When exactly humans took to the water in boats is unclear. Long considered a practice exclusive to our own species – Homo sapiens – researchers are gathering evidence that our early ancestors may have crafted and sailed boats thousands of years ago. But this theory remains contentious.What Is the Oldest Boat Ever Found?The world’s oldest boat dates back around 10,000 years. Discovered in 1955 in the Netherlands, the dugout canoe – known as the Pesse canoe – was crafted by axe from a Sc ...read more

Back in 2005, the European Space Agency’s Huygens probe made a dramatic landing on the surface of Saturn’s largest moon Titan. During its descent through the dense nitrogen-rich atmosphere, Huygens sent back pictures of a complex landscape shaped by familiar forces. The images showed hills and valleys, meandering rivers leading to complex deltas that eventually fed into lakes and seas with vast shorelines. Titan, it appeared, had many features in common with Earth.But there is a crucial diff ...read more

For someplace so cold, Antarctica sure is a hotbed of scientific endeavors, from geology and meteorology to astronomy and archaeology.Wait, archaeology?That’s right. Even in one of the most desolate places on Earth, archaeologists have conducted research on the ice, although not in the way that you might think.The Mystery Beneath the IceHere, we have to acknowledge that, among a subset of pop-culture theorists and conspiracy buffs, it’s a popular pastime to imagine that somewhere beneath the ...read more

It’s dawn in the savanna, and its inhabitants are already starting to stir. Giraffes are munching on the tops of trees, and gazelles are ambling through the shrub-spotted grasslands. Elephants are trampling the thirsty turf, sending sprays of dust into the dry savannah air, and buffalos are bent with their snuffling snouts to the ground. Rarely are any of these grazing animals alone, at this time of day or any other. And though they typically travel in herds, including tens to hundreds to thou ...read more

Under the age of 25, GenZers are digital natives who can shop, order takeout, and find a romantic partner, all with a few swipes of the finger. On the other hand, Baby Boomers, who are over the age of 57, have a shakier grasp on technology and are more likely to struggle with basic online tasks like product returns, per a Nfinite study. What makes these two generations so different? Social Media Use by GenerationFor many GenZers, it’s typical to spend about three hours a day using social m ...read more

As fall begins across the Northern Hemisphere, hundreds of millions of birds are preparing for a journey that can take them thousands of miles to warmer climates near the equator. These fall migrations are both a simple fact of life for many avian species, and an epic adventure that takes them halfway across the globe.Seasonal migrations allow birds to take advantage of prime habitats for feeding and reproducing in the warmer summer months before escaping the deadly cold of winter. But many bird ...read more

A supercomputer at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee called Summit takes up the same floor space as a couple of tennis courts, and weighs more than a large commercial aircraft. In certain cases, the machine can perform about a billion calculations per second, allowing it to simulate complex systems in physics, biology and other fields.Recently, a team of astronomers used Summit to simulate a supermassive black hole and the swirl of matter (the “accretion disk”) that surrounds it ...read more

Unique conditions appear to have preserved part of an ancient wooden structure dating back at least 476,000 years. This time was well before the presumed evolution of modern humans, upsetting old notions of hominid development.No one knows what the structure was, only that it appears to have been fashioned with stone tools to fit together in an interlinking fashion similar to Lincoln Logs. The scientific team led by archaeologist Larry Barham found a single such connection composed of a longer, ...read more

Smartwatches may be able to buy potential Parkinson’s patients valuable time when it comes to diagnosis.New research reveals that these devices can detect the degenerative condition years before the symptoms become serious, based solely on the movement and sleep patterns of those who wear them.“Parkinson’s disease is primarily a movement disorder and we know that before a clinical diagnosis is made where all these motor symptoms have to be present, there’s a long phase where neuronal dam ...read more

For a long time, philosophers have pondered the nature of what we hear and by association, the nature of the perception of silence. Do we only hear sounds? Some might argue that we hear sounds and their sources — a singer and her voice. However, experience leads us to believe that we also hear silence, the absence of sound, for example, when a dramatic piece of music comes to an end.The view that we only hear sounds centers on the idea that perception is only ever of positive things and that w ...read more