discoveries

Read the latest news stories about recent scientific discoveries on Newser.com

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'Dazzling' Find in France: a Van Gogh Sketchbook

French publisher says 'stunning' discovery will be released in book form in November

(Newser) - A "stunning, dazzling" find across the pond, per a French book publisher: a sketchbook that belonged to Dutch master painter Vincent Van Gogh, AFP reports. "This sketchbook was known only to the owners, myself, and the publisher," a Seuil official told the news agency Thursday, noting that...

Exactly 2 Premarital Sex Partners Ups Divorce Rate

For women, that is

(Newser) - A new study out of the University of Utah finds that women with either no sexual partners or one—most typically, her future spouse—before marriage are the least likely to get divorced within five years; women with 10 or more are the most. A closer look at the numbers,...

Scientists Detect 2nd Gravitational Wave From Crashing Black Holes

A crucial second note heard in soundtrack of chaotic cosmos

(Newser) - Astronomers say they've heard the echoes of two more crashing black holes—a discovery that hints that the unseen violence of the universe may be pretty common, the AP reports. They detected a second gravitational wave. That's the warp in the fabric in the cosmos that Albert Einstein...

The Key to Flavorful Coffee? Scientists Say Cool Beans

Grinding chilled beans helps flavor extraction, according to new study

(Newser) - Many of us, as Gizmodo points out, store our coffee beans in the fridge or freezer to keep them fresh. Now scientists say that may actually be giving us more flavorful cups of coffee, to boot, according to a study published in Scientific Reports . Researchers at the University of Bath...

A 'Biscuit-Sized' Rock May Clear Up a Space Mystery

In a Swedish quarry, scientists find an 'extinct' meteorite

(Newser) - The Earth has just given up a very alien secret: Scientists are reporting in Nature Communications that a rock found in a limestone quarry in Sweden is the first of its kind to have been discovered on our planet, a "biscuit-sized" remnant of a space rock they believe collided...

WHO No Longer Thinks Coffee Will Give You Cancer

Unless it's served above 149 degrees

(Newser) - Celebrate the latest news from the WHO with a cup of joe: The organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer is set to reverse its rating of coffee as "possibly carcinogenic" Wednesday, noting there is "inadequate evidence" linking the beverage to cancers of the bladder, pancreas, and...

Indian Frogs Discover Gross New Way to Have Sex

It's called the dorsal straddle, and researchers spent 320 hours filming it

(Newser) - A group of dedicated researchers have discovered a seventh position used by mating frogs and toads, and it's—in scientific terms—super gross. A study published Tuesday in PeerJ describes the new position, the dorsal straddle, as “a loose form of contact in which the male sits on...

Archaeologist: I Found Trojan War-Era Throne

Greek culture ministry officials skeptical about the find

(Newser) - A Greek archaeologist believes he has found a fragment of the lost throne of the rulers of Mycenae, famous from ancient myth and the story of the Trojan War, the AP reports. Christofilis Maggidis, who heads excavations at the site in southern Greece, says the chunk of worked limestone was...

This Is Likely the First Mammal Lost to Climate Change

Mosaic-tailed rat has vanished from Bramble Cay off Australia

(Newser) - Way to go, humanity. For the first time in history, human-induced climate change has been found "solely or primarily" responsible for the extinction of a mammal species, according to a new study . The Bramble Cay melomys , or mosaic-tailed rat, was found by Europeans on a tiny coral cay off...

The Numbers Add Up: Peeing in the Shower Makes Sense

It all comes down to water and toilet paper conservation

(Newser) - To pee or not to pee in the shower, that is the question. Various surveys have shown that lots of people do it—one questionnaire on BuzzFeed found that more than 80% of those surveyed say they do. Now IFL Science weighs in on the issue, noting that relieving ourselves...

Lasers Penetrate Cambodian Jungle, Reveal Hidden Cities

Archaeologists say the findings may force a rewriting of history

(Newser) - All is not as it has seemed in Cambodia, according to new research published in the Journal of Archaeological Science . Using aerial scanning technology that determines precise elevation points beneath even dense jungle foliage, archaeologists say they have uncovered multiple metropolises between 900 and 1,400 years old that might...

Lost Palace: 5 Most Incredible Discoveries of the Week

Including a strange new insight into fish

(Newser) - The site of a spectacular but long-lost palace and a big find about hobbits were among the headline-making discoveries of the week:
  • Palace Marco Polo Called 'Greatest Ever' May Have Been Found : In the 13th century, Kublai Khan—grandson of Genghis Khan—conquered China, effectively ruling over all of
...

Scientists Pump CO2 Into the Earth, Turn It Into Stone

They managed to convert 95% of the CO2 in just 2 years

(Newser) - Here's an idea for dealing with carbon dioxide: Turn it into stone. Scientists in Iceland say they have managed the feat at the world's largest geothermal power plant, an accomplishment the Guardian says could have big implications for climate change. As they explain in Science , researchers with the...

Strong Chemo Plus Stem Cell Transplant May Halt MS

Study used extremely small sample size, but results are encouraging

(Newser) - The sample size was quite small, but research on patients with multiple sclerosis shows promising results on stopping the progression of the incurable disease that causes the immune system to attack the coating around nerve fibers (and the fibers themselves) in the brain and spinal cord, the BBC reports. Per...

Petra's Secret Found 'Hiding in Plain Sight'

Archaeologists find unusual structure buried in sand

(Newser) - The sandstone Monastery and Treasury Building of Petra, carved by the Nabataeans nearly 2,000 years ago, astonish hundreds of thousands of tourists who visit southern Jordan each year. Unbeknownst to them, another enormous monument has been "hiding in plain sight" half a mile away. Satellite and drone imagery...

Most Antidepressants for Kids, Teens Don't Work

And some may even be dangerous—though unreliable data is mucking things up

(Newser) - A new study suggests that giving most antidepressants to kids and teens with depression is useless—and may even be harmful. Scientists took a look at 34 trials involving 14 antidepressants and 5,260 subjects with an average age of 9 to 18, a release notes. Drugs studied included sertraline,...

Palace Marco Polo Called 'Greatest Ever' May Have Been Found

Yuan-era foundation found beneath the Forbidden City

(Newser) - In the 13th century, Kublai Khan—grandson of Genghis Khan—conquered China, effectively ruling over all of it from Beijing. The Mongolian bestowed upon his dynasty a Chinese name, Yuan, and built a palace that Marco Polo described as "the greatest ... that ever was," with a vermilion, yellow,...

More Real-Life Hobbits Found on Indonesian Island

And they were even older and smaller than we thought

(Newser) - We know hobbits existed . And we know humans may have killed them off . But new fossils discovered on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2014—and announced Wednesday via two papers in Nature—show they were older and smaller than previously believed. Gizmodo reports the remains of the first hobbits—...

16K Items That Vanished From Auschwitz Are Found

They were sitting in boxes at the Polish Academy of Sciences

(Newser) - Jewelry, tobacco pipes, buttons, keys. Archaeologists uncovered more than 16,000 such items in the remains of Auschwitz's Crematorium III and gas chamber in 1967—"the last personal belongings of the Jews" led to their deaths. But while watching an old documentary about the excavation, Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum officials...

Your Fish Might Recognize You

Archerfish shown to distinguish between human faces

(Newser) - Be careful who you call "fishbrain." The insult might actually be a compliment, based on a new study in Scientific Reports . For the first time, scientists have discovered that a species of fish can distinguish between human faces—something once thought possible only among primates with large, complex...

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