It’s an aching feeling of deep affection that many of us can barely control. When we see an adorable creature, we must fight an overwhelming urge to squeeze that cuteness with everything we’ve got. And pinch it, and cuddle it, and maybe even bite it. This is a perfectly normal psychological tick – an oxymoron

When Karl Martin of Derbyshire, England picked up a pair of pots for £4 (US$5) at a car boot sale, all he wanted was a nice jar to put his toothbrush in. And for five years, that’s precisely what he had. Imagine his surprise when that toothbrush jar, decorated with a painted antelope, turned out

A retired professor from the UK says he might have pinpointed the location of Camelot, the legendary castle where stories claim that King Arthur held court some 1,400 years ago – if he actually existed. According to Arthurian literature expert Peter Field, Camelot used to stand at the site of an ancient Roman fort called Camulodunum in

Some of the world’s most important science is conducted in one of its most inhospitable, hostile places. But not without a cost, new research reveals. A new long-term analysis of researchers stationed in Antarctica sheds new light on a psychological phenomenon very few of us ever have to experience: a unique coping mechanism, triggered when

When you know a particular topic really well, you might say you know it like the back of your hand. But how well do you really know that hand? Or the rest of your body, for that matter? People have a tendency to share misinformation that, over time, can be misconstrued as fact. The human body

As someone who has clocked an unseemly amount of hours on an MMO, I’m no stranger to the guilt that can come from habitual gaming.  But the good news is there’s mounting evidence that the hobby can have a range of beneficial effects on your brain, including improved cognitive control, emotional regulation, spatial resolution of

Japan’s home prices may be rising, but the country still has more than 8 million unoccupied properties, so many that owners have started giving them away for free. In some cases, local governments are even offering subsidies for people willing to tear down homes and build new ones, according to The Japan Times. Though many

One of the best-known fossils in paleontology, a virtually complete skeleton nicknamed “Little Foot”, could actually represent an entirely new species of early human, scientists have announced. The fossil was first discovered more than 20 years ago, and after decades of careful extraction and research, an analysis of the age, skull and limbs has finally

In our never-ending quest to understand what happens to us after we die, humans have long seen the rare phenomenon of near-death experiences as providing some hints. People who’ve had a brush with death often report seeing and experiencing life-altering events on “the other side,” like a bright white light at the end of a

A new discovery has pushed the timeline of the plague in Europe back even earlier than we had previously thought. A new strain of  the Yersinia pestis bacterium has been identified in 4,900-year-old bones in a Neolithic burial site in Sweden. It’s the oldest strain ever identified, and the most basal we’ve seen – that

Every few years, a story goes viral claiming that experts have finally ‘solved’ the Bermuda Triangle mystery. Maybe it’s strange hexagonal clouds acting as “air bombs”, rogue waves, or perhaps some freak whirlpools. But there’s one problem with all of these ‘solutions’ – the Bermuda Triangle doesn’t actually exist, and there is no ‘mystery’ to

A school in Buffalo, New York has filled a vending machine with books to get young students more interested in reading. Locking up a stack of books behind a wall of glass and then demanding payment for them may seem like a counterintuitive way to promote literacy, but in this case it appears to be

Recycling in the United States is piling up at an alarming speed and no one knows where to put it. Up until recently, that was China’s problem. For years, the US offloaded nearly 4,000 shipping containers full of recyclables on China’s shoulders every day. But China is sick of being the world’s recycling bin, and

A meteor that exploded in the air near the Dead Sea 3,700 years ago may have wiped out communities, killed tens of thousands of people, and provided the kernel of truth to an old Bible story. The area is in modern-day Jordan, in a 25 kilometre (15.5 mile) wide circular plain called Middle Ghor. Most

A cursory glance back through human history should be enough to convince anybody that our species is in love with hate. In the opinion of anthropologist R. Brian Ferguson, this doesn’t mean we have good reason to think large scale social conflict is in our genes. War isn’t in our nature, he argues. But that

In the mud of London’s Thames river, a strange skeleton that lay hidden for 500 years has finally seen the light of day. Face-down, one arm upflung, the only remnants of his clothing a pair of half-rotted, thigh-high black leather boots. It’s those boots that have archaeologists abuzz – an incredibly rare find. “It’s extremely

He may (or may not) have brought about the world’s first genetically modified human babies using CRISPR-Cas9, but He Jiankui’s shoes are probably not the most comfortable in the world right now. According to reports from Chinese media, the geneticist’s whereabouts are currently unknown. It’s been reported that he is under house arrest at the

In ancient cave art around the world, a particular motif shows up time and again: the impressions of the hands of the people who visited long ago, printed or stencilled. And yet, in some caves decorated by the Palaeolithic inhabitants of France and Spain, something curious has been observed: A very high number of those

When long-dead human remains are found buried in unusual circumstances, anthropologists are usually able to piece together why. But the bones of a child that lived just a couple of hundred years ago in Poland are proving to be a bit of a head-scratcher. In a shallow grave in Tunel Wielki Cave, located in Sąspowska

It may sound like a scene straight out of a horror movie, but statistically you are not that unlikely to end up on a date with a psychopath. It is estimated that about 1 in 100 people are psychopaths – similar to the number of people who are teachers. And while we may associate psychopaths

East Africa is famously the birthplace of humankind and the location where our ancient hominin ancestors first invented sophisticated stone tools. This technology, dating back to 2.6 million years ago, is then thought to have spread around Africa and the rest of the Old World later on. But new research, published in Science, has uncovered

Much like Egypt’s pharaohs, the emperors of China’s Western Han dynasty had a thing for being buried inside pyramids – although less recognisable than the iconic ones we know from places like Giza. Scattered along the outskirts of Xi’an along the banks of China’s Wei River, the sides of these burial mounds align with the

Why is ‘boobs’ or ‘wriggly’ more likely to get a laugh than, say, ‘taxes’? What makes some words funnier than others? Although you might not have thought about it much before, deducing the humour factor in words is a surprisingly complex process. “Nobody has really done a good job at predicting humour in advance,” University

A scene painted on a cave wall more than 15,000 thousand years ago appears to tell the simple story of a hunter collapsing before a disembowelled beast. Reading between the lines, the images might describe something bigger. Maybe even astronomical. Figures depicted in the famous prehistoric paintings at Lascaux were positioned with purpose, according to

The Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities has been going hard on the archaeological discoveries this year, but are we tired of it? No, no we are not. Especially when they come up with spectacular finds like this one. In a tomb in the El-Assasif necropolis in the ancient city of Thebes, two wooden coffins have been

Most modern humans have a little bit of Neanderthal hiding somewhere in their genes. For years, it was assumed that this tiny dose of DNA came from a brief encounter between our ancestors and their Neanderthal neighbours thousands of years ago. But what started as a one night stand now looks more like a frequent

The deepest dive recorded by the free-diving Bajau Laut people of Southeast Asia was to an impressive 79 metres (259 feet), and the longest time spent underwater by them was just over three minutes. Although the Bajau do not dive to these depths or for this length of time during their day-to-day fishing, they spend

A lot of what we think we know about psychology might be wrong. A major research initiative, the second of its kind, tried to reconstruct 28 famous classic psychology experiments. But of those 28, only 14 of the experiments yielded the same results, according to research published Monday in the journal Advances in Methods and

A wild turkey has been causing havoc in a Rhode Island town for six months, where it has been blocking traffic, chasing people, and stopping them paying taxes. Three wild turkeys arrived in the town of Johnston in May, but one managed to evade permanent capture the entire time by deploying a number of tactics,

What’s the best way to shut down an awkward politics discussion at the Thanksgiving table before it ruins everyone’s appetite? The answer, obviously, is science. So, in preparation for the upcoming family holiday, here’s a handy list of talking points involving amazing science news you can keep ready for when you need to boldly interrupt

An American tourist was killed by arrows shot by members of the Sentinelese tribe, according to Indian police. The tribe lives an isolated existence on North Sentinel Island. It has almost no contact with the interconnected world, speaks its own language, and lives without modern technology. It’s also off limits for visitors. Dependra Pathak, the

Most people have heard of the gender pay gap, but there’s another form of gender inequity that doesn’t get nearly as much attention. Not only are women getting short-changed in the workforce, studies suggest they are also getting the short end of the stick in the bedroom. Even today, in an age where many women

