Are Ghosts Real? A Social Psychologist Examines The Evidence

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

Certainly, lots of people believe in ghosts – a spirit left behind after someone who was alive has died.In a 2021 poll of 1,000 American adults, 41% said they believe in ghosts, and 20% said they had personally experienced them. If they’re right, that’s more than 50 million spirit encounters in the U.S. alone.That includes the owner of a retail shop near my home who believes his place is haunted. When I asked what most convinced him of this, he sent me dozens of eerie security camera vide ...read more

Why Do Some People Get Motion Sick And Others Don’t?

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

For thousands of years, humans have been getting queasy on boats. People have long felt a rumbling in their stomachs and then braced themselves against the side of the ship in hopes the feeling might pass.Hippocrates wrote about motion sickness more than 2,000 years ago, and the word “nausea” stems from the Greek word naus, meaning “ship.”Scientists now understand what causes motion sickness and how it can be prevented. And studies find it’s something almost everyone will have to e ...read more

Space Rocks And Asteroid Dust Are Pricey, But These Aren’t The Most Expensive Materials Used In Science

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

After a journey of seven years and nearly 4 billion miles, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft landed gently in the Utah desert on the morning of Sept. 24, 2023, with a precious payload. The spacecraft brought back a sample from the asteroid Bennu.(NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center via AP) OSIRIS-REx collected a sample from the asteroid Bennu. Roughly half a pound of material collected from the 85 million-ton asteroid (77.6 billion kg) will help scientists learn about the formation of the sola ...read more

The Giant Koalas of Yesteryear and Why They Went Extinct

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

We can’t know what Nimbadon looked like for sure, but the fossil record provides us some clues. It shows us that it was likely a curious-looking creature. Weighing in at a whopping 150 pounds, Nimbadon was about five times as large as a koala, a sloth-like figure with oversized claws, sizable hands and feet, and strong arms meant for clinging to the canopy.The species was a type of diprotodontoids to which wombats and koalas are closely related. The similarities between koalas and Nimbado ...read more

When Did Humans Evolve Language?

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

Earth is home to more than 7,000 languages, and we use those languages to express ideas as straightforward as the desire for a cup of coffee and as intricate as the details of quantum physics. But how did language start and when did humans first evolve this ability to use language?When Did Humans Develop Language? The development of human language has long fascinated scholars and linguists. These experts have various perspectives and theories for when humans started speaking and the reasons lang ...read more

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