Multitasking gets a bad rap. While the ability to juggle several things at once seems like an impressive use of brainpower, evidence suggests it’s bad for productivity and memory, and for our mental energy reserves. Wikipedia even calls it “an apparent human ability”, because many argue multitasking isn’t actually real, but merely a false belief

The crimson pigment is sun-bleached, its eroded lines barely visible against the texture of the plaster. But with effort, you can see a face that once decorated an ancient Christian baptismal in southern Israel. And it’s not what you’d expect. Most historical depictions of Jesus follow a familiar pattern, giving us an iconoclastic image of

Comic-book creator Stan Lee has died, aged 95. The visionary behind huge swathes of the Marvel Universe and the much-loved superheroes that came with it – Spiderman, Black Panther, The Hulk, Black Widow, and the engineering genius Tony Stark just to name a few – has inspired generations of people with his imagination.  His creations

An ancient Egyptian necropolis dating back thousands of years has yielded a bunch of mummies of the sort you might not expect when you hear the word. Instead of important personages, the sarcophagi were hiding dozens of mummified cats, and a rare collection of mummified scarab beetles. And there might be rarer treasure still. While

Another week, another round of great achievements in science – from discovering the oldest figurative cave art we’ve ever seen, to gazing out into the Universe, there is always something new to learn about our world and beyond. Below you’ll find our weekly round-up of last week’s science discoveries in a convenient picture you can

Researchers at Yale University have developed a seriously confusing optical illusion that is proving our human nature has some bizarre quirks. As part of the Neural Correlate Society’s annual optical illusions contest, the Yale researchers developed what they call the “Who’s Chasing Whom?” illusion. Take a look at the video the team developed. What do

Why is my awareness here, while yours is over there? Why is the universe split in two for each of us, into a subject and an infinity of objects? How is each of us our own center of experience, receiving information about the rest of the world out there? Why are some things conscious and

Who were the first Americans? While we have some rough ideas, the answer to this question has long been up for debate. Now, comparisons between two extraordinary sets of ancient American remains has added rich detail to the spread of ancient human populations through the New World more than 13,000 years ago. And it shows

According to historical accounts, the ancient Gauls of Europe 2,000 years ago had a grisly means of commemorating their most prestigious kills: they would embalm the severed heads of these foes, and keep them. Now, for the first time, science has proven that the Gauls did indeed embalm severed heads. The Gauls were fearsome warriors,

If you’ve ever thought your poo is just a bunch of dead cells, think again. Most of it is alive, teeming with billions of microbes. Here’s what studies in healthy adults reveal makes up our poo. Water Our faeces is largely (75 percent) made up of water, although this differs from person to person. Vegetarians

Humanity’s artistic heritage just got a new historical milestone. In a cave wall deep in the forests of the isle of Borneo, archaeologists have just confirmed that a depiction of some sort of cow is the world’s oldest known figurative piece of art. It dates back to between 40,000 and 52,000 years ago, during the

Thanks to the way research is conducted, our perception of human psychology is based largely on subjects who are largely western, educated, industrialised, rich, and democratic. Which is a little… WEIRD. UC Santa Barbara anthropologist Michael Gurven argues this has to change, and has turned to an isolated indigenous population in the Bolivian Amazon to

Sam Ballard swallowed the slug on a dare. The young rugby player from Sydney was a “larrikin” – a “rough-and-tumble” free spirit, his mother said. So when the creature crawled across a table at a party in 2010 and his buddies dared him to eat it, her son accepted the challenge, she said. “Twenty-year-old boys,

Somewhere on the bottom of the world, 33-year-old Colin O’Brady is readying for a task that no human has successfully accomplished. He’s about to travel 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometres) across Antarctica alone, without any resupply support. Everyone who has ever attempted that solo journey has either given up or died. “This is something that no

You might be pretty distracted by the news of the world this week. You might not want to read any news at all, although we always think that science is a safe exception. Either way, since you’re here already, we’ve prepared an easy and shareable wrap of last week’s discoveries in science. If you’d like

