The Grand Egyptian Museum has been in the works for over two decades. Construction ground to a halt during the Arab Spring a decade ago but the museum, which is set to fully open in the coming months, will be the largest archeological complex in the world, housing some of Egypt’s greatest treasures.Among the most impressive artifacts come from the boy king's tomb, the young pharaoh Tutankhamun, first discovered on November 26, 1922, by the British archeologist Howard Carter.Tutankhamun, whose ...read more
Tail clubs were rare a trait that didn’t survive past the Pleistocene, a period that ended about 11,700 years ago. The last species to have them were glyptodonts – large dome-shaped armadillos from South America, and extinct turtle species from South America and Australasia. Before this, only two species of dinosaurs had tail clubs: the quadrupedal armored tanks known as ankylosaurs and the long-necked sauropods. Of those approximately 250 sauropod species, only three were known to have tail ...read more
Superstition is all around us in today’s world, whether it’s the fear of walking under a ladder or encountering a black cat late at night. Many of these quirks and common practices that people follow unquestioningly are steeped in history, dating back hundreds and sometimes thousands of years to ancient times. So what are the origins of some common superstitions and their historical roots? 1. Conniving Crows(Credit: Stephen John Edwards/Shutterstock) Immortalized in today’s culture and ...read more
The human age we live in has impacted nearly all life on our planet. Some of the worst of these effects are the extinctions and extirpations of an untold number of species over the past few thousand years at an accelerating rate. The most recent wave of extinction has led some scientists to call our period the Anthropocene Extinction, along with the Sixth Mass Extinction. In the past, the giant Chicxulub impactor caused the end of the non-avian dinosaurs and many other lifeforms 66 million years ...read more
As cute as they are, baby otters are also highly demanding, and moms carry the load. Mother otters teach pups how to groom themselves, to forage for tasty morsels like shellfish, to crack them open with a rock, to dive and even to swim. Baby otters hang around their moms for as long as eight to 11 months, compared to the mere four to six weeks that sea lions spend in their mothers’ care.But what happens when juvenile white sharks attack female otters, mistaking them for blubbery pinnipeds? Or ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine