After five decades of intense and expensive policing, the United States’ so-called ‘war on drugs’ has only created a bigger problem, a new study has found. The research is based on a unique geographic model, called NarcoLogic, that was designed to figure out how cocaine smuggling networks have adapted to US drug interception over the years.

A mathematician in the UK has found the penultimate solution to a fiendish number problem that’s puzzled the world for centuries, if not even longer. Researcher Andrew Booker, who studies pure mathematics at the University of Bristol, discovered a new solution to a famous Diophantine equation involving the sums of three cubes. The problem, which

Nobody likes a know-it-all, but new research shows that people who are able to admit that their own knowledge and views might not be correct, are actually more knowledgeable. The new study, led by first author and psychologist Elizabeth J. Krumrei-Mancuso from Pepperdine University, examines the concept of intellectual humility, which can be characterised as

Hundreds of years ago, the west coast of South America was ruled by the Incas – a mysterious empire considered to be the most elaborate society to exist in the Americas before the arrival of Columbus. This is not their story. For long before the Incas held dominion over the sweeping lands stretching from Colombia

Have you reached the right time in your relationship to move in with your significant other? Or even get married? A mesmerising new data visualisation can help you see how your relationship timeline matches up with both modern couples and those from the 1970s. Put together by statistician Nathan Yau based on 3,510 responses to

Their bones were discovered in a cave in Southeastern France in the 1990s. All up, six Neanderthals: two adults, two adolescents, and two children. Across Europe, there are over 200 sites that feature the ancient remains of Neanderthals such as these, but few of them tell the same grisly story this cave contains, according to

When it comes to protecting yourself from mosquitoes at your next garden party, there might be one deterrent you’re not thinking of – blasting Skrillex’s Scary Monsters and Nice Spirits at full volume all night. You might annoy everyone present, but according to researchers in Malaysia and Thailand, it works as a bizarre form of

In February, Arifa Sultana, 20, gave birth to a baby boy. Then, 26 days later, she gave birth again to a set of twins, The Guardian reported. According to the outlet, Sultana has a second uterus, a condition also known as uterus didelphys. According to Scientific American, about one in 2,000 people have a second

The share of US adults reporting no sex in the past year reached an all-time high in 2018, underscoring a three-decade trend line marked by an aging population and higher numbers of unattached people. But among the 23 percent of adults – or nearly 1 in 4 – who spent the year in a celibate

A grave dating back to early medieval Italy is a sad testament to the horrors of medicine in the Dark Ages. The skeletal remains of a young woman were found with the skeleton of a foetus between her thighs – and a hole in her skull researchers have determined was likely the result of a

These days we have more information at our fingertips than ever before, so it’s a real puzzle why so many people insist on rejecting the facts. Maybe the answer is: we don’t know how a fact comes to be. A new survey from the Pew Research Center has found that many Americans cannot recognise the

When a person dies, cremation is an increasingly popular option. The practice eclipsed burials in the US in 2015 and is expected to make up more than half of all body disposals by 2020, according to the Cremation Association of North America. But instead of storing a loved one’s cremains in an urn or sprinkling

Feeling down in the dumps? If you want to stop wallowing in your own misery, new research suggests that the best method is to stop focusing on yourself and think kind thoughts about other people instead. Yes, it sounds like the PSA at the end of a children’s show, but among the methods tested by

By now, you may have already seen some of the ‘noisy GIFs’ floating around the internet. They don’t actually contain any sounds, but plenty of people seem to nonetheless be able to ‘hear’ the noise produced in the image. The skipping powerlines is definitely the most popular one we’ve seen, but you might also be able

Although we’ve all enjoyed the odd energy drink, a beverage known as Power Natural High Energy Drink SX might give you more of a kick than you expect. Zambian authorities have just banned the drink after tests showed it was spiked with sildenafil citrate – a medication better known as Viagra. A few months ago,

A young Colombian child by the name of Itzamara Vega already has the whole world talking about her, and she was only born in February.  At just 35 weeks of age, still nestled in her mother’s womb, Itzamara was diagnosed with an incredibly rare condition – one that’s been recorded less than two hundred times. Hiding