Explaining consciousness is one of the hardest problems in science and philosophy. Recent neuroscientific discoveries suggest that a solution could be within reach – but grasping it will mean rethinking some familiar ideas. Consciousness, I argue in a new paper, may be caused by the way the brain generates loops of energetic feedback, similar to

When your old Aunt Petunia passes away, there’s a good chance her body will either be reduced to ash inside a purpose-built kiln or buried in an expensive (but not too expensive) wooden box next to the decaying remains of Uncle Harold. If only she’d lived in another time, or another place, things could have

The pyramids of Egypt are an architectural marvel. Yet, made up as they are of blocks that averaged 2.3 metric tonnes (in the case of the great pyramid), exactly how the ancient Egyptians constructed them thousands of years ago remains somewhat of a mystery. A new archaeological discovery may, however, shed some light on how at

Neanderthals are often depicted as barrel-chested, hunched-over cavemen, but a close inspection of their fossils is telling a different story. For the first time, an international team of researchers has reconstructed the ribcage and upper spine of a Neanderthal man who died roughly 60,000 years ago. The findings suggest that contrary to popular images, these

You might not realize it, but every time you stand up, your body is working behind the scenes to stop you from fainting. Due to the sudden drop in blood pressure, special neurons called baroreceptors swing into action to compensate – and scientists just figured out more about how they operate. Considering the details of

Millions of people around the world are affected by arachnophobia – the unreasonable fear of spiders, which evidence suggests could be an innate human response embedded by evolution inside the brain. But while the fear may be a relic of an ancient survival mechanism, the anxiety it provokes is something most arachnophobes today would rather

At its peak, the ancient city of Teotihuacán in what we now know as Mexico boasted an estimated 125,000 inhabitants, making it one of the busiest hubs of the old world. Nobody knows for sure where that thriving populace disappeared to, but the discovery of a secret tunnel and chamber buried beneath the city’s Pyramid

Disney has something of a cult following, so it shouldn’t be much of a surprise that some people want to stay in the entertainment giant’s theme parks… forever. As a report in the Wall Street Journal has just confirmed, some people really try to do that – by having loved ones scatter their cremains. At

The Best Illusions of the Year competition is nothing to sneeze at – every year a group of experts (along with internet users) vote for the most interesting and mind-melting illusions, submitted from all over the world. And this year is no exception; we have everything from trippy snakes to a three-way ambiguous object. Let’s

Chocolate is not a new thing. The delicious, addictive treat we know today has long been traced to the ancient peoples of Central America, as far back as 4,000 years ago. But new research indicates chocolate’s origin story is actually far, far older than this – and suggests it was domesticated somewhere else entirely, south

Deep in the enormous citadel of an ancient Peruvian culture, archaeologists have uncovered a corridor containing 19 mysterious black wooden statues. Some are wearing masks of clay, tucked into special alcoves that line the walls. The eerie line-up was discovered in the ruins of the great Chimú culture capital city of Chan Chan, which is

As beautiful and unspoilt as the Antarctic wilderness is, it can also be very lonely (unless you’re a penguin). After news of a researcher at the Bellingshausen Station on King George Island allegedly stabbing and injuring a colleague, we wonder if cabin fever got the better of the team working there.  The injured man was flown

For as long as Buttermilk Creek has wound its way through Texas Hill Country, its spring-fed waters have carved through the region’s dark, dense clays, cutting away layers of earth to expose the rock – and the history – below. Here, archaeologists have uncovered evidence of a human settlement stretching back as far as 15,500

Ending a romantic relationship is never easy, and there’s something about a bad relationship that makes it especially hard to break off. Researchers are still not entirely sure what that “something” is, but a new study suggests it may be a curious sign of altruism. You might assume people who stay in an unhappy relationship are

