discoveries

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

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Missing for 14 Years, a $15M Picasso Returns Home

La Coiffeuse will be given the French government after its discovery in NY

(Newser) - A stolen painting by Pablo Picasso is back in the hands of the French government 14 years after it vanished from a Paris museum. The 1911 work La Coiffeuse (The Hairdresser) was discovered in December in a FedEx package sent to New York from Belgium. Though the package said it...

Robot Mowers Coming to a Lawn Near You

FCC approves automated device from makers of Roomba

(Newser) - Having a Roomba mow your lawn may not be too far off after an FCC decision yesterday. iRobot's robotic mower received the go-ahead from the communications agency—a big step toward US sales, reports Reuters . The company says its device communicates wirelessly with stakes in the user's yard...

DNA Tells Tale of a President's Scandalous Affair

Warren Harding did father Nan Britton's child: AncestryDNA

(Newser) - Her 1927 tell-all book describing an affair with America's 29th president—and claiming him as the father of her child—propelled Nan Britton to the title of Warren G. Harding's most famous mistress . But as Britton only revealed the relationship after Harding's death and said she'd...

Want Good Mental Health? Get Religion
 Want Good 
 Mental Health? 
 Get Religion 
NEW STUDY
Aug 13, 2015 8:14 AM CDT

Want Good Mental Health? Get Religion

Joining a religious organization has a bigger impact than volunteering or sport

(Newser) - Attending a church, synagogue, or mosque may be better for one's mental health than engaging in sports, furthering one's education, or volunteering. So say researchers at the London School of Economics and Erasmus MC, who studied the effects of these four types of activities on the mental health...

Want to Get Out of Debt? Study Finds Best Way to Do It

Your approach to debt relief may be all wrong

(Newser) - You're staring down a $600 credit card bill and $60,000 in student loan debt: Which do you tackle first? Conventional wisdom says whichever has the higher interest rate. A new study out of Texas A&M says ignore those rates—and start with that credit card bill. It...

New 'Romantic' Octopus Wows Scientists

Larger Pacific Striped Octopus shares some human habits

(Newser) - The octopus already is an oddball of the ocean. Now biologists have rediscovered a species of that eight-armed sea creature that's even stranger and shares some of our social and mating habits. Biologist Rich Ross and colleagues studying a batch of octopuses from Central America found the critters just...

Scientists Learn Why Labor Contractions Grow Stronger

They call the phenomenon 'hypoxia-induced force increase'

(Newser) - The general course of child labor is well documented, but many mysteries—such as what starts labor in the first place—persist. Now scientists at the University of Liverpool say they've discovered what causes contractions to strengthen during labor, even though the tightening uterine muscle squeezes blood vessels, thereby...

Phoenix Is Slowly Sinking

 Phoenix Is Slowly Sinking 
NEW STUDY
Aug 13, 2015 3:03 AM CDT

Phoenix Is Slowly Sinking

Subsidence can't be stopped, researchers say

(Newser) - Researchers say that while there's no need for residents of Phoenix to panic, parts of their city are slowly and unstoppably sinking into the ground. Land subsidence caused by the extraction of huge quantities of groundwater over the decades is to blame, and the Arizona State University researchers say...

Medieval Mystery Sword Inscription Baffles Experts

The 13th century River Witham sword bears a long message

(Newser) - World, can you help us decipher a medieval sword inscription? That sums up the British Library's announcement about a blade discovered in an English river in 1825, LiveScience reports. The so-called River Witham sword—a 13th-century object now on display at the library—bears a message along its 38-inch...

Parenthood More Depressing Than Death of Spouse

German study gives us the bad news

(Newser) - Why do so many people in the developed world stop having children after their first? That's the question researchers set out to answer in a study recently published in Demography . According to their findings, having a child made the majority of participants more unhappy than the death of a...

Teen Makes Pricey Find in German Lake

It was a gold bar, which the girl then turned over to police

(Newser) - A teenager has made an unexpected find while swimming in a lake in the German Alps: a 17.6-ounce bar of gold. Police say they're still trying to figure out where the bar comes from and how it got into the Koenigssee lake, a popular tourist destination near Berchtesgaden...

Thief's Ex Clueless She Had Stolen Stradivarius for Years

Says she almost fainted when appraiser said they had to call the FBI

(Newser) - Philip Johnson was dying of pancreatic cancer when he brought his former wife, Thanh Tran, to the basement of his home in Venice, Calif. Under a tarp weighted down with bricks was a violin case with a combination lock. He gave the case to Tran and didn't say a...

Scientists Create a Healthier Peanut

It's said to be more resistant to disease

(Newser) - If you've been puzzling over ways to get more oleic acid into your body, the USDA has just come through. In a joint venture with Oklahoma State University, the agency has released a brand-new peanut that's said to boast a richer flavor, health benefits, and resistance to crop...

Study Identifies the Worst Fats for Your Heart

To protect your heart, choose butter over margarine: study

(Newser) - If nothing else can get you to cut back on trans fats, maybe the threat of death will do it. Researchers who analyzed 123 observational studies on saturated and trans fats published in the last 30 years found people who consumed a diet high in saturated fats saw no increased...

Why a Venezuela Lake Is Home to Most Lightning on Earth

New satellite images show that lightning flashes most often near the equator

(Newser) - At a lake in Venezuela, a nine-hour display of thousands of flashes of lightning—averaging 28 strokes a minute—is the norm, with the concentration hitting its peak in the October rainy season, reports the BBC . And though the mountain village of Kifuka in DR Congo has long been hailed...

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'...

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