Before his discovery of King Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922, it’s rumored that Howard Cater, the renowned Egyptologist, discovered another mummy in 1919. Known as either the Bashiri Mummy, the Mummy of Pacheri, or the “untouchable one,” this mummy was so intricately wrapped that researchers never unfurled it for fear of irreversible damage. The fabric across the mummy's face is woven in an intricate pattern that resembles the base of a pyramid, and it may be the only known mummy to have use ...read more

Tuberculosis (TB) is mostly forgotten, but certainly not gone. We often associate TB with bygone times. In 1882, the consumption, as it was often called then, killed one in seven people in Europe and the U.S. The disease traveled by coughing; crowded cities in both Europe and the U.S. were thought to be one reason behind its rise. In the Victorian Era, wealthy folks travelled to remote, temperate climates to avoid TB, but people with less resources hacked up blood as their lungs deteriorated, un ...read more

It’s a rite of passage that fills men of a certain age with dread: the digital exam for prostate cancer. But suffering prostate cancer is even worse — especially since the treatments come with the chance that the patient will experience either erectile dysfunction (ED) or urinary incontinence.A new surgical approach now reduces the odds of those unwanted side effects, according to a report in The Lancet. A robot-assisted surgical method shows it can spare the periprostatic neurovascular bund ...read more

Back in 1832, the celebrated British physicist, Michael Faraday, carried out a set of experiments designed to answer a tantalizing question: could electricity be generated by Earth's rotation through its own magnetic field? The intriguing possibility arises because Earth’s magnetic field does not rotate with the Earth like a physical object. Instead, it is created at each instant and remains essentially fixed in space. So the thinking at the time was that perhaps Earth’s movement through it ...read more

Long before astronomers discovered the first exoplanet in 1992, the idea of worlds orbiting distant stars captivated the minds of academics and dreamers alike. As far back as the 16th century, philosopher Giordano Bruno speculated about an infinite universe filled with countless stars, each surrounded by its own planets. Today, with more than 5,800 confirmed exoplanets, astronomers are finding that some of these worlds are astonishingly strange, defying even the wildest predictions. Some exoplan ...read more

Your body may move to the music on the dance floor, but how does your brain function when listening to tunes while you work?A lot of people swear one way or another — electronic music may speed up the pace of typing for some, while others just find it distracting. In fact, the question of whether music helps you get your work done or hinders you may be highly individualistic.However, new research shows that certain types of upbeat, groovy music without lyrics may improve people’s moods while ...read more

Among the vast forests, herds of bison, and steaming geysers, a new hydrothermal feature has emerged at Yellowstone National Park. After an exciting summer, with the park seeing a hydrothermal explosion at Biscuit Basin and Norris Geyser Basin, one of the park’s scientists also spotted the new hydrothermal feature. According to a news release from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the new feature “popped up right in front of our eyes — literally!”The new feature could be seen from the ...read more

Evidence of one of the smallest — and perhaps unluckiest — early human relatives has been found in South Africa, according to a paper in the Journal of Human Evolution.Researchers who found what they identified as a fossil of a Paranthropus robustus female, estimated she stood just under 3 feet 4.5 inches. That’s about half an inch shorter than the famous “Lucy” and 6 inches shorter than the so-called Hobbits.Comparing those three species’ heights is interesting, but perhaps unfair, ...read more

Pregnancy is an incredibly special and delicate time for all parents. In those early stages of development, the environment, both inside and outside the body, can drastically impact fetal and long-term health. A recent study has identified a new area that can be influenced, diagnosed, and treated before birth: neuropsychiatric disorders. The Placenta and Psychiatric DisordersThe key to understanding the genetic risk of neuropsychiatric disorders is in the placenta. The international research t ...read more

Black holes are enigmatic yet simplistic astronomical forces at the center of science fiction and scientific discovery alike. At the center of our universe, a supermassive black hole with a mass equivalent to 4 million suns lies: Sagittarius A.Though humans – at least to our knowledge – have never come into contact with a black hole, the potential encounter has long been a source of both regimented research and casual curiosity. The outcome would depend on many factors, mainly the mass, or s ...read more