discoveries

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

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Feeling Down? Smell a Happy Person&#39;s Sweat
Feeling Down? Smell a
Happy Person's Sweat
study says
Apr 25, 2015 8:52 AM CDT

Feeling Down? Smell a Happy Person's Sweat

Study suggests chemicals in body odor can affect others

(Newser) - Scientists think they've figured out a way for people to feel happier, but applying it in real life might be a little weird: It involves getting a whiff of a happy person's armpits. It seems that we humans secrete chemicals in sweat that reflect our emotional states, and...

New Frog Species Looks Oddly Familiar
 New Frog 
 Species Looks 
 Oddly Familiar 
in case you missed it
Apr 25, 2015 7:29 AM CDT

New Frog Species Looks Oddly Familiar

Is that you, Kermit?

(Newser) - If a new frog species discovered in Costa Rica looks familiar to you, you're not alone. The Hyalinobatrachium dianae is causing quite a stir because of its resemblance to a certain Muppet, Mashable reports. Yes, Kermit has found a twin in this frog with bright green skin and bulging...

5 Most Incredible Discoveries of the Week

Including how thinking may boost brain tumors

(Newser) - Babies' capacity for pain and the surprising motivation of straight men are on the list this week:
  • Babies Feel Pain Same as Adults Do : The belief that babies don't have fully developed pain receptors may have been smashed by Oxford scientists who poked and prodded newborns' feet and found
...

Incredibly Rare Pocket Shark Caught in Gulf

Only previous catch was 36 years ago

(Newser) - Scientists know very little about the pocket shark—they're not even sure what it keeps in its pockets—but a Gulf of Mexico catch has doubled the number of known specimens. At 5.5 inches, the species is small enough to fit in your pocket, the National Oceanic and...

Researchers Discover New Tick-Borne Disease

Anaplasma capra is a new species of bacteria common in goats

(Newser) - Ticks can carry more than Lyme disease, as a newly published study reminds us. Researchers from China and the University of Maryland School of Medicine uncovered a previously unknown tick-borne illness after last spring examining 477 Chinese patients who had suffered tick bites. They determined 6% of the patients had...

Researcher Says He's First to Tell Male, Female Dinos Apart

It all comes down to a stegosaurus's plates

(Newser) - If the sight of broad, wide plates along the back of a stegosaurus fails to drive you wild with desire, that's probably because you're not a female stegosaurus. In what the University of Bristol calls the "first convincing evidence for sexual differences in a species of dinosaur,...

Farmer Finds Perfect Jaw of Ancient Marine Creature

Kronosaurus swam in Australian waters more than 100M years ago

(Newser) - An unexpected upside to a drought in Queensland, Australia: Researchers now have a better sense of what a fearsome sea creature of yore looked like. A cattle farmer stumbled across a fossil in his field that turned out to be the lower jaw of Kronosaurus Queenslandicus, which plied the local...

Babies Feel Pain Same as Adults Do
Babies Feel Pain
Same as Adults Do
study says
Apr 21, 2015 4:00 PM CDT

Babies Feel Pain Same as Adults Do

They might even be more sensitive to it, study says

(Newser) - Researchers say their new study confirms what babies have been trying to tell us all along: Of course, they feel pain. In fact, they may be more sensitive to it than adults, according to a post at Science Daily . Oxford scientists used MRI scans to study the brains of newborns...

Breakfast Club Script Found in School Cabinet

1985 flick was filmed in a sister school in Illinois

(Newser) - Officials clearing out filing cabinets at Illinois' Maine South High School ahead of a move to a neighboring building last month uncovered a piece of movie history: a first draft of John Hughes' screenplay for the 1985 classic The Breakfast Club, dated Sept. 21, 1983. If you're wondering how...

Largest Structure Ever Found Is a Really Cold Hole

Some call the discovery independent evidence of dark energy

(Newser) - Researchers using NASA's Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer and a telescope in Maui have discovered what they are calling the "largest individual structure ever identified by humanity," reports the Royal Astronomical Society . So large, in fact, that the only way to measure its size is in light-years—1....

