There's something sitting inside your skin. It's spindly and startlingly white, and, by its weight, it's stronger than steel.That might sound spooky — that something so strange and so spectacularly strong is sitting inside you — but that thing within your skin is what allows you to stand, walk, and sprint. It protects your innards and provides your squishy organs with structure. Pieced together from a slew of separate parts, it's been with you since you were a baby, plying you with the cells ...read more

Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) is a major health concern affecting millions each year. From the first sniffle to serious complications, understanding RSV is crucial, especially for vulnerable groups. Babies and toddlers are extremely susceptible to RSV, with most children experiencing the virus by the time they reach the age of two. While most patients recover without any treatment, there are still up to 80,000 hospitalizations each year among kids under five. RSV can also impact older adult ...read more

The allure of Cleopatra, the last pharaoh of Egypt, has captivated the imagination of historians, artists, and storytellers for centuries. Yet, one enduring mystery remains at the heart of her legend: What did Cleopatra really look like? Despite the vast body of information about her reign and exploits, the physical appearance of this iconic figure remains shrouded in mystery. From her ethnicity to her beauty, uncover the historical accounts and long standing controversies surrounding Cleopatra ...read more

Scientists have pieced together how a cave lion died some 48,000 years ago at the hands of Neanderthals, and the picture they’ve painted is pretty grisly.Lions loomed large in the psyche of Stone Age hominins, who painted them on cave walls and carved their likenesses into bone and ivory ornaments. Neanderthals competed with them for food, but evidence of their direct interaction has remained scarce.Neanderthal Hunting Techniques DiscoveredIn present-day Germany, a group of the early hominins ...read more

Europe is a continent of coasts. Indented and irregular, its serpentine shores stretch almost 24,000 miles, though they’re shrinking, and shrinking quickly. Across Europe, seas are rising at an average rate of around 2 to 4 millimeters per year. And though that may sound small, that rate is far from insignificant, threatening to swallow up Europe's low-lying costal cities, like Venice and Amsterdam. Though the current threat to the coastal communities of Europe is unprecedented — and undenia ...read more

For most of history, humans had no idea what happens when you die. Death was, as Hamlet put it, an “undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns.” But with the advent of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), people are returning, at least from the borders of that country, with tales to tell. What Do People See When They Die?The accounts of people who have had what are popularly known as neath death experiences (NDE) are remarkably similar: the presence of a glowing white figure, ...read more

Mammalian evolution didn’t happen in a straight line. For 320 million years, it has surged forward and crashed back down again amid successive mass extinctions, such as the one that killed the dinosaurs 66 million years ago.After each extinction, a population of small, generalist, insect-eating animals that could hide in the cracks of the world, led a new radiation of species to evolve. Or so biologists have tended to believe.But is this true? A new study that constructed a massive family tree ...read more

The woolly rhinoceros — known to scientists as any species of rhinos under the genus Coelodonta — roamed the planet up till 12,000 years ago, spreading all over Asia, Europe, and North Africa. “It had a huge geographical range,” says Pierre-Olivier Antoine, a specialist in Cenozoic megamammals at the Université de Montpellier, in France. It was clad in a thick, shabby coat of rust-colored fur to weather winter storms of the Ice Ages. As such, the hairy beasts earned the nickname “wool ...read more

You know when you see someone yawn, and suddenly, you find yourself yawning seconds later? It's possible that, just like a contagious yawn, stress works similarly. Think about how many times you've felt stressed out when a partner, family member, or even coworker around you was exhibiting symptoms of stress. So, is stress contagious? Krystal Lewis, clinical psychologist and board member of the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, explains if stress can be deemed emotionally contagious ...read more

Maybe you’re sprawled on the sofa, clutching the armrest in terror — yet still unable to tear your eyes away — as Freddy Kruger slices his way across the screen in A Nightmare on Elm Street. Or perhaps you’re tiptoeing through a haunted house at a local amusement park, bubbling with nervous anticipation as you walk around every corner. You might even be sitting in the dark of a movie theater, gasping and shrieking at Hollywood’s latest horror flick in unison with dozens of strangers. ...read more