An ancient stone circle sits on the summit of a mountain overlooking the Cajamarca Valley in Peru’s northern highlands. At first glance, it doesn’t appear particularly remarkable — just a circle about the size of a convenience store, with a smaller circle inside. Meanwhile, what remains of its borders are made up of standing boulders.But new research has revealed that this unassuming plaza dates back nearly five millennia, to an era that far preceded the Inca and their predecessors, like t ...read more

Think of a typical creepy crawler, and you’ll probably conjure up the image of a hairy, eight-legged tarantula: the go-to spider in horror, and for those unaware, also a favorite pet among spider lovers.About 900 different species of tarantulas populate virtually every continent of our globe, save for Antarctica. They range from the tiny to the titanic, the colorful to the plain. Here are some things to know about tarantulas, who are not as scary as you’d think – as long as you don’t bot ...read more

Volcanologists can't predict eruptions. There is no reliable and tested method that can say that a certain volcano will erupt on a certain day or at a certain time. You might see such things on YouTube and elsewhere on the internet, but they are mostly people making patterns where there are none.However, volcanologists have been getting much better at forecasting eruption likelihood. Now, that might sound a lot like prediction, but it is not. Instead, it is like the weather: they can offer the c ...read more

Although they’re not very close together in the alphabet, and they don’t look much alike, the letters D and K actually have a lot in common — at least when you’re talking about vitamin D and vitamin K.But there are differences between these nutrients, too. Here, we’ll explore what each vitamin does for the body and also look at how taking them together might unlock other health benefits.What Are the Health Benefits of Vitamin D and Vitamin K?For starters, both vitamin D and vitamin K a ...read more

Back in 2015, the Kepler Space Telescope spotted a strange planet orbiting a red dwarf in the constellation of Leo, some 100 light years from Earth. K2-18b, as it was designated, is about eight times more massive than Earth with twice the radius, making it a type of planet astronomers call a mini-Neptune. It orbits its parent star in just 33 days, placing it firmly within the habitable zone, the region around a star where liquid water can exist.Precise conditions on such a planet are impossible ...read more

When you think of killer animals, odds are you picture a lion, a shark, maybe an elephant. But those fearsome beasts are but players in the bigger picture of human demise. The ones that truly take a toll on Homo sapiens are diverse, often surprising, and impressively lethal. The 10 deadliest animals combined kill less than a million humans per year.While any loss of human life is tragic, humans also have a part to play in the circle of life. We have contributed to habitat loss, and consume hundr ...read more

Happy leap year! Feb. 29, 2024, is leap day and marks an ongoing, longstanding correction to the calendar we use.In most years, our calendar contains 365 days. But Earth actually takes 365.2422 days (let’s call it 365¼ days) to orbit the Sun. As you might imagine, if we let these quarter days add up, we’d quickly be celebrating the 4th of July in America when it’s snowing.So, we add a full day every four years … almost. A year that’s 365¼ days long actually is 11 minutes longer than ...read more

You might not think much about the origins of your favorite coffee mug or beaded necklace. Yet, taken together, pottery and beads hold a special place in human history. Researchers have long studied ancient pottery and beads to unearth buried secrets about our collective past. These items, often found in archaeological sites, can offer a wealth of insights into ancient cultures — for a variety of different reasons. The Origins of Pottery Beginning with pottery, this humble craft may have a sta ...read more

Stiff Person Syndrome (SPS) is a rare autoimmune neurological condition that has puzzled the medical community for years. Affecting a small percentage of the population, SPS leads to a variety of symptoms, primarily muscle stiffness and spasms, which cause significant discomfort and challenges.In this article, we’ll dive into what SPS is, its symptoms, causes, how it’s diagnosed, and treatment options, giving you an in depth understanding of this highly complex condition.Remember, be sure to ...read more

Controversial findings at Gunung Padang — a massive Indonesian pyramid sitting on top of an ancient volcano — could flip everything we thought we knew about prehistory on its head. If the findings are true, Gunung Padang shows that Ice Age humans possessed advanced technology, unlike anything we could have imagined.Nevertheless, mainstream archeologists are skeptical of these conclusions, and many have tried to discredit the geologist at the center of them. That geologist is Caltech research ...read more