Early residents of the Tibetan Plateau, one of the least hospitable places on earth, survived in large part by consuming large amounts of dairy products, according to a new study that chipped away at ancient teeth.Sometimes referred to as the world’s Third Pole, the Tibetan Plateau is beset by dry, cold, unpredictable conditions that would have made life tough for the humans who lived there some 3,600 years ago. Conditions would have stymied efforts to raise crops, such as the barley raised in ...read more

Partway down the list of household dinosaur names, you may know the pachycephalosaurus.Even if you don’t recognize that formality, the dome-shaped head of this creature is notorious, much thanks to its combative force in the Jurassic Park franchise. But plenty of aspects of this dinosaur remain elusive to experts.Pachycephalosaurus FactsThe pachycephalosaurus is the largest in a group of bone-headed dinosaurs, pachycephalosaurids, made up of around 20 species, says Aaron Dyer, a paleontologist ...read more

Just last month, an image of Pope Francis in a stylish, white Balenciaga puffer jacket quickly went viral, convincing thousands that the pontiff was ready for a night on the town. Days before, another series of photos surged across social media, showing the arrest of former president Donald Trump at the hands of riot-gear-clad New York City police officers.There’s just one catch: The images were completely fake. AI-Generated PhotosThese viral sensations were produced by artificial intelligence ...read more

[embedded content]The world's fishing industry largely acts like a sieve separating the larger fish – the keepers taken for human purposes – from the smaller ones, which go on to reproduce. This process creates a kind of evolutionary pressure, according to researchers, affecting the genetic makeup of generations to come.A 2002 study found it took only four generations of such size-focused fishing to shrink the size of the ensuing generations. While the strategy initially produced large yield ...read more

The Tasmanian tiger was once a creature of great beauty. The striped, marsupial predator, and largest of its kind, moved at a slow, stiff-legged pace through the grasslands of Australia, hunting singly or in pairs. Its 46 teeth closed around kangaroos, other marsupials, small rodents and birds, according to the Australian Museum.The Tasmanian Tiger ExtinctionLargely a creature of the night, the Tasmanian tiger became a thing of legend as farmers blamed it for the death of sheep and poultry acros ...read more

When the roller coaster at Coney Island first debuted in 1884, thrill seekers climbed aboard a ride that scaled a 15-foot hill and sped at four miles per hour.Modern coasters can reach heights of 300 feet and speeds of 90 miles per hour. They drop riders suddenly or jerk them backward. Riders twist, fly upside down and return to the start within mere minutes.Scientists are learning more about what happens to the body during roller coaster rides. The twists and turns are harmless for most peopl ...read more

This article was originally published on April 22, 2020.Organizers of the first Earth Day reportedly scheduled the event on a Wednesday to avoid conflicting with the “weekend activities” that college students enjoyed.That must have been the right call. That April 22, 1970, hundreds of campuses across the country hosted lectures, protests and clean-ups, alongside citywide events in Washington, D.C. and New York City. Why Was the First Earth Day Important?The environmental movement has changed ...read more

The camel-mounted warriors of Nabataea were so skilled that they brutally slayed nearly 4,600 Greek soldiers during a single battle in 312 B.C. The Nabataean merchants held a monopoly on Silk Road trade at the crossroads of Africa, Europe and Asia for hundreds of years. And the Nabataean porters had secret reservoirs of water and supplies that only the Nabataeans could find.Then, in A.D. 106, the great civilization of Nabataea “peacefully” came to an end. Or did it? According to ancient Roma ...read more

It’s a familiar and seemingly logical argument: Social media makes us less social. We’re hooked to our phones at the expense of going out into the real world and interacting with other people.And according to Jeffrey Hall, a professor of communication studies and director of the Relationships and Technology Lab at the University of Kansas, the concept even has a name: the social displacement hypothesis.“The social displacement hypothesis is probably the most well-known, long-lasting explan ...read more

It all started with a cloud of dust and gas.Long before the Earth or anything else in the solar system existed — indeed, before there even was a solar system — there was a massive molecular cloud. Dark and dense, it was nevertheless full of crucial amounts of certain elements and tiny but useful dust particles.It’s from this ancient and fortuitous cloud that a blazing, life-sustaining sphere was ultimately born. The ancient Romans knew it as “Sol,” which today remains the scientific na ...read more