discoveries

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

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Lunar Revelation: 5 Most Incredible Discoveries of the Week

Including dire-sounding antibiotic news and bad news for Cinderella

(Newser) - A new moon discovery and a study on rape and college football make the list:
  • Stuck Rover Makes Big Find on the Moon : Malfunctions have kept China's Jade Rabbit from moving, but that hasn't stopped the lunar rover from making a major find. While exploring an impact crater,
...

Study Finds Rapes Go Up on College Football Days

A 28% increase on game days at Division I Football Bowl Subdivision schools

(Newser) - Researchers have found a correlation between Division I football games and increased reports of rape—and they frame the evidence of that link as "robust." The December working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research used local-area crime data from the FBI to estimate that football games...

Math Model Helps Answer Riddle of Tiger's Stripes

Researchers can better explain why they're vertical or horizontal

(Newser) - Since the 1950s mathematicians have been trying to sort out exactly why some animals, like tigers and zebras, have stripes that are oriented perpendicularly to their spines, while others, like the zebrafish, have stripes that are parallel. Now Harvard researchers are proposing a mathematical model in the journal Cell Systems...

Septuagenarians Find Out They're Long-Lost Sisters

Pennsylvania women say the discovery is a Christmas miracle

(Newser) - Barbara Smith didn't find any firearms or wooden PS4s underneath her Christmas tree this year—instead, she got a sister, the AP reports. The 78-year-old woman from Pottsville, Pa., tells the Progress she received a call from a man named Carl Trusiak last week, and he delivered astounding news:...

There's an Environmental Disaster Happening in LA

Solution to methane gas leak is still months away

(Newser) - Erin Brockovich is calling it the worst environmental catastrophe since the 2010 BP oil spill: Methane has been leaking from a well in Los Angeles for at least two months and will continue to do so for at least two more. Southern California Gas detected the leak— seen here using...

A Rover That Can't Move Made Big Find on Moon

Rock has moderate titanium levels compared with earlier samples

(Newser) - After almost being declared dead , China's Jade Rabbit lunar rover has uncovered something astronauts and earlier rovers missed: a new type of moon rock. While exploring an impact crater in the Mare Imbrium—what Motherboard calls the "right eye" of the "Man in the Moon"—the...

Irish Bones May Settle 'Archaeological Controversy'

What researchers learned from 4 sets of remains

(Newser) - It's a "long-standing archaeological controversy": whether the Irish shifted from hunter-gatherers to farmers because of adaptation or migration. A new DNA analysis of remains from several people, dating back thousands of years, may settle the question—as well as provide a better sense of where the Irish came...

New Killer to Top Cancer by 2050—and We're to Blame

Medicine-resistant infections will spike dramatically: study

(Newser) - We've already been warned about an "antibiotic apocalypse." Now a new study says medicine-resistant infections will take more lives annually than cancer does by 2050 unless action is taken, CNBC reports. According to the Review on Antimicrobial Resistance , deaths caused by drug resistance will rise from 700,...

How Many Trees Cover the Earth? Scientists Now Know

3.04T—seven times higher than the previous estimate

(Newser) - How many trees are there on earth? A lot … or, more precisely, 3.04 trillion (about 422 per person on the planet, CNN notes). That's what some scientists discovered this year after conducting a global tree census, NPR reports. To put that number in context, it would take...

Science Students Have Bad News for Cinderella, Superman

Physics don't support either of them, apparently

(Newser) - Sorry Cinderella, you never would have married the handsome Prince. And Superman? Bringing Lois Lane back from the dead would have destroyed all life on Earth. These are among the hard-bitten conclusions students reached in an online physics journal—and not only because writing about imaginary characters is fun, National ...

Student's Winter Break Plan: Find This Man's Bones. He Did

Caleb Shumway went on the hunt for Lance Leeroy Arellano

(Newser) - As far as winter breaks go, Caleb Shumway has had an unusual and potentially lucrative one: The Utah Valley University student likely found the human remains he was looking for. The 23-year-old Moab native is the son of an officer, one of the 150-plus law enforcement members who in 2010...

Yep, the Rumors Are True: Hitler Only Had One Testicle
Yep, the Rumors Are True: Hitler Only Had One Testicle
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Yep, the Rumors Are True: Hitler Only Had One Testicle

A German professor says medical records from 1923 can put the rumors to rest

(Newser) - Good news for the many on the planet weirdly fascinated by rumors about Adolf Hitler's genitals: It has long been suggested that Hitler only had one testicle—there's even a British schoolyard song that mocks him for it—and that it was a shrapnel casualty in World War...

The 'Nice' List: 5 Most Incredible Discoveries of the Week

Including a tumbling lake and having a ball with Hitler

(Newser) - How a mom's age affects her first kid's smarts and century-old letters to Santa make the list:
  • Science Explains Rudolph's Red Nose : A Dartmouth anthropology professor says Arctic reindeer are—at least among mammals—uniquely qualified to see ultraviolet light, which is more common in winter months.
...

Science Explains Importance of Rudolph's Red Nose

Blue light cannot cut through the fog

(Newser) - They may not have sorted out how Santa's reindeer can fly, but scientists say there is an optical explanation for just how beneficial it is that Rudolph's nose burns red and bright. Reporting in the journal Frontiers for Young Minds , a Dartmouth anthropology professor says that Arctic reindeer...

Experts Stumped by Artifact Get Answer From Facebook

The 'Isis beamer' isn't as scary as it sounds

(Newser) - A mysterious gold-plated artifact that baffled the Israel Antiquities Authority for months was identified within hours after the experts turned to the public with a Facebook post . After suggestions that it was a rolling pin or a cattle insemination device, Italian man Micah Barak correctly identified the object found in...

Door Panel Saved Man Buried in Landslide for 60 Hours

He had been trying to get out of his room when the building collapsed

(Newser) - A migrant worker was pulled out alive Wednesday after he was buried for more than 60 hours in a massive landslide that swept through part of a major manufacturing city in southern China. A spokesman for the Shenzhen Emergency Response Office said that the man, Tian Zeming, was rescued around...

Scientists: We May Be Able to Alter Human Intelligence

There are 2 gene networks perhaps controlled by master 'switches': researchers

(Newser) - Researchers from London's Imperial College think they've found two networks of genes, possibly controlled by a master system, that control cognitive functions—a find that may allow them to modify human intelligence down the line, the Guardian reports. In a study published in Nature Neuroscience , scientists say these...

Vietnam Vet Finds Lost Love, New Mystery

Jim Reischl to start new search for daughter he never met

(Newser) - In January, Jim Reischl will visit Vietnam for the fifth year in a row. But this visit will be different. For four years the Vietnam vet has been searching for his long-lost love , whom he last saw in person when he shipped out in 1970. Now, he'll finally see...

Man Opens Fireplace, Finds Century-Old Letters to Santa

Missives in NYC apartment belonged to turn-of-the-century Irish immigrant family

(Newser) - When Peter Mattaliano decided to redo the fireplace in his NYC apartment, he called his construction-savvy brother to help him bust open the sealed unit. "We were joking that we might find Al Capone's money," Mattaliano tells the New York Times . "Then my brother yelled to...

How Villagers Buried Bodies to Ward Off 'Demons'

Experts revisit case of skeletons buried with sickles

(Newser) - Want to keep a demon-skeleton from haunting your rural settlement? Just bury it with a sickle at its throat. That's what researchers are saying about four skeletons from the 17th and 18th centuries found buried with iron sickles around their necks in a Polish cemetery, Discovery reports. Writing in...

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