Humans who built massive “desert kites” in ancient times first carved to-scale plans of them, creating an 8,000-year-old schematic, a new study says.Scientists found the maps carved into boulders lying on the ground in Jordan and Saudi Arabia, not far from the kites they depicted. Desert kites are ancient, keyhole-shaped structures designed to funnel in animals, which walk in through one end and get stuck in the round enclosure or pit at the other.What Were Desert Kites Used For?The current ...read more

We're hearing a lot about microplastics — those teeny pieces of plastic that have become so ubiquitous in our water, air and soil that they can now be found in human blood. These minuscule pieces of plastic are the product of broken-down waste because plastic does not biodegrade like other materials. Plastics make up a bulk of our packaging, toys, cars, toiletries and building materials; the list goes on and on.What's more, plastics are made up of numerous toxins and chemicals that, when brok ...read more

March 17, 2022, was a rough day for Jorge Vago. A planetary physicist, Vago heads science for part of the European Space Agency’s ExoMars program. His team was mere months from launching Europe’s first Mars rover — a goal they had been working toward for nearly two decades. But on that day, ESA suspended ties with Russia’s space agency over the invasion of Ukraine. The launch had been planned for Kazakhstan’s Baikonur Cosmodrome, which is leased to Russia.“They told us we had to call ...read more

Quantum materials offer many benefits to the future of electronic devices — from batteries to sensors and even our smartphones. Thanks to quantum behaviors like entanglement, these materials exhibit unusual electronic, optical and magnetic properties, making them more energy efficient.“Being superior to conventional materials for certain electronic processes, quantum materials open vast application opportunities,” says Carmine Ortix, an associate professor of physics at the University of S ...read more

Bats often get a bad rap. They’re known mostly as characters in spooky myths or Halloween stories. But these flying mammals are responsible help keep ecosystems in balance and our food economy humming. Bat Species and Their AbilitiesBats comprise one fifth of all living mammal species and are found everywhere on Earth except the ice-covered poles. They first appeared on Earth over 50 million years ago, long before humans. While many people assume bats are related to rodents because of their s ...read more

This article was originally published in Eos.Along with Egypt and Babylonia, the Hittite Empire was one of the major powers of the eastern Mediterranean and Near East during the late Bronze Age. For more than 500 years, the empire’s military might and sociopolitical complexity allowed the Hittites to control the strategic region straddling eastern Anatolia and the northern Levant.But by about 1200 B.C., the empire had collapsed. Researchers have cited armed conflict, disease, and political cri ...read more

Large, broad Neanderthal noses evolved to regulate the cold, dry Ice Age air and to suck in enough oxygen to meet high energy demands, according to a series of computer simulations. They were so useful, researchers have found, that when Neanderthals passed on their noses to certain humans through inter-species reproduction, the gene lived on to today.It affects how “tall” the nose is, how long from top to bottom, and must have survived tens of thousands of years of natural selection to be de ...read more

This article was originally published on Nov. 16, 2022. The use of human voiceover work is ubiquitous across modern media platforms, from video games to television and movies. But increasingly, the voices you hear on-screen aren’t totally human-made; they’re the result of artificial intelligence.Respeecher, a voice cloning company founded in 2018 and based in Ukraine, is currently working with LucasFilm to provide voice services for the Star Wars projects. Respeecher’s speech-to-speech tec ...read more

The insect world is full of creatures who have practically raised the principles of disguise and concealment to an art form. For predators and prey alike, camouflage is a critical survival tool, with coloration, patterning and even physical shape all playing roles in helping insects to conceal themselves from their hunters — or aid the hunters in hiding from their unsuspecting prey until it’s time to strike.Many insects are particularly good not merely at blending in with one’s natural hab ...read more

Search the term “preventing dementia” online, and a list of possible precautions pop up. One story describes a new study that finds older Americans who used the Internet — but not too much — have a lower risk of dementia. Other stories suggest that taking vitamin D, getting a good night’s sleep or learning a second language are key to combating dementia.Scientists don’t fully understand what causes dementia, a degenerative neurological condition that impacts memory, speech and basi ...read more