Humans

Human taste buds are easily manipulated. With just a few simple words, researchers have found the same chocolate chip cookie can go from tasting scrumptiously sweet and moist to unpleasantly bitter and stale. It all depends on what the label tells us. When 58 adults from Ohio State University were given three cookies to sample,

Putting cash in the hands of mothers can help shape the brains of their babies, according to a rigorous randomized study in the United States. Family income has been linked to child development numerous times in the past in observational studies, but this is the first time researchers have found direct experimental evidence of how

Archaeologists in Egypt have discovered two colossal limestone statues of King Amenhotep III that are fashioned to look like sphinxes, according to the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities. An Egyptian-German archaeological mission discovered the sphinx-like statues, which were originally about 26 feet (8 meters) long when they were created for King Amenhotep III, an 18th-dynasty

Last year, archaeologists presented an incredible first: the discovery of a mummified fetus within the abdomen of its mummified ancient Egyptian mother. Who the woman was, and how she died just over 2,000 years ago are both still mysteries – hence she is known as the Mysterious Lady. But now we know how the fetus

Slender gold and silver tubes crafted during the Bronze Age are the world’s oldest drinking straws, a new study finds.  Archaeologists found the 3-foot-long (1 meter) metal tubes in 1897 while excavating a burial mound known as a kurgan from the ancient Maikop (also spelled Maykop) culture in the northwestern Caucasus, which primarily includes modern-day

Even as we slumber, our industrious brains continue working to keep us alive. They ensure our heartbeats and breathing remain on track, wash off the waste they’ve accumulated throughout the day, and sort and file our memories. Now it seems they achieve all this and more while also monitoring our surroundings for stranger danger, a new

The thought of sharing an ice cream cone with a stranger can trigger feelings of disgust – however that’s often not the case with someone close to us, such as a romantic partner or child. A new study in the journal Science on Thursday shows that children are aware of this dynamic from a very

In 2018, archaeologists described a truly fascinating puzzle. It looks like this medieval Italian man went through life with a knife attached to his arm, in place of his amputated hand. The skeleton in question was found in a Longobard necropolis in the north of Italy, dating back to around the 6th to 8th centuries CE.

Cultured meat grown in a lab has the potential to be much more environmentally friendly than current practices in the agriculture industry, but a new study has revealed a looming problem: a lot of people really don’t like the idea of eating it. We’re talking here about meat produced in the laboratory from real animal

The road to life in the Arabian desert might once have been paved with the dead. In what is now Saudi Arabia, archaeologists have revealed an impressive network of lost highways, marked by human tombs, that link one oasis to another. Many thousands of years ago, these roads would have led Bedouin people and their

From the fragrance of brewing coffee to the smell of rain soaking the soil, distinguishing scents is one of the reasons that having a sense of smell is wonderful. But how smells such as coffee can be understood by our brain, no matter the season, location, or time is a complex question to answer. There’s

The ancient Wari empire of Peru might have used hallucinogenic beer to rally support in new territories. The remnants of a large feast, found at a Wari outpost from the ninth century CE, strongly suggest the seeds of a psychoactive plant called vilca (Anadenanthera colubrina) were once mixed with chicha, a beer made from the fruit

The course of human evolution never did run smooth. The emergence of hominins on the continent of Africa is full of twists, turns, gaps, and dead ends, which makes it all the more difficult to retrace the rise of our own species. Today, we still don’t really know when or where the first Homo sapiens

A rare script from a language in Liberia has provided some new insights into how written languages evolve. “The Vai script of Liberia was created from scratch in about 1834 by eight completely illiterate men who wrote in ink made from crushed berries,” says linguistic anthropologist Piers Kelly, now at the University of New England, Australia.

