Diagnostic dilemma: A doctor discovers the genetic mutation behind a family member’s mysterious tooth loss condition
Patient: Dr. John Graham, professor of medical genetics and pediatrics at Cedars-Sinai College in Los Angeles. Symptoms: Most newborns don’t have teeth, but Graham already had some teeth when he was born. These teeth fall out soon after birth, but adult teeth do not replace them. This is a condition known as tooth agenesis. However, […]
Prehistoric aquatic freak with sideways teeth and twisted jaw was already a ‘living fossil’ 275 million years ago
Paleontologists have revealed a strange prehistoric creature with a twisted jaw and sideways teeth. This strange underwater creature was already a “living fossil” when it existed 275 million years ago. The newly described species, named Tanica amnicola, is an ancient member of the Tetrapoda, a large group of tetrapod vertebrates that today includes reptiles, birds, […]
JWST’s ‘small red dot’ may be the ‘parent’ of the universe’s first supermassive black hole
Astronomers may have found evidence that some of the mysterious “little red dots” discovered by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) are not black holes as previously proposed, but rather giant stars from the beginning of the universe. The researchers made this discovery by developing a simplified model of an ancient supermassive star, a potential […]
Stone Age women were buried like men in Hungary 7,000 years ago, revealing flexible gender roles
A typical male burial in the Stone Age cemetery of Chashalom, Hungary. He is buried on the right side, with polished stone tools placed near his left shoulder. (Image credit: Alexandra Anders) A Stone Age woman buried with male-related artifacts in what is now Hungary reveals that her society embraced complex identities and flexible gender […]
Gravitational wave background could repair our broken understanding of the universe
Physicists may have an entirely new way to measure the rate of expansion of the universe, one of the biggest unsolved mysteries in cosmology, by harnessing the ripples in space-time predicted by Einstein. A new study suggests that the weak gravitational wave background produced by the mergers of large numbers of black holes across the […]
Gold coins discovered by British metal detectors may have been dropped by Viking invaders from the Great Pagan Army
Minted more than 1,000 years ago as an imitation of a more famous coin, the gold coin may be a relic of the “Great Heathen Army” that invaded England in 865. This invasion created a Viking kingdom there known as the Danelaw. Metal detectors discovered the coin in a field near Elsing, a village in […]
‘Blood Moon’ total lunar eclipse on March 3 will attract millions of people around the world (photos)
As the full moon began to set over North America in the early morning hours of March 3, it briefly sank into the darkest part of Earth’s shadow, resulting in the last total lunar eclipse visible in the United States until 2029. If you missed the early morning spectacle, you can still watch the whole […]
In this parasitic species, all ants are queens and reproduce by cloning themselves and hijacking colonies of other ants.
Scientists have discovered that a rare type of ant that lives in Japan has no males or workers, only a queen ant. These ant queens parasitize the nests of another species of ants and reproduce asexually, creating clone queens that take over other nests. Jürgen Heinze, a biologist at Germany’s University of Regensburg and co-author […]
Vanuatu’s ‘barefoot volcanologist’ stands on Mount Yasur, spewing ash and sulfur, captured in award-winning photo
A photograph of an amateur volcanologist standing barefoot on a lava field on Vanuatu’s Mount Yasur has won the portrait category in this year’s Sony World Photography Awards open competition. Fine art and documentary photographer El Leontief captured Philip, the “barefoot volcanologist,” on Tanna, a remote Pacific island about 120 miles (190 kilometers) from Efate’s […]
The Lady of Elche: A 2,400-year-old bust of a mysterious “noble” woman from pre-Roman Spain
The mysterious bust of the Virgin of Elche was discovered in Spain in the late 19th century. (Image source: Getty Images) simple facts Name: Lady of Elche What is it: Limestone bust Birthplace: Elche, Spain Created: From around 400 BC to around 350 BC On a hot summer day in 1897, a farmer in Elche, […]