A science teacher from a remote village in Kenya has won a US$1 million global prize recognising and celebrating the impact and importance of the world’s best educators. Peter Tabichi, a maths and physics teacher from Kenya’s famine-prone Rift Valley, was selected out of 10,000 teachers from almost 180 countries to win the Varkey Foundation

For a while now, scientists have been debating what to do with one of the most famous tools used to describe scientific certainty, the concept of ‘statistical significance’. Some think it’s fine as is. Others want to make it smaller, while yet others argue in favour of ditching it altogether. Assuming we did bite the

As we humans grow older and wiser, it’s not unusual to feel as if time were whizzing by, quietly gathering speed with every year. Mechanical engineer Adrian Bejan from Duke University now thinks he has figured out why, and just like ageing, he suspects the experience is both universal and inescapable. Adhering to the physical laws

In 1869, a Siberian called Dmitri Mendeleev presented a brand new version of the periodic table of elements to his peers at the Russian Chemical Society. He had tabulated the elements in order of their atomic weight, forming the basis for a fascinating chart that revealed patterns amongst the primary building blocks of matter. It’s been

Nobody ever said having a brother was easy, but for girls who start life by sharing a womb with a male twin, the consequences can be drastically life-altering, scientists say. According to the largest study of its kind, women who share their mother’s womb with a twin brother end up being less likely to graduate

Do human beings have a magnetic sense? Biologists know other animals do. They think it helps creatures including bees, turtles and birds navigate through the world. Scientists have tried to investigate whether humans belong on the list of magnetically sensitive organisms. For decades, there’s been a back-and-forth between positive reports and failures to demonstrate the

How exactly do our brains sort between the five taste groups: sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami? We’ve now got a much better idea, thanks to research that has pinned down where in the brain this taste processing happens. Step forward: the insular cortex. Already thought to be responsible for everything from motor control to

A sunken ship found in the Nile river may have lain undisturbed for over 2,500 years, but now it is finally ponying up its secrets. Scientists think that this ship has revealed a structure whose existence has been debated for centuries. In fragment 2.96 of Herodotus’ Histories, published around 450 BCE, the Ancient Greek historian –

Birth order, according to conventional wisdom, molds personality: Firstborn children, secure with their place in the family and expected to be the mature ones, grow up to be intellectual, responsible and conformist. Younger siblings work harder to get their parents’ attention, take more risks and become creative rebels. That’s the central idea in psychologist Frank

The human capacity for language divides our species from the rest of the animal kingdom. Language has not only allowed us to conquer all corners of the globe, but to devise writing, mathematics and all things thereafter. But researchers can find many of language’s basic design features in the communication systems of other animals. For

We already knew China kept a close eye on its population, monitoring everything from their spending habits to their social interactions. Now we know someone in the nation is also tracking which female citizens are “breedready”, a term apparently used to signal that a woman is likely able to have children – and the disturbing

Death metal has a reputation. Its lyrics and imagery revel in a stomach-churning zone of ultra-violence, profanity, and torment. We’re talking crushed skulls. Slit throats. Mutilated everythings and violated etceteras. What kind of effect does this nightmarish barrage have on people who listen to the music? According to new research by psychologists from Macquarie University

Love them or hate them, traffic laws exist to keep people safe and to help vehicles flow smoothly. And while they aren’t legally enforceable, pedestrian traffic also tends to follow its own set of unwritten rules. Most pedestrians use walking etiquette as a way to minimize discomfort – “Oops! Sorry to bump you!” – and

When bad things happen, we don’t want to remember. We try to block, resist, ignore – but we should perhaps be doing the opposite, researchers say. A new study led by scientists in Texas suggests the act of intentionally forgetting is linked to increased cerebral engagement with the unwanted information in question. In other words,

It was a chance encounter that neither man nor beast was fully prepared for. Wildlife photographer Rainer Schimpf was simply swimming along, filming a sardine run off the coast of South Africa, when suddenly, the sea began to churn. “I was trying to get a shot of a shark going through the bait ball,” Schimpf said in

It’s not always easy to work out percentages in your head, but a simple maths trick being shared on Twitter can make it incredibly easy to perform difficult or unwieldy mathematical calculations on the spot. Described as a “fascinating little life hack” by UK-based copywriter Ben Stephens, the trick involves doing a simple number swap