A treasure trove of some 200 Roman-era coins was discovered in northwestern Spain thanks to the apparent efforts of a hungry badger hunting for food, archaeologists have said. Described as “an exceptional find”, the coins were discovered in April 2021 in La Cuesta cave in Bercio in the Asturias region, with details outlined in the

In science, as in life, we all like to celebrate the big news. We confirmed the existence of black holes by the ripples they create in space time. We photographed the shadow of a black hole. We figured out how to edit DNA. We found the Higgs boson! What we don’t usually hear about is the

A 2,700-year-old drop toilet, found at an ancient royal estate in southern Jerusalem, still shows traces of what could have been an epidemic of parasitic infection long ago. The findings suggest even the wealthiest inhabitants of ancient Jerusalem, elite enough to use an outhouse, commonly suffered from intestinal worms. While latrines and toilets are considered

New years often come with new resolutions. Get back in shape. Read more. Make more time for friends and family. My list of resolutions might not look quite the same as yours, but each of our resolutions represents a plan for something new, or at least a little bit different. As you craft your 2022

According to legend, the devil once took a walk down the side of a volcano in southern Italy, each step preserved forever in solid rock. The tracks are known as the “Ciampate del Diavolo“‘ or “Devil’s Trail” – but details published in 2020 reveal a less diabolical yet far more interesting story on how they

Astrophotography allows us all to become citizens of the cosmos.  At a glimpse, we can be transported into the depths of space to gaze upon Jupiter’s dazzling cloudscape. Moments later we can picture the shifting rust-colored sands of Mars, or navigate our way across the lunar surface. It’s a gift that’s easy to take for

For something that’s meant to lend order to our lives, the modern Western calendar has a messy history. The mess, in part, comes about because of the difficulty of coordinating the orbits of celestial bodies with the cycles of day and night, and the passage of the seasons. The year measured by the earth’s orbit

The mummy of ancient Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep I was so exquisitely wrapped – decorated with flower garlands and buried with a lifelike face mask – scientists have been hesitant to open up the remains. That is, until now. Some 3,000 years after Amenhotep’s burial, a team of researchers used CT scans to digitally unwrap his body for the first time,

Finding the right work-life balance is by no means a new issue in our society. But the tension between the two has been heightened by the pandemic, with workers increasingly dwelling over the nature of their work, its meaning and purpose, and how these affect their quality of life. Studies suggest people are leaving or

Psychologists call it the dark triad: an intersection of three of the most malevolent tendencies of human nature – psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism. But the truth goes deeper, and darker. There’s also egoism, sadism, spitefulness, and more. And behind this rogues gallery of all our worst inclinations on the surface, a central, common core of

A nearly 6,000-year-old tomb unearthed in England holds the remains of 27 family members, representing a five-generation lineage descended from one man and four women, researchers have found using DNA analysis. The findings suggest there were polygamous marriages in the upper echelons of Neolithic society at that time, because the researchers think it was unlikely that the

It turns out there are still exciting new discoveries to be made in a field as well-studied as human anatomy: researchers have confirmed the existence of a layer of muscle in the human jaw that has until now eluded anatomists. This new muscle is a deeper, third section of the masseter muscle. It’s the most prominent jaw

From world politics to top-ranking businesses, to the upper rungs of academia and even Nobel laureates, men outnumber women by a significant margin. One claim to such disparity has been attributed to biology. The idea there’s some kind of ‘superdiversity’ among male brains has been repeatedly cited in the scientific literature in recent decades; but according

Famed for their swift longboats and bloody incursions, Vikings have long been associated with brutal, over-the-top violence. Between the eighth and 11th centuries, these groups left their Nordic homelands to make their fortunes by trading and raiding across Europe. Particularly infamous is the so-called “blood eagle”, a gory ritual these warriors are said to have

The picturesque and remote Faroe Islands sit in the North Atlantic, between Norway and Iceland, around 200 miles (322 kilometers) northwest of Scotland. Today, almost 54,000 people live on the archipelago, but it seems the first inhabitants arrived a lot earlier than previously thought. From the earliest archaeological structures on the Faroes, we know that

When we want to really connect with others, we usually limit ourselves to family and close friends. Opening up to a stranger would likely seem a daunting prospect to most of us – but it looks like our expectations may not always match reality. New research suggests that people’s expectations about their interactions with strangers are

The remains of an ancient female child, no more than two months of age, have been found lavishly decorated with pendants and beads in northwest Italy. The precious skeleton was discovered in the Arma Veirana cave in 2017 and has now been dated to about 10,000 old. This time is known as the early Holocene,

The human brain has been called the most complex object in the known universe. And with good reason: It has around 86 billion neurons and several hundred thousand miles of axon fibers connecting them. Unsurprisingly, the process of brain folding that results in the brain’s characteristic bumps and grooves is also highly complex. Despite decades

