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simple factsWhat is it: Gamma ray burst GRB 250702BLocation: 8 billion light years away, in the constellation Scutum.Share date: December 8, 2025Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are the most energetic type of explosion in the universe since the Big Bang, and are detected on average once every day. But what happened on July 2, 2025 was very unusual. NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, which has been in orbit around Earth since 2008, has recorded an unusually long-lived GRB that continues to emit in bursts for more than seven hours.Astronomers sprang into action using telescopes around the world to detect the explosion’s afterglow…
It is a long-held belief that turtles can tuck their heads into their shells when threatened. But is it true? And is it this defense that turtles around the world have shells today?The answer, experts told Live Science, is that some types of turtles can, and some cannot. And while shells may be protective for some of these reptiles, fossil evidence suggests that shells evolved for entirely different reasons.Turtles are a type of turtle that can tuck their heads into their shells. This subpopulation of terrestrial turtles emerged 50 million years ago, Tyler Lyson, senior curator of vertebrate paleontology at…
Milestone: Humanity reaches the South PoleDate: December 14, 1911Location: Geographical South Pole, AntarcticaPeople: Roald Amundsen and his crewIn 1910, a fierce competition began between Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen and British sea captain Robert Falcon Scott. Each explorer wanted to be the first to reach the geographic South Pole and thereby conquer Earth’s last unexplored continent. The race was destined to end in tragedy.Scott had previously attempted to conquer the southernmost tip of the continent in 1902, but had to turn back due to poor health and unfavorable temperatures. The crew, most of whom were recently returned from Ernest Shackleton’s Nimrod,…
Indian online used car marketplace Spinny has raised about $160 million to acquire auto services startup GoMechanic, TechCrunch has learned. The Series G round, which combines primary and secondary deals, would give the 10-year-old startup a post-money valuation of about $1.8 billion, three people familiar with the matter said, roughly in line with its previous valuation. Nearly $90 million of this round is core funding, according to people familiar with the matter. Existing investor Accel has already transferred about $44 million of that amount, with some details of the investment appearing in an Indian regulatory filing this week, first reported…
An Evansville, Indiana, woman faces a felony charge after allegedly spraying food with a substance that caused customers to vomit during a DoorDash delivery. The Vanderburgh County Sheriff’s Office said in a press release that it was contacted on Dec. 7 by a man who said he and his wife vomited and felt a burning sensation in their mouth, nose, throat and stomach after eating fast food ordered from DoorDash. The man told NBC News he noticed the delivery bag had been sprayed with something red and checked the doorbell camera footage. The sheriff’s department said the footage showed the…
As data center construction accelerates, improvements to roads, bridges and other infrastructure could take a hit, according to Bloomberg. In 2025, state and local governments reportedly sold record amounts of bonds for the second year in a row, and strategists predict an additional $600 billion in sales next year. Most of that money is expected to fund infrastructure projects. Meanwhile, private spending on data center construction remains at an annual rate of more than $41 billion, about the same as state and local government spending on transportation construction, according to Census Bureau data. All of these projects are likely to…
Underwater archaeologists have discovered the remains of a 2,000-year-old ship that may have been the luxury “tour boat” of the ancient elite while diving off the coast of Egypt.The researchers discovered the barge in the ancient port of Alexandria, the capital of Egypt during the Ptolemaic period (304-30 BC) and later a major city during the Roman Empire’s domination of the region.The wreck consists of several well-preserved pieces of wood, approximately 90 feet (28 meters) long, taken from a barge approximately 115 feet (35 meters) long and 22 feet (7 meters) wide, French underwater archaeologist Franck Goddiot said in a…
December 13, 2025Ravi LakshmananNetwork security/vulnerabilities The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Friday added a high-severity flaw affecting Sierra Wireless AirLink ALEOS routers to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog following reports of it being exploited in the wild. CVE-2018-4063 (CVSS score: 8.8/9.9) refers to an unrestricted file upload vulnerability that can be exploited to cause remote code execution via a malicious HTTP request. “A specially crafted HTTP request could result in a file being uploaded, which could result in executable code being uploaded and routed to a web server,” the agency said. “An attacker could craft an…
A teenage boy who survived a brutal lion attack in what is now Bulgaria some 6,200 years ago had a deep hole in his skull, suggesting his brain was severely damaged, new research has found.The 16- to 18-year-old boy may have been hunting when he encountered the lion (Panthera leo), according to a study published Nov. 30 in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports. Lions roamed what is now Eastern Europe during the Copper Age (4500 BC to 3500 BC), and lion bone cuts found in prehistoric settlements on the Black Sea coast suggest that humans occasionally ate them.Researchers said…
Usually, we get tattoos intentionally. However, some injuries can leave another type of mark known as a “traumatic tattoo.” These tattoos have nothing to do with needles or ink. So what exactly is a traumatic tattoo?Traumatic tattoos are formed by everyday substances such as graphite, dirt, and gravel. Alternatively, pieces of metal, such as splinters, become lodged under the skin, leaving visible (and often long-lasting) marks.”It’s when a foreign object, such as dirt, asphalt, metal, or sand, becomes embedded in the dermis of the skin,” Dr. Mara Weinstein Velez, a dermatologist at the University of Rochester Medical Center, told Live…