discoveries

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

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Previously Unknown Chemical Found in US Tap Water
Previously Unknown Chemical
Found in US Tap Water
in case you missed it
Nov 24, 2024 11:10 AM CST

Previously Unknown Chemical Found in US Tap Water

It took decades for scientists to ID chloronitramide anion; now they need to see how toxic it is

(Newser) - Some ice for your chloronitramide anion? No, that's not a libation you'd find at the Tatooine cantina in Star Wars, but a new chemical by-product in our tap water that's finally been IDed, reports the Washington Post . Research published Thursday in the journal Science notes that US...

Ancient Inscription Finally Deciphered at Monument
Ancient Inscription Finally
Deciphered at Monument
new study
Nov 18, 2024 2:55 PM CST

Ancient Inscription Finally Deciphered at Monument

Words carved 2.6K years ago in Turkey were a tribute to the goddess 'Materan'

(Newser) - Roughly 2,600 years after somebody carved an inscription on a monument in what is now Turkey, an American researcher appears to have cracked the code. The engraving on the Arslan Kaya monument spells out the name of the goddess Materan, reports Live Science . Those who looked upon the engraving...

ChatGPT Defeated Doctors at Diagnosing Illness
ChatGPT Defeated
Doctors at Diagnosing Illness
NEW STUDY
Nov 18, 2024 12:12 PM CST

ChatGPT Defeated Doctors at Diagnosing Illness

Docs who used ChatGPT to diagnose didn't fare better than those without—but the bots alone won

(Newser) - Over the summer, researchers gave a failing grade to artificial intelligence when it comes to diagnosing illnesses, finding that a chatbot that read 150 case studies diagnosed the correct condition less than 50% of the time. "ChatGPT in its current form is not accurate as a diagnostic tool,"...

Aged Destroyer Fought Enemy Alone, Then Flipped the Bird
WWII Destroyer Fought Enemy
Alone, Then Flipped the Bird
in case you missed it
Nov 16, 2024 12:00 PM CST

WWII Destroyer Fought Enemy Alone, Then Flipped the Bird

Wreck of USS Edsall, sunk by Japanese in 1942, discovered east of Christmas Island

(Newser) - The Japanese called the USS Edsall "the dancing mouse." Stumbling upon a Japanese naval force in the Indian Ocean three months after the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, the aged and damaged destroyer loaded with 185 US Navy personnel and 31 US Army Air Force pilots fought alone...

Hiker's Find Leads to Trove of Fossils Predating Dinosaurs

Hundreds of imprints of plants, animals, even raindrops discovered in northern Italian Alps

(Newser) - Claudia Steffensen was hiking in the Italian Alps last summer when she stepped on a rock that caught her eye. "It seemed more like a slab of cement" with "these strange circular designs with wavy lines," Steffensen tells the Guardian. "I took a closer look and...

Diabetes Cases Have Quadrupled Over Last 30 Years
Diabetes 'Has Reached
Pandemic Proportions'
NEW STUDY
Nov 14, 2024 8:42 AM CST

Diabetes 'Has Reached Pandemic Proportions'

Globally, more than 800M people had either Type 1 or Type 2 in 2022; in 1990, there were just 198M

(Newser) - Thursday is World Diabetes Day, but it's not exactly a celebration—at least not according to new research published Wednesday in the Lancet . According to findings from a new global analysis carried out by the NCD Risk Factor Collaboration and the World Health Organization, 828 million adults around the...

'Mystery Mollusk' Identified After Almost 25 Years

It's a glowing sea slug from the 'midnight zone'

(Newser) - More than two decades after spotting a mysterious, gelatinous, bioluminescent creature swimming in the deep sea, California researchers this week announced that it is a new species of sea slug. The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute posted video online of the new sea slug floating gently in the depths. Using...

'The Story Long Spun' About Pompeii Victims Was Wrong

DNA evidence changes a couple of long-held assumptions

(Newser) - When a volcanic eruption buried the ancient city of Pompeii, the last desperate moments of its citizens were preserved in stone for centuries. Observers see stories in the plaster casts later made of their bodies, like a mother holding a child and two women embracing as they die. But new...

Scientists Call Their Mosquito Discovery 'Shocking'
Scientists Make 'Shocking'
Discovery About Mosquitoes
in case you missed it
Nov 9, 2024 1:00 PM CST

Scientists Make 'Shocking' Discovery About Mosquitoes

If the males are deaf, they don't mate, study finds

(Newser) - Could eliminating mosquitoes' sense of hearing be the key to eliminating mosquito-borne diseases like dengue, yellow fever, and Zika? Possibly. The BBC reports researchers from the University of California, Santa Barbara began by taking stock of the way mosquitoes, specifically Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, mate: in mid-air, for anywhere between a...