Men Gamble Big When a Hot Guy Is Around

 Men Gamble Big 
 When a Hot Guy 
 Is Around 
study says
Apr 19, 2015 9:41 AM CDT

Men Gamble Big When a Hot Guy Is Around

They want to look more attractive themselves, researcher says

(Newser) - Brad Pitt, it seems, would be a dangerous gambling partner. Scientists have found that heterosexual men take greater risks with money—in pursuit of bigger rewards—after seeing pictures of good-looking guys. Researcher Eugene Chan says it's a matter of competition for sex: "Men want to appear more...

Pharaoh's Ancient Chapel Found in Egypt

It was built by Nectanebo I, of the last native dynasty before Alexander the Great

(Newser) - Researchers have made an impressive find in Cairo: part of a chapel built by a pharaoh some 2,300 years ago, Phys.org reports. That pharaoh was King Nectanebo I, whose reign lasted from 379 to 360 BC, daijiworld.com reports. The chapel, part of a temple site in the...

Why the Earth Gets Stronger When a Meteor Strikes
Why the Earth Gets Stronger When a Meteor Strikes
in case you missed it
Apr 18, 2015 7:00 AM CDT

Why the Earth Gets Stronger When a Meteor Strikes

Study describes 'nonlinear force propagation' during impacts

(Newser) - Scientists have studied the effects of meteor strikes above ground, but what happens to soil underground during a high-speed impact? In an experiment funded by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency and recorded using a high-speed camera, physicists at Duke University set out to answer that question. They dropped a bullet-shaped...

5 Most Incredible Discoveries of the Week

Including how our faces may have evolved

(Newser) - Why our knuckles crack and bad news for pot smokers' GPAs make the list:
  • Archaeologists May Have Found World's First Tools : Stone tools found at a site in Kenya may date back 3.3 million years, shattering the previous record by about 700,000 years. The new date is
...

Archaeologists May Have Found World's First Tools

Discovered in Kenya, they predate the arrival of modern humans

(Newser) - Archaeologists may have just rewritten the book on the first use of tools in a major way. The team found what it says are unmistakable stone tools at a site near Lake Turkana in Kenya that date back 3.3 million years, reports Science . That doesn't just eclipse the...

Scientists Figure Out Why Knuckles Crack

They needed a finger-pulling device

(Newser) - Scientists equipped with an MRI scanner, a finger-pulling device, and a man they call the "Wayne Gretzky of knuckle-cracking" say they've cracked the mystery of that popping sound your knuckles make when cracked. In a University of Alberta press release, the team says their video reveals that the...

Gray Whale's Record Journey Puzzles Scientists

Varvara began in Russia, traveled 14K miles for longest mammal migration

(Newser) - A gray whale named Varvara has surprised marine scientists with an epic six-month migration of nearly 14,000 miles. That's the longest such journey ever recorded of a mammal, surpassing the humpback whale's migration of about 10,000 miles, reports USA Today . Varvara began her journey off the...

Mini-Strokes Changed Caesar's Personality

Researchers say it makes more sense than epilepsy

(Newser) - Julius Caesar crumpled to the ground during the Battle of Thapsus in 46BC, and theories for the dizziness and limb weakness said to have caused that fall have ranged from epilepsy to malaria seizures and parasitic infection, the Guardian notes. But now two Imperial College London researchers have proposed his...

Where Did Chins Come From?
 Where Did Chins Come From? 
Apr 14, 2015 2:04 PM CDT

Where Did Chins Come From?

Not from heavy chewing, a new study suggests

(Newser) - The human chin is something of a mystery to scientists. How, exactly, did we end up with a seemingly useless structure at the bottom of our face? One theory, as Smithsonian reported in 2012, is that they offer some support as we chew. Small amounts of stress can break down...

Why the World Will See More Shark Bites

More people means more encounters: researchers

(Newser) - Shark attacks like the one that killed a young surfer on Sunday are rare, but according to experts, they're only going to increase in number. In fact, the rate of "unprovoked" shark attacks has been steadily rising for the last century. No, sharks aren't developing a particular...

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