A three-week archaeological dig in the English Channel took a bizarre, inexplicable turn, after researchers chanced upon a carefully cut grave hidden in the soil – the contents of which were definitely not human. The discovery, made on the small island of Chapelle Dom Hue off the coast of Guernsey in September 2017, revealed the

Have you ever wondered why we single out brain surgeons and rocket scientists as the crème de la crème of the human intelligence pool? Given we use the phrases ‘It’s not rocket science’ and ‘It’s not brain surgery’ interchangeably, who would win out in a battle of the ultimate wits? In The BMJ’s light-hearted Christmas

If it wasn’t for an extinct relative of modern humans known as the Denisovans, some researchers suspect our own species might never have made their home on the highest and largest plateau in the world. The Tibetan Plateau, sometimes called the Himalayan Plateau, is nicknamed ‘the roof of the world’ because it sits, on average, 

Among all the different types of cancer treatment, photodynamic therapy – where light is used to destroy malignant cells – might have one of the strangest side effects: Patients are often better able to see in the dark. Last year, researchers finally figured out why this happens: Rhodopsin, a light-sensitive protein in the retinas in our eyes, interacts with a

A sleep technique described by surrealist artist Salvador Dalí and famous inventor Thomas Edison might actually work to inspire creativity, researchers have found. To get the creativity boost, you essentially need to wake up just as a certain sleep stage sets in, where reality seems to blend into fantasy. To use the technique, visionaries such

Scientists say a skeleton found with a nail through its foot in England is rare evidence of a Roman crucifixion. The skeleton was included in a recent report in British Archaeology magazine, which details findings from a dig of an ancient Roman settlement found in Fenstanton, Cambridgeshire, that dates back to the late first or

A precious-gem-studded “lotus flower” pendant similar to one worn by ancient Egypt’s Queen Nefertiti has been unearthed in a set of tombs in Cyprus. The pendant is one of hundreds of opulent grave goods from around the Mediterranean region that have been uncovered at the site, including gemstones, ceramics and jewelry. Archaeologists from the New

The term “binge-watch” was a contender for the Oxford English Dictionary’s 2013 word of the year. Although it didn’t win (“selfie” ultimately took the crown), this pointed to the rise of what was becoming a popular activity of watching multiple episodes of a TV show in a single sitting. Today, millions of us – including

At a distant end of the Earth – hidden somewhere on the remote Australian island of Tasmania – a strange structure is about to witness and record the end of the world as we know it. The project, called Earth’s Black Box, is a giant steel installation, soon to be filled with hard drives powered

When we’re looking at the world around us, our eyes are constantly readjusting and reassessing what we’re seeing – and new research shows how these shifts also involve a very brief period of ‘blindness’ when our vision is automatically blocked. The research looks at the foveola, a tiny part of the retina that we use

Archaeologists discovered the skeletal remains of a man killed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE, offering new insights into one of the most famous volcanic eruptions in history. The man, who researchers believe was between 40 and 45 years old, was killed just steps from the sea in the ancient Roman town

The human brain gobbles up to 10 times more energy than the rest of the body, eating through 20 percent of our fuel intake on average when we’re resting. Even in comatose patients who are said to be ‘brain dead’, only two to three times less energy is consumed by the brain. It’s one of

As far as years go, you could do a lot better than 536 CE. By some historians’ standards, it may have well been ‘the worst year to be alive in human history’. Depending on where a person lived around the globe, those cold, bleak times kept on truly sucking for many years to come. Now, it seems

Archaeologists in Peru working on a site in the outskirts of the capital Lima have unearthed a mummy believed to be between 800 and 1,200 years old – and, surprisingly, bound with rope. The remains are thought to be of a man aged 18-22 at the time of his death, with his hands covering his

A staggering 3.7 million years ago, an unknown species walked on two legs across a blanket of volcanic ash in what’s now northern Tanzania. These steps, immortalized by the volcanic ash gradually turning into rock, were unearthed back in 1978 and mistakenly dismissed as being bear-like. But not everyone agreed. “Reliable identification of these enigmatic

Scientists have unearthed the oldest fossils to date of the mysterious human lineage known as the Denisovans. With these 200,000-year-old bones, researchers have also for the first time discovered stone artifacts linked to these extinct relatives of modern humans, a new study finds. First identified a little more than a decade ago, the Denisovans –