discoveries

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

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Linguist Claims He's Solved Gulliver's Travels Riddle

Irving Rothman says he's solved the centuries-old mystery

(Newser) - Long have scholars debated the origins of the "nonsense" language in Jonathan Swift's most famous novel, Gulliver's Travels, though Isaac Asimov once said making sense of it is a "waste of time" because "I suspect that Swift simply made up nonsense for the purpose."...

Your Eyes &#39;Change Scenes&#39; While You Sleep
 Scientists Unlock a 
 Mystery of REM Sleep 
NEW STUDY
Aug 12, 2015 3:13 AM CDT

Scientists Unlock a Mystery of REM Sleep

Here's what your flickering eyes may be seeing

(Newser) - Exactly what your flickering eyes are doing during the rapid-eye-movement phase of sleep has long been a mystery to scientists, but a team that monitored the neurons of volunteers says it has figured it out. The neuroscientists say that brain activity during eye flickers in REM sleep is "very,...

MLK's First 'I Have a Dream' Speech Is Revealed

Long-lost reel-to-reel tape turned up in North Carolina library

(Newser) - Thanks in part to the "mysterious appearance" of a box containing an old reel-to-reel tape and bearing the message "Please do not erase," Martin Luther King Jr.'s original "I Have a Dream" speech has been replayed in public for the first time. It's...

Has Queen Nefertiti's Lost Tomb Been Found?

'This is potentially the biggest archaeological discovery ever made'

(Newser) - Tutankhamun's tomb was discovered in 1922. Now, nearly a century later, a University of Arizona archaeologist says that tomb may hold a long-buried secret: the remains of Nefertiti . Nicholas Reeves says he stumbled upon the possibility while analyzing scans posted online in early 2014 by Spanish art-replication experts. The...

It's Crazy How Bad Southern Food Is for Your Heart

Study: Southern-style diet raises heart attack risk by 56%

(Newser) - Fried chicken and gravy is delicious, but it's also dangerous for your heart. That alone might seem to come from the Department of the Obvious, but just how dangerous a Southern-style diet can be might surprise you: Researchers at the University of Alabama say it can boost a person'...

Scientists Devise Way to Clean Up Cow Burps

Small molecule could also curb greenhouse gas emissions

(Newser) - Cows are notorious methane gas producers, belching somewhere between 132 and 264 gallons of gas produced by food fermenting in the rumen (one of the four parts of their stomachs) every day. As the Washington Post reports, that's so significant that ruminant animals—including sheep and goats—actually contribute...

Physical Proof of Missile Possibly Found at MH17 Site

But prosecutors aren't even going so far as to say there's a 'causal connection'

(Newser) - Dutch prosecutors have said for the first time that they have found possible parts of a BUK missile system at the site in eastern Ukraine where Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was brought down last year , killing all 298 people on board. Prosecutors say in a statement today the parts "...

Shakespeare Gets a 400-Year-Old Drug Test

Scientists determine what was in tobacco pipes found in his garden

(Newser) - "To smoke or not to smoke" was not the question. Something had been smoked in the pipe bowls and stems unearthed from William Shakespeare' garden in Stratford-upon-Avon; the question was what. Researchers in South Africa now have gas chromatography mass spectrometry to thank for their answer. A piece in...

Hatfields, McCoys Pinpoint Key Feud Location

Descendants of feuding families find artifacts at site of 1888 attack

(Newser) - The Hatfield and McCoy descendants came armed—with digging tools. Side by side, they worked together to help archaeologists unearth artifacts from one of the bloodiest sites in America's most famous feud. The leader of the dig says they have pinpointed the place where Randolph McCoy's home was...

This Methane-Run Tractor Could Be a Gamechanger

New Holland T6 could significantly cut costs and pollution

(Newser) - Luca Remmert's dream of running a self-sustainable farm is within sight. He produces energy from corn and grain near the northern Italian city of Turin and hopes in the not too distant future to run all of his eight tractors on methane generated at the farm. Remmert's 1,...

