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Mysterious Skull Implanted With Strange Metallic Object Divides Experts

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An elongated, cone-shaped skull with a possible metal implant could represent some of the earliest evidence from Peru of an ancient surgical implant. Or it could be a modern-day fake.   The fact that the skull, which was donated to the Museum of Osteology in Oklahoma City, has a cone shape is nothing too unusual, … Read more

AI Breakthrough Means The World’s Best Gran Turismo Driver Is Not Human

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Sony’s Gran Turismo is one of the biggest racing game series of all time, having sold over 80 million copies globally. But none of those millions of players is the fastest. In a new breakthrough, a team led by Sony AI – the company’s artificial intelligence (AI) research division – developed an entirely artificial player … Read more

Astronauts spot an ancient heart-shaped oasis in Egypt just in time for Valentine’s Day

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Soaring 250 miles (400 kilometers) over Earth, astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) looked down on our planet last May and saw a heart-shaped oasis blooming in the Egyptian desert. Today (Feb. 14), our friends in space are sharing the striking image as a special Valentine for the whole planet, courtesy of NASA’s Earth … Read more

Want to use the James Webb Space Telescope? Here’s how scientists book time with the giant observatory.

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The hottest commodity in astronomy these days is time — specifically, time using NASA’s brand-new, ultra-powerful observatory. The James Webb Space Telescope, also known as JWST or Webb, launched on Dec. 25, 2021, and is scheduled to begin science observations by this summer. Astronomers eagerly await that moment: Scientists believe that the telescope’s sensitivity and … Read more

An 85-Mile-Wide Comet Is Officially The Largest Comet Ever Observed

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The Bernardinelli-Bernstein comet, identified in 2021, is officially the biggest comet ever observed. The new record, reported on the preprint website arXiv and now accepted for publication in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics Letters, bumps the Hale-Bopp comet from the top spot. Hale-Bopp was discovered in 1995 and became visible to the naked eye in 1996; it … Read more

Archaeologists Figured Out How to Tell if One of These Roman Pots Was Used For Poop

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Earthenware vessels can often be windows to the activities of long lost cultures. Traces of their contents can be clues to what we once snacked on, how we fed our children, and even how we cursed our enemies.   For decades, a number of conical vessels unearthed near Roman latrines were presumed to be recently … Read more

Black Hawk: Uncrewed helicopter takes to the skies for the first time

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The UH-60 Black Hawk, workhorse of US Army aviation, was flown with no crew for the first time this week, after being fitted with an automated flying system Technology 9 February 2022 By David Hambling A UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter during its first uncrewed flight on 5 February 2022 Ted Carlson/Sikorsky Aircraft The US Defense … Read more

Earth’s Ancient ‘Supermountains’ May Have Been Crucial For Life as We Know It

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Once, there were giants. Mountain ranges that rivaled the Himalayas in height used to stretch thousands upon thousands of kilometers across the seams of merging supercontinents, billions of years in the past.   Like the teeth of decrepit old gods, they’ve long been worn down to their roots by time and decay. But in those … Read more

Astronomers Keep Finding Stars That Should Be Dead. Now, We May Finally Know Why

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The most massive stars in the Universe are also the shortest-lived. The more mass a star has, the more quickly it burns through its fuel reserves, resulting in lifespans that are less than around 10 million years.   This fascinating fact leads us to a puzzle. Most of these stars are found relatively close to … Read more