A case report published on March 24, 2024 in The Lancet is helping researchers gain new insights into a poorly understood neurological disorder. The case is that of Victor Sharrah, a 58-year-old man who complained about seeing “demonic” faces for nearly three years. Everything else he views appears normal.What makes Sharrah’s case special is that faces in photographs or on a computer screen remain normal — he only sees the demonic features when looking at a real face. In his own words, � ...read more

In 1912, Polish biochemist Kazimierz Funk isolated a chemical compound he thought gave brown rice its protective properties. He coined the phrase "vitamin,” to describe it. Funk realized there were probably other compounds that had potential to fight certain health deficiencies. Between the time of his discovery, until 1948, all essential vitamins were identified. By the 1950s, mass production of vitamin supplements had begun, including the concept of a multivitamin. This marked the beginning ...read more

Dinosaurs have had an enormous cultural impact, and although they didn’t achieve their fame until the modern age, their footprints may have still captivated curious groups of ancient humans. Recent research at a site in northeast Brazil containing primitive rock art adjacent to dinosaur footprints has revealed how humans interacted with the fossil record in prehistory.The research, recently published in Scientific Reports, focused on three rock outcrops at the Serrote do Letreiro site in Brazi ...read more

When people think of ancient structures, they often think of the Egyptian pyramids or the standing stones of Stonehenge. They might think of the Olmec colossal heads in Mexico or the hundreds of statues on Easter Island.The Neolithic temples of Malta, however, are older than all of these famed sites and were constructed between 5,600 and 4,500 B.C.E. Despite their ancient age, many have survived.Although the buildings have endured, an understanding of how the structures were once used has been l ...read more

It’s heartbreaking to lose a beloved dog. And that heartbreak is almost inevitable. While lifespans vary from breed to breed, dogs live about 10 to 15 years, with small breeds living longer than large breeds. Meanwhile, humans can live 80 years or more. So, yes, the odds are good that if you love a dog, one day, you’re going to have to say goodbye.But what if you cloned your dog? It can be done. In fact, dogs are one of the most successfully cloned animals. Would that mean you could bring ba ...read more

To determine trends in trade and cultural exchange, sometimes historians must follow the money. A team did just that by showing that Byzantine silver found its way into Anglo Saxon coins by A.D. 700, according to an article in Antiquities. Historians had known for decades that, from around A.D. 660 to 750, Anglo-Saxon England saw a surge in silver coins, after the area had long relied on gold. But from where the silver had entered the currency stream remained a mystery. Now a team of researchers ...read more

In the summer of 2022, when the James Webb Space Telescope relayed its first batch of images from the depths of space, it revealed something unexpected: The early universe was full of massive, bright galaxies — teeming with an astonishing numbers of stars — long before anything like them should have existed. At that early stage of cosmic evolution, less than a billion years after the Big Bang, researchers argued, these stars simply shouldn’t have had time to get so big. As Jorryt Matthee, ...read more