. Researchers tested various hangover "cures" on 826 Dutch students and found that neither drinking water nor eating fatty foods will "...

Daydreaming May Be Why Neurotics Are So Creative

So, does this explain Woody Allen?

(Newser) - Is there a reason neurotic people tend to be bigger worriers but also more creative than the rest of us? A newly published theory says yes, and it has to do with daydreaming. Neurotics—famous ones include Isaac Newton, Winston Churchill, and, of course, Woody Allen—get anxious and obsessed...

Watching 5 Hours of TV a Day Could Kill You
 Watching 5 Hours of TV 
 a Day Could Kill You  
study says
Aug 30, 2015 5:50 AM CDT

Watching 5 Hours of TV a Day Could Kill You

That level of viewing can increase likelihood of deadly blood clots six-fold

(Newser) - Here's a study to make you get off the couch. Researchers from Japan's Osaka University found that watching more than five hours of TV a day can make you six times more likely to suffer a fatal blood clot, the Telegraph reports. The study, presented to the European...

What Marijuana May Do to Sperm

Nothing good...

(Newser) - Smoking pot could damage your semen quality, or so suggests a new study out of Denmark. Some 1,215 Danish men ages 18 to 28 were asked about their drug use over the past three months and provided a semen sample. The researchers found a correlation between men who smoked...

For Better Sex, Split the Childcare
Study: Parents Who Do This Have Better Sex Lives
in case you missed it
Aug 29, 2015 11:17 AM CDT

Study: Parents Who Do This Have Better Sex Lives

The happiest couples tend to evenly divide many child-related duties

(Newser) - Couples who manage to evenly divide child care duties tend to have higher-quality relationships, as well as sex lives. This is the takeaway from a new study being presented to the American Sociological Association in Chicago this week. Researchers interviewed nearly 500 heterosexual couples with kids and found that when...

How Birth Order May Affect Your Weight
How Birth Order May
Affect Your Weight
study says
Aug 29, 2015 8:50 AM CDT

How Birth Order May Affect Your Weight

First-born sisters tend to be heavier as adults

(Newser) - Attention, big sisters: First-born women are more likely to be overweight or obese than their younger sisters, a new study suggests. The Washington Post reports that researchers at the University of Auckland looked at 13,406 pairs of Swedish sisters and found the older sibling was 29% more likely to...

Why the US Leads the World in Mass Shootings
 Why the US 
 Leads the World 
 in Mass Shootings 
in case you missed it
Aug 29, 2015 7:00 AM CDT

Why the US Leads the World in Mass Shootings

'American Dream' plays a role, researcher says

(Newser) - High gun ownership rates and high rates of mass shootings might seem like an obvious connection, but University of Alabama researcher Adam Lankford says his study is the first to show empirical evidence that the aforementioned ownership rate "is the strongest predictor of [a country's] number of public...

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