Humanity’s early ancestors started dabbling with bipedalism — walking on two legs — as much as 6 to 7 million years ago. It took a while to find our evolutionary footing, but by 3 million years later, the fossil record shows that hominins were pretty well committed to being upstanding.Walking on two legs was literally a great step forward for us. Bipedal locomotion is far more energy-efficient than using both arms and legs to propel us forward, as many primates still do. Conserving energy ...read more

You don’t need to go on a safari to see wild creatures in their natural habitats. There are a number of scientific studies of wild creatures that depend on the eyes of observers just like you.Take part to be transported (virtually) to ecosystems around the world through images and videos (sometimes even livestreams!) where you can make observations that scientists need. Find sharks, iguanas, birds and more with the projects below!Cheers,The SciStarter TeamCredit: Project SIARCProject SIARC (Sh ...read more

Thousands of surgical mistakes are made each year, leading to horrific outcomes, including death.When it comes to our health and well-being, many of us turn to medical professionals for the best treatments and advice. While health professionals have the medical know-how, they are still human. And being human means that mistakes can happen. Some mistakes aren’t just misdiagnoses; some can be life-altering errors. Though they are rare, medical mistakes such as surgical errors have occurred.  W ...read more

By observing a complex dance of stars, astronomers have come up with a new explanation for why exotic Be stars - B-type stars that show emission lines - have their own Saturn-like rings. Conventional wisdom states Be stars are locked in orbit of another star, in a so-called binary system. Forces from the second star cause the Be star to rotate quickly and sling material out into a ring. But the new study questions this explanation.Observing Be Star MovementsThe team drew on data from the Europea ...read more

When the way that you make sense of the world around you begins to falter, it can be confusing and frustrating, to say the least. Dementia can affect the most fundamental parts of human cognition — including memory, language, and even the ability to make simple decisions like what you want for breakfast.Today, there is still no cure for the condition, but a handful of prescription medications can lessen symptoms. Another, more controversial, treatment is aromatherapy. Some research has found t ...read more

Silk is a fabric like no other. Historically, its unmatched beauty, durability, and comfort was prized by the ranks of nobility — Roman and Arabian aristocrats in particular. The rarity of the fabric made it all the more precious.For more than a thousand years, how silk was produced remained a well-guarded secret kept by ancient China, reluctant to let its monopoly go. The fabric was one of the most valued commodities that traveled westward along the vast network known as the Silk Road. In tha ...read more

As colder months roll in, energy costs typically go up. The days are shorter and may require more electricity to light homes; it's also colder and energy is needed to keep homes warm. However, according to energy.gov, there are a few tricks on how to save energy this winter, all while staying comfortable.1. Prevent a Draft(Credit:Lost_in_the_Midwest/Shutterstock)Strong winter winds can lead to teeth-chattering drafts inside the home from leaky windows. Windows with broken seals and cracked frame ...read more

The seed for Eben Bayer’s big idea — an idea that would eventually put him on the Forbes “30 Under 30 list” — was planted when he was just a kid growing up on a small farm in South Royalton, Vermont.Every spring, he would shovel wood chips onto the conveyor belt of a 20-foot evaporator that turned sap into maple syrup. But sometimes large, white, damp clumps would turn up in the wood chips and jam up the operation. The clumps were mycelium, the root-like threads of fungi that grow unde ...read more

Prehistoric men hunted; prehistoric women gathered. At least this is the standard narrative written by and about men to the exclusion of women.The idea of “Man the Hunter” runs deep within anthropology, convincing people that hunting made us human, only men did the hunting, and therefore evolutionary forces must only have acted upon men. Such depictions are found not only in media, but in museums and introductory anthropology textbooks, too.A common argument is that a sexual division of la ...read more

NASA’s recently launched asteroid hunter, Psyche, is designed to give us a look at a body that could resemble depths far within the Earth, where we can never go. But one instrument tagging along for a ride is exciting scientists who specialize in a completely different field — that of space communications. Since the dawn of the Space Age, they have depended on radio waves, just a sliver of the electromagnetic spectrum. But scientists hope to soon expand into another part of the spectrum. Th ...read more