The site of Monte Verde in Chile today. Credit: (Geología Valdivia/Wikimedia Commons) As the Ice Age began to wane, people from northeastern Asia spread to the Americas, some of the last uninhabited continents on Earth. The pioneers traveled south of mile-high ice sheets covering Canada and found vast lands, abounding with mammoth, giant sloth and other now-extinct megafauna. This much has been known for decades. But when it comes to the details, debates have raged over precisely wh ...read more

A desalination plant in Hamburg, Germany. (Credit: Andrea Izzotti/Shutterstock) In places like San Diego and Dubai where freshwater is scarce, humans turn to machines that pull the salt out of seawater, transforming it into clean drinking water. This process, called desalination, has been turning sea and brackish groundwater into potable water since the mid-20th century. The technology could become increasingly important in the near future, as the rising temperatures and erratic rain pat ...read more

Narcissists display lower levels of stress and depression, an indication that the trait might sometimes be helpful. (Credit: G-Stock Studio/Shutterstock) Kostas Papageorgiou wants you to embrace your inner narcissist. Fittingly, it’s for your own benefit: The Queen’s University Belfast psychology researcher’s latest study shows narcissism might be linked to lower stress levels and reduced risk of depression. Still, he can do without the manipulation, lack of empathy, and ...read more

There is only one Sean Carroll at Caltech in the world we know. But he could exist in of a multitude of worlds incrementally different from this one. (Credit: Bill Youngblood/Corey S. Powell) Let’s begin at the beginning. What is the Many Worlds Interpretation? It begins with quantum mechanics, which is our best theory of elementary particles and the microscopic world. There’s this thing in quantum mechanics that says, before you look at an object it's not in any definite loca ...read more

Formosan subterranean termites, which are in the same genus as Asian subterranean termites. (Credit: Scott Bauer/USDA) (Inside Science) -- The appetites of social termites extend to cannibalizing their co-workers after death. It's done for the greater good of the community. “Termites have a lot of strategies to keep the nest and the members of the colony clean,” said Luiza Helena Bueno da Silva, a zoology graduate student at São Paulo State University in Brazil and the l ...read more

Leon Theremin, also known as Lev Termen, demonstrates his musical instrument. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons) Imagine a UFO descending from the heavens, its round disk pale against the night sky. What sound does it make? You’re likely imagining a keening whine in your head, like the howling of a haunted wind or the moans of a high-pitched ghost. That’s the sound of the theremin, a musical instrument invented nearly a century ago. It was one of the first electronic musical instrumen ...read more

A measles infection can wipe our immune system's memory and even leave us weaker against new infections. (Credit: infohay/Shutterstock) As the number of measles cases rises in the U.S, research reveals a new way the disease can leave patients vulnerable to future infections. Published in Science Immunology, an examination of measles patient immune systems showed that the disease didn't just leave some children less capable of fighting off infections they had already encountered. It also d ...read more

Last month, I blogged about the famous Libet experiment and how this 1983 study, which was once heralded as undermining the concept of free conscious will, has now been reinterpreted in a less radical way. Libet et al. found an electrical potential, the Readiness Potential (RP), that emerged in the brain about 1 second before the onset of voluntary movement. The key finding was that the RP also preceded the conscious intention to move. This seemed to suggest that the brain was 'deciding to m ...read more

A new design for lithium-ion batteries could dramatically reduce charging times. (Credit: buffaloboy/Shutterstock) Forget the 10 hours it can take to charge your Tesla Model X. A new battery, created by researchers at Penn State, can complete a charge in as little as 10 minutes. Described in a report published today in Joule, the new lithium-ion battery could top up electric vehicles with 200 miles of charge in a time comparable to filling up a gas-powered vehicle. The technique involves ...read more

Exposing children to small amounts of peanuts helps treat the symptoms of allergic reactions, but doesn't cure them. (Credit: PR Image Factory/Shutterstock) New research points to a potential wrinkle in a promising treatment for severe peanut allergies: Reactions can return if the treatments stop. Roughly 1.25 million children in the U.S. have peanut allergies. Their immune systems go into overdrive when they encounter peanuts, producing antibodies that kickstart a process of inflammation ...read more