Why the 27 Club Myth Perpetuates
Why the 27 Club
Myth Perpetuates
NEW STUDY
Nov 9, 2024 8:00 AM CST

Why the 27 Club Myth Perpetuates

Established in the public consciousness, the myth means deaths at 27 get plenty of attention

(Newser) - The so-called 27 Club , made up of famous people who died at age 27, gives the perception that it's an especially dangerous age for those in the public eye. Time and time again, research has shown that isn't the case. (A 2011 study of 522 musical artists found...

Timing of Your Exercise Could Impact Colorectal Cancer Risk

Bursts at 8am and 6pm could slash risk by 11%

(Newser) - "Existing literature on timing of physical activity in relation to cancer is limited and includes only three studies," write researchers in a September study published in BMC Medicine . They've now added a fourth, one that has found a correlation between being physically active in the morning and...

Limiting Baby's Sugar May Pay Off Later
Limiting Baby's Sugar
May Pay Off Later
new study
Nov 4, 2024 11:49 AM CST

Limiting Baby's Sugar May Pay Off Later

New study suggests big health benefits from low intake of sweets in the first few years of life

(Newser) - A novel study that looked at sugar rationing in World War II has a health takeaway for today's new parents and parents-to-be: Cut down on your child's sugar. The study published in Science suggests that limiting sugar intake during pregnancy and through the first two years of a...

Teens Publish Math Finding Once Thought to Be Impossible
Teens' Math Finding Was Once
Thought to Be Impossible
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Nov 3, 2024 7:03 AM CST

Teens' Math Finding Was Once Thought to Be Impossible

They've discovered multiple trigonometric proofs of Pythagorean theorem

(Newser) - Two young women from New Orleans who amazed mathematicians two years ago by coming up with a new trigonometric proof of the 2,000-year-old Pythagorean theorem have repeated the feat multiple times. A peer-reviewed paper from Ne'Kiya Jackson and Calcea Johnson published in the American Mathematical Monthly Journal outlines...

175 Years After His Death, New Music From Chopin

Unknown waltz believed to have been penned by the composer discovered in New York

(Newser) - An unknown waltz believed to have been written almost 200 years ago by the legendary composer Frederic Chopin has been discovered in a New York museum. Robinson McClellan, a curator at the Morgan Library & Museum, came upon the music on a card bearing Chopin's name inside a vault...

Statues Buried in Cambodia Are a 'Remarkable Discovery'

A dozen centuries-old sandstone statues found at Angkor World Heritage Site

(Newser) - Archaeologists in Cambodia have unearthed a dozen centuries-old sandstone statues in a "remarkable discovery" at the Angkor World Heritage Site near the city of Siem Reap, authorities said Wednesday. The statues—depicting so-called "door guardians"—were discovered last week near the north gate leading to the 11th-century...

'Witches Marks,' Curses Cover This Historic Manor

20 eerie carvings, 100 burn marks discovered at England's Gainsborough Old Hall

(Newser) - A "staggering array" of markings said to ward off evil spirits and witches have been discovered lining the walls of a historic English manor, along with a curse against a former owner. William Hickman was an "astute and ruthless businessman" who, beginning in 1596, manipulated his authority as...

'Evidence Is Growing That Humans Are Not Drinking Alone'

Rejected male fruit flies are just some of the creatures in the natural world that consume alcohol

(Newser) - Even bugs get the blues, then drown their sorrows in booze. And they're not the only species besides humans: A new study reveals more on "nature's hidden happy hour," in which a "diverse coterie" of animals are revealed to take part in consuming the alcohol...

Mayan Capital City Has Been Hiding 'in Plain Sight'

Valeriana in southern Mexico reportedly features 6,764 buildings over 6.5 square miles

(Newser) - A presumed capital city of the Maya has been discovered "hidden in plain sight" under vegetation in Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula. The hidden complex—showing evidence of pyramids, amphitheaters, sports fields, and causeways connecting districts—is made up of three sites in the southeastern state of Campeche, per...

Why Do We Smooch? There's a 'Final Kiss Hypothesis'

It refers to a grooming technique of great apes

(Newser) - It is, quite possibly, the least romantic definition of a kiss in the annals of history, one that describes the kisser kissing the kissee "with protruding lips and sucking action to latch on and remove a parasite or debris." But that description in Evolutionary Anthropology may go a...

He Was Thrown in a Well 800 Years Ago. Now He's Out

Medieval text logged his fate, and scientists think they've identified his remains in Norway

(Newser) - An ancient Norse text retelling the raid on a castle makes a passing reference to someone who didn't live to tell the tale: "They cast a dead man into a well, and then filled it up with stones," reads the 800-year-old Sveriss Saga. Now, scientists say they...

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