discoveries

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

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Human Breast Milk May Give You Energy—or Syphilis

Depends who you ask, but some experts think it poses serious health risks

(Newser) - Some fitness buffs , fetishists, and people with chronic illnesses believe human breast milk—apparently now a profitable, growing market—is a superfood of sorts, Sky News notes. And then there are the science experts who say that drinking the lactated liquid could infect imbibers with hepatitis (B and C), HIV,...

Astronomers Say We Owe Our Lives to These Stars

Galaxy CR7 said to contain some of the universe's earliest stars

(Newser) - Astronomers peering through the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile have discovered a faraway galaxy of stars so significant, they say we wouldn't exist without them. The galaxy, known as Cosmos Redshift 7, or CR7—a name inspired by soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo—is three times...

Greek God's Big Feature Reveals Medical Issue: Expert

Priapus appears happily well-endowed, but ...

(Newser) - A Greek god portrayed in one of Pompeii's best-known frescoes has quite the prominent feature—for better and for worse, apparently. The painting of fertility god Priapus, which survived the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, depicts a man whose phallus extends nearly to his knees and the fruit basket sitting...

Mass Extinction Underway, Will Kill Off Humans: Report

Current extinction rate is shocking, scientists say

(Newser) - Feeling upbeat? Enough of that: Planet Earth is undergoing a sixth mass extinction that will likely annihilate the human race unless we can curb the trend, scientists say. According to a new paper , the current rate of species extinction outpaces the natural rate far more than anyone knew, NBC News...

5 Most Incredible Discoveries of the Week

Including a potential avocado drug and the scary state of our water supply

(Newser) - A caveat for creative types and a warning about our water supply make the list:
  • NASA Makes Worrisome Claim About Our Water : The space agency's latest data on the world's water supply is pretty chilling: About 35% of the fresh water people use comes from large underground aquifers,
...

It Turns Out Kangaroos Are Lefties

Red and eastern gray kangaroos are all left-handed, researchers find

(Newser) - Handedness (the preference for using one hand over the other for nearly all tasks) likely emerged in humans soon after we began to walk upright. And for years scientists have thought this trait belongs almost exclusively to bipedal primates, given it's never before been observed in quadruped creatures. Now...

Spanish Armada Relics Wash Ashore in Ireland

Two cannons are among the centuries-old prizes

(Newser) - Severe weather near County Sligo, Ireland, over the past two years has stirred up the seabed and brought centuries-old treasures to the shore. Pieces of the Spanish Armada merchant ship La Juliana have been washing ashore since April, including two cannons from the ship. Experts say the weapons, made in...

&#39;Kennewick Man&#39; Mystery Over: He&#39;s Native American
'Kennewick Man' Mystery Over: He's Native American
study says
Jun 18, 2015 3:38 PM CDT

'Kennewick Man' Mystery Over: He's Native American

Finding might lead to his burial

(Newser) - Kennewick Man is not only "one of the most important human skeletons ever found in North America," in the words of the Guardian , it's also one of the most controversial. Now a new DNA study might—but only might—bring finality to the debate over the "...

Those Who Believe in Pure Evil Tend to Support This

And the issue becomes more black-and-white

(Newser) - As Nebraska becomes the 19th state to abolish capital punishment, researchers out of Kansas State University have been investigating just what makes some Americans more fervently in favor of the death penalty than others. One clear factor, they report in the journal Personality and Individual Differences , is whether someone believes...

Eureka! Navigation Clue Found in a Worm&#39;s Brain
Eureka! Navigation Clue Found in a Worm's Brain
study says
Jun 17, 2015 7:10 PM CDT

Eureka! Navigation Clue Found in a Worm's Brain

Scientists discover first-ever magnetic sensor in an animal

(Newser) - A tiny find in a worm-sized brain could give scientists a far greater understanding of how animals use the Earth's magnetic field, phys.org reports. In a lab at the University of Austin in Texas, certain hungry worms were found to move down in gelatin-filled tubes, perhaps in their...

