Science
Scientific discoveries and research
Forget flowers: Lovers in 18th- and 19th-century Ireland exchanged hair
In 18th- and 19th-century Ireland, it was common for courting couples to exchange gifts to mark their developing relationships. Many of these items are familiar...
School restrictive smartphone policies may save a small amount of money by reducing staff costs
School restrictive smartphone policies may save a small amount of money for schools, primarily by reducing the amount of time staff spend on managing phone-rela...
Bacterial hitchhikers can give their hosts super strength
A Dartmouth study finds that molecular hitchhikers living within bacteria can make their hosts extra resistant to medical treatment by corralling them into tigh...
Crop rotation boosts number and diversity of microbes in soil, research finds
Farmers now have more reasons to consider rotating their crops, University of Alberta research shows. Widely used to restore soil health, the agricultural pract...
Alexandria on the Tigris: Exploring the forgotten and rediscovered metropolis
What was the political and economic importance of the ancient city Alexandria on the Tigris? How was the city laid out? And what does the material culture of th...
How charges invert a long-standing empirical law in glass physics
If you've ever watched a glass blower at work, you've seen a material behaving in a very special way. As it cools, the viscosity of molten glass increases stead...
Where did that raindrop come from? Climate model ensemble captures worldwide water isotopes over 45 years
Water is made of hydrogen and oxygen, and sometimes these atoms are slightly heavier than usual. These heavier forms are called isotopes. As water evaporates or...
What's in a name? Information structure parallels discovered across cultures—with repercussions for Asian names
First names in Western countries today are more diverse than they were before early modern states evolved. This difference started to emerge in the 17th century...
Acoustic communication—an overlooked driver in boxfish evolution
A new international study reveals the unexpected importance of acoustic communication in the evolution of boxfishes. This discovery offers new perspectives on t...
New dataset reveals how US law has grown more complex over the past century
A century ago, the section of U.S. federal law governing public health and welfare was relatively small and loosely connected to the rest of the legal system. T...
Neural crest cells: Miniature electric muscles that colonize embryonic organs
Neural crest cells are a population of stem cells that invade the embryo in early development. They play a big role in what you look like: the pigments of your...
Old galaxies in a young universe?
The standard cosmological model (present-day version of "Big Bang," called Lambda-CDM) gives an age of the universe close to 13.8 billion years and much younger...