Roads are symbols of a functioning society. They make the transportation of people and goods possible and they date back to 4000 B.C. Sumerians built the first known stone-paved roads in Mesopotamia —modern-day Iraq. And since then roads have held societies together and made trade between other civilizations possible. Here are some of the oldest and most fascinating roads in history. The Silk Road(Credit: Dimitrios Karamitros/Shutterstock) The Silk Road wasn’t actually a road. Even the name ...read more

An unhealthy lifestyle is a common culprit for chronic diseases from heart disease to lung cancer, but Graves’ disease, on the other hand, is an autoimmune condition that evades such a straightforward explanation. When it comes to what causes Graves’ disease, the root of the autoimmune disorder, is widely unknown. Andrew Gianoukakis, professor of medicine at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine and chief of the division of Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism at Harbor-UCLA Medical ...read more

To understand more about Neanderthal small-game cooking techniques, a group of scientists went to the birds. They recreated how early humans butchered, prepared, and roasted pigeons, based on archeological evidence dating back 90,000 years from sites in Portugal. The chef-scientists reported their findings in in Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology.“Studying a variety of small prey can give us a better understanding of the diverse diet of Neanderthals and their adaptability to different envi ...read more

Most people know how to eat a fish taco. Not as many understand how an ancient aquatic organism shaped like a taco ate. Scientists revisited a fossil collection of the 500-million-year-old creature and determined that it used pincer-like mandibles to chew its food, according to a report in Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences.Revisiting an Ancient FossilAlthough the organism Odaraia had been discovered in the Burgess Shale over 100 years ago and described in the 1980s, several ...read more

In 2016, word came out about the discovery of a downright strange astrophysical object, somewhere in the constellation Cygnus. It wasn’t another Earth, but rather, a star.Citizen scientists had been combing through the data from four years of NASA’s Kepler mission when they encountered the star, officially named KIC 8462852. And it was an oddball. It randomly dimmed, like a flickering lightbulb, and could stay that way for several days. It fluctuated intensely and erratically, sometimes drop ...read more

We like the idea that elephants are scared of mice because it’s comically endearing to imagine a 7-ton behemoth cowering before a furball the size of its toenail. Unfortunately the cartoons lied — it isn’t true. But there’s another creature, even smaller, that really does strike fear into the hearts of pachyderms everywhere: the humble honey bee.Since the turn of the century, study after study has detailed how the sight, sound, and even smell of bees has the power to repel elephants. In ...read more

A large hydrothermal (steam) explosion rocked the Biscuit Basin Geyser near Black Diamond Pool on July 23 during the peak of tourist season. The blast does not appear to have injured anyone, but people on the boardwalk got quite a shock when the explosion occurred. Video of the blast show how violent it was, throwing a dark cloud of debris into the sky near onlookers.The video (posted on Facebook) is quite astonishing, showing what starts out as a potentially normal geyser eruption but quickly e ...read more

You’re standing on the moon, gazing up at the Sun without the protective blanket of an atmosphere that we know and love on Earth. The sky is a stark, black canvas dotted with stars; the Sun is an unfiltered beacon. Now, picture this surreal scene interrupted by a massive solar flare, one of the most powerful explosions in our solar system. What Are Solar Flares?(Credit: Jurik Peter/Shutterstock) Solar flares are intense bursts of radiation emanating from the Sun’s surface, caused by the sud ...read more

How many moons are in our solar system? First, it would help to understand that a moon is an object that’s formed naturally and orbits around a planet. The Earth’s Moon is well known. It’s the brightest light in the sky, and you can see it most nights. But there are many more moons in the solar system, and some of them have pretty interesting stories.According to the most current count from NASA, there are 293 moons in our solar system and likely more to be counted. Let’s take a look at ...read more