On May 4, 1891, the Atlanta — a schooner— was in tow behind the Wilhelm — a steamer — when strong winds snapped the towing cable connecting the two ships. With no sails, the Atlanta sank 650 feet below the surface. The shipwreck is in excellent condition due to the frigid waters the ship settled in, according to the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society. In early 2022, the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society announced that the remains of the 172-foot-long schooner had been ...read more

Ants can be found in nearly every location on Earth, with rough estimates suggesting there are over 10 quadrillion individuals – that is a 1 followed by 16 zeroes, or about 1 million ants per person. Ants are among the most biologically successful animals on the planet. A surprising part of their evolutionary success is the amazing sense of smell that lets them recognize, communicate and cooperate with one another. Ants live in complex colonies, sometimes referred to as nests, that are home ...read more

When family or friends suspect a loved one has memory loss, an evaluation with a physician can determine whether the patient has mild cognitive impairment due to aging or something more severe, like dementia. In recent years, a greater understanding of dementia has enabled clinicians to diagnose earlier in the disease progression. Early diagnosis allows the patient and their loved ones to make plans for their medical care. Although patients in the earlier stages can still live independently, pe ...read more

A new blood test promises early detection of anxiety disorders, a strike against the old regime of simply interviewing patients, observing their behavior and making a diagnosis. The research team was led by Alexander Niculescu, professor of psychiatry at Indiana University, who has already developed similar tests for mood disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder. The new “BioM-95” test relies on 95 genetic markers identified during an elaborate study that examined both patients and their ...read more

Zoos have changed a lot over the last century. More recently, many have pivoted their focus to conservation, animal rehabilitation and education about wild ecosystems.   But regardless of the intent in keeping wildlife behind bars, some animals seem to feel that they would be better off free from their trappings. Some of these zoo escapes have captured the imagination of the public, while others are downright scary. Here are a few of the stranger zoo escapes in the past century.   1. Escaped ...read more

Though proving to be a daydream tool for many industries, ChatGPT is quickly becoming a nightmare for academia. As of January 2023, four separate research papers have cited the AI chatbot as a co-author in a research project — forcing scientific journals to scramble to update their policies and regulations addressing possible ethical problems. Read More: The Pros and Cons of Artificial Intelligence Ethical Issues The process of adding an author who made little to no contribution to a scientifi ...read more

In the modern world, it’s easy to take for granted some specialists and structures that keep us healthy or safe on the daily: sanitation workers and pharmacists, bridge beams and highway paint, even fungi and maggots (and soon their secretions?) — to name a few. Most of us could add environmental scientists to that list. Whether or not you have met an environmental scientist in the flesh, it’s a solid bet that their work has shaped your life, often for the better. This can apply to daily p ...read more

The cold freshwater in Lake Huron kept the sunken ship Ironton intact for over a century — including all three of its masts and a lifeboat that took five lives — but also brought the ship’s destruction. The Ironton sank in September 1894 after colliding with a steamer ship named the Ohio. The sunken ship had been missing for around 120 years with only rumors of its location. Recently, researchers from the state of Michigan, the Ocean Exploration Trust and NOAA discovered the ship in what ...read more

It’s obvious to many of us — whether we’re an only child or not — that siblings are often different from each other. Judy Dunn, emeritus professor of developmental psychology at Kings College London, and Robert Plomin, professor of behavioral genetics at the same institution, were among the first scholars to start empirically questioning why this happens. Drawing from differences they noticed in Dunn’s children, over the past 30 years, they’ve tested siblings’ variations in charact ...read more

For many years, the Cave of the Malalmuerzo (“bad lunch”) near Granada, Spain, located near rocky farmland, stood open to the public. Local residents stooped under the low ceiling and wound their way through stalactites, and some made the belly-crawl to the deeper reaches of the cave and the early paintings there. They took home “some artifact […] ceramics, bits of bone, etc.,” writes a local businessman. In 1983, the first archaeologists showed up, but the souvenir-hunting continued ...read more