It was 1910, or maybe 1911 or 1912, when Wilfrid Voynich, a Polish-born antiquarian, purchased a strange, medieval manuscript.Similar in size to an average paperback, at around 6 inches by 9 inches, the book burst at the seams, brimming with words and pictures of peculiar plants, strange stars, and bathing female figures. At around 232 pages, the book bore no indication of its authors and lacked the luster — and the metal leaf — seen in many manuscripts from the “illuminated” age. Increa ...read more

When high-quality images produced by generative AI first began to appear in 2022, they had an undeniable wow factor. The creative process involved little more than entering a text description and waiting for the AI system to produce a relevant image. At that time, an obvious question was when AI-generated video would catch up. Indeed, various groups have since unveiled AI systems that automatically generate video, but always with important limits to their length, the type of realistic motion the ...read more

The relationship between humans and Neanderthals has consistently been shrouded in mystery, but a collection of new studies has now solved a major piece of the puzzle. Based on analysis of ancient bone fragments, researchers shed light on early humans’ presence in northern Europe alongside Neanderthals, answering questions that have long engulfed the science community. Researchers set their sights on Ilsenhöhle, an archaeological site at the base of a castle in Ranis, Germany. An internation ...read more

Living in a city is different from our how our ancestors lived, who were in a more nature-filled environment. Only 3 percent of the world’s population lived in cities back in 1800, compared to over 50 percent today. As researchers of a 2019 study published in the Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine state, our attention system was “designed for interacting with nature.”There’s no doubt there are pros and cons to city living. You step outside, and you’re closer to shops and entertainmen ...read more

The continent-spanning nature of the United States means that we have a lot of different geologic conditions. The eastern half of the country is in the (mostly) stable part of the North American plate while the western half (including Alaska) is in the much more dynamic part of the plate. However, that doesn't mean that the earthquake hazards that our cities face is only a worry for someone living in California.The latest model of potential earthquake shaking hazard for the country was recently ...read more

For newborns in the ocean, we know that baby corals billow beneath the waves before attaching to something solid; baby comb jellies burst into being in the open ocean; and baby turtles wriggle their way through the sandy shores. But there’s one ocean creature whose birthplace is strangely secretive, and that’s the great white shark.For decades, scientists struggled to determine where great white sharks gave birth. But in July 2023, two shark specialists — a filmmaker and a biologist search ...read more

Scientists hypothesize from genetic studies that, more than 65 million years ago, humans came from squirrel-like, nocturnal animals that lived in trees and weighed less than 200 grams. Up until recently, scientists also suggested that this primate ancestor was a primitive and solitary mammal that lived in the shadow of the dinosaurs. A new study published in the journal PNAS, however, sheds new light on the social organization of this prehistoric creature: namely, that most primate ancestors wer ...read more

Few creatures capture our imagination and curiosity as much as the chimpanzee. As one of our closest kin in the animal world, chimpanzees, with their striking similarities and intriguing differences to humans, offer a glimpse into our own ancestry.In this article, we’ll briefly dive into the remarkable world of chimpanzees, gaining a better understanding of their physical traits, habitat, strength and temperament, and the challenges they face.What Is a Chimpanzee: Is a Chimpanzee a Monkey? At ...read more

This is part 2 of a detailed look at the factors that helped make 2023 the warmest year on record, and arguably one of the weirdest too. For part 1, go here.Last year offered perhaps the clearest warning we've ever received that we need to stop polluting the atmosphere with carbon dioxide and other climate-altering greenhouse gases.As I mentioned in part 1 of this series, 2023 shattered the previous record for warmest year in observations dating back to the 1800s. Every month from June through D ...read more

By now, you probably know that 2023 was the warmest year on record. Climatically speaking, it was also arguably one of the weirdest. By early summer, it became obvious that something quite unusual was happening. In June, New York and other major cities were smothered by a toxic blanket of smoke from huge Canadian wildfires fanned by warm and dry conditions. When the final global temperature numbers for the month were tallied, it turned out to be the warmest June on record. As summer unfolded, ex ...read more