Archaeologists Find Rare Writing, Then It Disappears
 Archaeologists 
 Find Rare Writing, 
 Then It Disappears 
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Aug 9, 2015 7:00 PM CDT

Archaeologists Find Rare Writing, Then It Disappears

Inscriptions on plaster in ritual bath have now been sealed

(Newser) - Archaeologists digging for ruins ahead of a new construction project in Jerusalem made an incredible discovery—that immediately began to vanish. During the last hours of a "salvage excavation" two months ago, the Israel Antiquities Authority stumbled upon a 2,000-year-old ritual bath when a stone suddenly disappeared into...

Roanoke Island Mystery May Finally Be Solved

Archaeologists dig up new items in North Carolina

(Newser) - The mystery of Roanoke Island may be one for the books. Two archaeological teams have dug up new evidence pointing to the fate of English colonists who mysteriously vanished from the North Carolina island 425 years ago, National Geographic reports. One collection of items appears to support the long-held theory...

Sexting: Everyone's Doing It, and It May Be Good for You

New study shows correlation between sexting and overall sexual satisfaction

(Newser) - Sexting gets a bad rap. A quick survey on the subject turns up political scandals , creepy cops , teen sex rings , and horny FBI agents . But, a new study shows sexting can be a part of a healthy, satisfying sex life and is far more common than you might think. In...

Scientists Discover Venomous Frogs— the Hard Way

One gram of frog's venom is enough to kill 80 humans

(Newser) - Miss Piggy's split with Kermit wasn't the only painful frog-related news this week. Researchers have released their findings on the world's first known venomous frogs, whose abilities were only discovered when one of them stung a researcher's hand, leaving him with what a colleague calls...

Sharks Have a Sixth Sense for Killing, Literally

They're better at sensing electric fields than even our best tools

(Newser) - It turns out there's something sharks are even better at than spicing up your average made-for-TV movie about tornadoes: sensing electricity. Back in 1971, a Dutch scientist discovered sharks use tiny pores on their heads to sense the electric fields produced by other aquatic animals—and hunt those creatures,...

Michigan Warns: This Plant Can Blind You

 Michigan Warns: 
 This Plant Can 
 Blind You 
in case you missed it
Aug 8, 2015 3:42 PM CDT

Michigan Warns: This Plant Can Blind You

Steer clear of the giant hogweed

(Newser) - Today's reminder that Mother Nature has the upper hand: western Michigan officials are warning the public about the possible presence of a plant that looks a bit like Queen Anne's lace—and has the ability to blind you. The Calhoun County Public Health Department says it identified and...

What Runners Think About: How Much Running Sucks

Although, they think about their pace more than their pain

(Newser) - Non-runners may look at a runner off in the distance and feel a twinge of envy, because surely that person is in some kind of Zen-like zone, ruminating about life's mysteries. A first-of-its kind study that had runners record their thoughts on the go clears that up: Some samples...

5 Most Incredible Discoveries of the Week

Including one of note to anyone who's ever been involved in a breakup

(Newser) - Intriguing archaeological finds highlight the week's list of discoveries:
  • Ancient Mystery Monolith Found Off Sicily's Coast : Archaeologists have made quite the find off the coast of Sicily: a monolith that dates back about 10,000 years. It's broken in two now and on its side, but the
...

Ancient Mystery Monolith Found Off Sicily's Coast

It dates back 10K years, was submerged in flood

(Newser) - Archaeologists have made quite the find off the coast of Sicily: a monolith that dates back about 10,000 years. It's broken in two now and on its side, but the block would have stood nearly 40 feet tall in its heyday, before a massive flood submerged it (along...

How Fish Could Change to Escape Fishermen
 How Fish Could Change 
 to Escape Fishermen 
new study
Aug 7, 2015 12:00 PM CDT

How Fish Could Change to Escape Fishermen

It's the nature of the hunt that the best swimmers survive—and procreate

(Newser) - Similarly to how superbugs are evolving so that they can survive our best efforts to drug them out of existence, it's possible that fish could evolve to swim faster and thus escape our masterfully constructed nets. So report University of Glasgow researchers in the journal Proceedings of the Royal ...

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