For the first time, brain tissue grown in a lab has spontaneously exhibited electrical activity, and it looks startlingly similar to human brain activity. More specifically, it resembles the brain activity of premature babies. Now, the report of this startling development is yet to be peer-reviewed, but if confirmed, it could be a huge discovery

For the first time, brain tissue grown in a lab has spontaneously exhibited electrical activity, and it looks startlingly similar to human brain activity. More specifically, it resembles the brain activity of premature babies. Now, the report of this startling development is yet to be peer-reviewed, but if confirmed, it could be a huge discovery

As days, then weeks passed with no contact from the ARA San Juan submarine, Argentines began to accept the fact that what had once been an aging staple of the nation’s naval fleet had been suddenly and tragically transformed into a 60-meter-long metal tomb. But as the nation mourned the anniversary of the San Juan’s

We’ve all heard about the infamous number 666, which is rather cryptically referred to as the “number of the beast” in the New Testament, and has more recently become known as the number of the Antichrist. But what is it about this simple, symmetrical number that’s been giving everyone the heebie jeebies for the past 2,000

Stupid people tend to overestimate their competence, while smart people tend to sell themselves short. As Shakespeare put it in As You Like It: “The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.” That conventional wisdom is backed up by a Cornell University study conducted by social psychologists David

If someone asked you what the worst year in human history was, what would you guess? 1347 CE was pretty bad. That’s the year the Black Death seriously hit Europe. Any of the years of the Holocaust, between 1941 and 1945. Or 1918, the year of the start of the flu pandemic that killed up

Modern medicine’s ability to keep us alive makes it tempting to think human evolution may have stopped. Better healthcare disrupts a key driving force of evolution by keeping some people alive longer, making them more likely to pass on their genes. But if we look at the rate of our DNA’s evolution, we can see

Do you drink freshly brewed coffee to start off your day? Or is a cup of English breakfast tea a better option for you? Your choice could be a result of your genes, and how they affect your experience of bitter flavours. Published today, our new study shows that the likelihood of a person being

A spoonful of celebrity could help the science go down more smoothly. A new study has found that exposure to celebrity opinions on evolution can influence an individual’s own acceptance. Evolution is a basic scientific principle that’s been around for well over a hundred years, yet many people today continue to misunderstand or reject the

Multitasking gets a bad rap. While the ability to juggle several things at once seems like an impressive use of brainpower, evidence suggests it’s bad for productivity and memory, and for our mental energy reserves. Wikipedia even calls it “an apparent human ability”, because many argue multitasking isn’t actually real, but merely a false belief

The crimson pigment is sun-bleached, its eroded lines barely visible against the texture of the plaster. But with effort, you can see a face that once decorated an ancient Christian baptismal in southern Israel. And it’s not what you’d expect. Most historical depictions of Jesus follow a familiar pattern, giving us an iconoclastic image of

Comic-book creator Stan Lee has died, aged 95. The visionary behind huge swathes of the Marvel Universe and the much-loved superheroes that came with it – Spiderman, Black Panther, The Hulk, Black Widow, and the engineering genius Tony Stark just to name a few – has inspired generations of people with his imagination.  His creations

An ancient Egyptian necropolis dating back thousands of years has yielded a bunch of mummies of the sort you might not expect when you hear the word. Instead of important personages, the sarcophagi were hiding dozens of mummified cats, and a rare collection of mummified scarab beetles. And there might be rarer treasure still. While

Another week, another round of great achievements in science – from discovering the oldest figurative cave art we’ve ever seen, to gazing out into the Universe, there is always something new to learn about our world and beyond. Below you’ll find our weekly round-up of last week’s science discoveries in a convenient picture you can

Researchers at Yale University have developed a seriously confusing optical illusion that is proving our human nature has some bizarre quirks. As part of the Neural Correlate Society’s annual optical illusions contest, the Yale researchers developed what they call the “Who’s Chasing Whom?” illusion. Take a look at the video the team developed. What do

Why is my awareness here, while yours is over there? Why is the universe split in two for each of us, into a subject and an infinity of objects? How is each of us our own center of experience, receiving information about the rest of the world out there? Why are some things conscious and