Sexed-Up 'Bachelor' Birds Could Save Their Species

Single male hihi birds can cut down inbreeding, ensure genetic diversity

(Newser) - Is the male hihi bird native to the Jersey Shore? Because, like The Situation and Pauly D, the single male birds in this endangered species (they're actually only found in New Zealand) are decidedly boorish, creeping for already taken ladies to mate with. But this actually might save the...

Dinos Issued a Climate Warning 215M Years Ago
Dinos Issued a Climate Warning 215M Years Ago
NEW STUDY
Jun 17, 2015 12:40 PM CDT

Dinos Issued a Climate Warning 215M Years Ago

Sauropods avoided volatile tropics in Triassic

(Newser) - Scientists have long been baffled by a lack of Triassic period fossils from large, herbivorous dinosaurs known as sauropods near the equator. A new study offers some illumination: It suggests a hot, unpredictable climate and high carbon dioxide levels kept some of the world's first dinosaurs away—and may...

Scientists Figure Out How That Idea Pops in Your Head

Study tracks changes in brain through learning

(Newser) - Scientists using cutting-edge brain imaging technology finally know how that new idea pops into your head and may even be able to read the thought by looking at your brain. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University observed 16 participants' brains as they learned about the habitat and eating habits of eight...

Scientists Reconstructing Ancient Jar Find a Mystery

The inscription dates back to the King David era

(Newser) - When archaeologists stumbled upon hundreds of shards of pottery at the Khirbet Qeiyafa biblical site near Jerusalem in 2012, they noticed letters in ancient Canaanite on some of the pieces and began the work of putting the 3,000-year-old jar back together. What they found was the inscription of a...

'Terrifying' NASA Find: We're Running Out of Water

21 of world's 37 largest aquifers draining faster than they can be refilled

(Newser) - A human being without water is a dead human being, which makes NASA's latest data on the world's water supply pretty chilling. About 35% of the fresh water people use comes from large underground aquifers, but supplies are dwindling, with more water removed from 21 of the world'...

Cat Videos Are Good for You
 Cat Videos Are Good for You 
STUDY SAYS
Jun 17, 2015 2:45 AM CDT

Cat Videos Are Good for You

This study's no time-waster, researcher says

(Newser) - Two million cat videos posted on YouTube with around 26 billion views last year adds up to an awful lot of time watching funny cats, but it's not completely wasted time, according to an Indiana University researcher. Media professor Jessica Gall Myrick surveyed around 7,000 people and discovered...

Mount Everest Moved —One Whole Inch

Nepal's deadly April earthquake shook the mountain hard

(Newser) - Rest easy, geological watchdogs: Reports that Mount Everest may have shrunk almost a whole inch after April's devastating earthquake in Nepal are unfounded, Chinese officials say. But those same officials note that data culled from a satellite monitoring system shows the deadly quake that killed more than 8,000...

Moon Jellyfish Shock Scientists With This Trick

'Symmetrization' has never been observed before

(Newser) - When Caltech biologist Michael Abrams cut two arms off a young jellyfish in 2013, he figured it would do what many marine invertebrates do—grow new ones. But no. "[Abrams] started yelling... 'You won't believe this, you've got to come here and see what's happening,...

Avocados Can Fight Disease That Kills 10K Per Year

Professor Paul Spagnuolo is trying to make avocado-based drug

(Newser) - The unassuming avocado, so rich and delicious it's often called nature's butter, has been found to hold a key ingredient that could fight off one of the world's most devastating diseases, Eureka Alert reports. That disease is acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a cancer that the American Cancer...

Tribe Became Immune to Brain Disease— by Eating Brains

The cannibalistic practice spread disease that some managed to resist

(Newser) - When members of the Fore tribe in Papua New Guinea ate the brains of their extended kin at funerals, it was their way of paying respect. Unfortunately, the ritual also helped spread kuru prion disease, a form of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD)—a rare but fatal brain disease that can lead...

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