Alcatraz has a pretty well stocked history. The relatively small island has been home to an important lighthouse, become a military fortification, and eventually a prison to hold the likes of Al Capone and George “Machine Gun” Kelly. It was occupied by ‘Indians of All Tribes’ in the 1960’s and today is a huge tourist

A little bit of knowledge can go straight to your head, and not in a good way. New research has found that those who only read snippets of their Facebook newsfeed often think they know more than they actually do. By glancing through article previews, instead of reading the full piece, many users overestimate their

Luis Un was just a boy when he first visited the cave. It was 1966, and farmers had stumbled upon the hidden cavern by chance. They alerted a prominent Mexican archaeologist, who promptly sealed the entrance. Decades passed, the strange place was forgotten. But not by Luis Un. Last year, Un, now a 68-year-old, led

Scientists have uncovered grisly, chilling evidence of the largest known mass sacrifice of children in the history of the New World. In a new study, an international team reports the discovery of a shocking ritualistic slaughterhouse in ancient Peru: a mass killing that took place in the 15th century, claiming the lives of over 140

We all want more time to spend doing things we enjoy. But according to Harvard Business School professor Ashley Whillans, we aren’t doing the one thing that can afford us more time: spending money to eliminate our most stressful daily or weekly tasks. During a podcast with the Harvard Business Review’s Curt Nickisch, Whillans says

A chunk of a Denisovan skull has been identified for the first time – a dramatic contribution to the handful of known samples from one of the most obscure branches of the hominin family tree. Paleoanthropologist Bence Viola from the University of Toronto will discuss the as-yet-unpublished discovery at the upcoming meeting of the American

Neanderthals have a reputation they do not deserve. Hunched over and hairy, these ancient hominins are often depicted as primitive and uncultured, resembling apes more than us. But a mounting body of evidence suggests that, in reality, we share more similarities than differences. And one of the most famous features of Neanderthals is actually wrong.

It’s hard to say exactly why you like someone. Maybe it’s their goofy smile; maybe it’s their razor-sharp wit; or maybe it’s simply that they’re easy to be around. You just like them. But scientists generally aren’t satisfied with answers like that, and they’ve spent years trying to pinpoint the exact factors that draw one

How many times have you thought about starting a company, taking a year out to write that novel or leaving a loveless relationship but ended up doing nothing about it? A fear of regret – which is a powerful driver of maintaining the status quo in our lives – may be to blame. As research

The first thing you’d see if a nuclear bomb exploded nearby is a flood of light so bright, you may think the Sun blew up. Wincing from temporary blindness, you’d scan the horizon and see an orange fireball. The gurgling flames would rise and darken into a purple-hued column of black smoke, which would turn in

Deadly tensions between India and Pakistan are boiling over in Kashmir, a disputed territory at the northern border of each country. A regional conflict is worrisome enough, but climate scientists warn that if either country launches just a portion of its nuclear weapons, the situation might escalate into a global environmental and humanitarian catastrophe. On February

The tanned skins of mummies prove humans have been pushing pigments into the skin to create tattoo art for many thousands of years. Unfortunately not all cultures leave such perfectly preserved canvasses for us to study. Now, a tool discovered decades ago in Utah provides solid evidence that the Ancestral Pueblo people indigenous to the

History hasn’t left us with the best impression of the Roman emperor Nero. Depending on who you ask, he was a tyrant who robbed the throne of dignity or a narcissist who taxed the masses heavily for self-gratification. Maybe all of the above. Then there’s his face. Hey, nobody looks sexy when squished into a

People who believe in conspiracy theories might be more likely to engage in petty crime, and no, this is not a conspiracy. A new study from researchers at the University of Kent and Staffordshire University in the UK has demonstrated a link between this type of thinking and how people feel about, uh, not acting

It was the most explosive scientific controversy of 2018: Chinese scientist He Jiankui brazenly announced in November he had created the world’s first gene-edited babies using CRISPR. He’s admission – including that twin girls called Lulu and Nana from his experiment had already been born – provoked immediate international uproar in the scientific community, with critics

Never before in American history had so many people received a text message at the exact same time. It was bearing grave, unthinkable, catastrophic news – and it wasn’t even true. A little over a year ago, this is what more than a million people in Hawaii saw on their phones, television screens, and flashing