Huge Discovery of 18,000 ‘Notepads’ Documents Daily Life in Ancient Egypt

Archaeologists have uncovered the largest collection of ancient Egyptian ‘notepads’ found since the beginning of the 20th century. In the long-lost city of Athribis, in central Egypt, researchers have cataloged more than 18,000 inscribed pieces of pottery, some of which seem to have been written by students.   The shards of inked pottery are known … Read more

Shattered ‘alphabet soup’ iceberg flushed a lot of fresh water into the ocean

A rogue iceberg that drifted dangerously close to an Antarctic penguin population in 2020 and 2021 released billions of tons of fresh water into the ocean during its breakup. A new study, based on satellite data, tracks the aftermath of the once-mighty iceberg A-68a, which held the title of world’s largest iceberg for more than three years … Read more

Language evolution: Vai script shows how letters get simpler over time

The characters used to write the Vai script, which was invented in Liberia in 1833, have become visually simpler over time, reflecting the evolutionary pressures acting on writing Humans 11 January 2022 By Colin Barras A character representing the syllable “bi” in Vai script Kelly et al The symbols we use to write words evolve … Read more

DeepMind AI: Machine learning tool helps study strange electrons in chemical reactions

Strange so-called fractional electrons are crucial to many chemical reactions, but traditional methods cannot model them – a problem that DeepMind has used machine learning to fix Physics 9 December 2021 By Leah Crane An artistic representation of molecules interacting DeepMind Machine-learning tools have taken us closer to understanding electrons and how they behave in … Read more