One of the most precious archaeology finds in human history has survived the devastating fire that tore through the National Museum of Brazil in early September. The skull of Luzia is believed to be one of the oldest human remains ever recovered in the Americas. It is also one of the museum’s most prized possessions; that’s

Some people like to jump out of aeroplanes. Others like to surf down the side of an active volcano on a wooden board. And some people, apparently, seem happy to replicate the most cursed sea journey in our recent collective memory: the voyage of the Titanic. When it embarked on its maiden voyage from Southampton,

Four years after a mummified torso decorated with unique tattoos was uncovered in a Luxor tomb, Egyptian authorities have officially confirmed the remains once belonged to a highly respected religious figure who died in her late twenties or early thirties. The unusual remains represent an early example of complex religious tattoos in ancient Egypt, adding

A team of archaeologists has discovered what’s thought to be the oldest intact shipwreck ever found, some 2,000 metres (1.2 miles) under the waters of the Black Sea. The amazingly preserved wreck is estimated to be around 2,400 years old. Some 23 metres (75 feet) long, the sunken ship looks to be ancient Greek in

After nine years of construction and controversy, China is set to officially unveil the world’s longest sea bridge on Tuesday at a ceremony in Hong Kong. At more than 34 miles (54 kilometres) long, the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge is part of a master plan to create a global science and technology hub by connecting two

They were treasured as five weathered survivors of the Dead Sea Scrolls: priceless fragments of a sacred scripture so ancient, it’s older than the Old Testament. The only problem is they’re fakes. In a gigantic blunder, the US$500 million Museum of the Bible in Washington, DC has revealed five of its highly coveted Dead Sea

Humans are a scared bunch. Everything from spiders, to blood and guts can set us off, as Halloween every year reminds us. But in 2018 what are Americans most afraid of? Well, move over spiders and snakes – a new survey suggests we’re way more scared of the bigger picture issues like government corruption, the

Earth’s core is solid and we were totally wrong about the date of the Pompeii disaster. Those are just two of the breakthroughs scientists made this past week – confirming once again that a lot can change in just seven days. After all, that’s the reason we love science so much. To keep you up

Renowned physicist Stephen Hawking passed away earlier this year, but his final book, Brief Answers to the Big Questions, only came out this week. In it, Hawking makes a number of bold claims about the future of gene editing, artificial intelligence, and even religion. Here’s how experts evaluate his predictions. Superhuman Overlords Hawking raised eyebrows when he claimed that

The US Mega Millions lottery jackpot swelled to US$1.6 billion after the 24 drawings held since the end of July failed to yield a winner. And there’s been no sign yet of a winner of the latest drawing, held Oct. 19. This princely sum is drawing such attention that more people have been buying tickets, and

Knowing which side of the road people drive on is important for anyone who’s thinking about using a vehicle in a foreign country. There are 163 countries and territories that drive on the right side of the road, while 76 of them drive on the left. Many of the countries that drive on the left

When you think of a time capsule you might think of something buried for decades or even a hundred years, but just stepping back as far as the mid-1990s can offer up a surprising peek into the past – as students at Shenandoah University in Virginia just found out. Maybe you weren’t born in 1993,

Send those history books for a reprint, sharpen your Wikipedia editing skills, and adjust your answer for the next pub trivia night. It turns out that the destruction of Pompeii probably happened sometime after 17 October 79 CE and not, as has been previously thought, on August 24. That’s based on a newly discovered message

If you’ve managed to avoid Christmas music so far, that’s only going to get harder the closer to December we get. Prepare yourself for more stores blasting out All I Want for Christmas, and Frosty the Snowman. Christmas music is something you either love or hate. If you find the tunes pretty annoying, then spare

Unassuming farmland in Østfold County, Norway, was hiding a secret for centuries – and now it’s been rumbled. Using high-resolution ground-penetrating radar, archaeologists have found an ancient Viking cemetery, complete with what appears to be a well-preserved ship burial. A popular mode of interment among the Norse Vikings, ship burials consisting of a longboat covered

They were teenage computer geeks, bespectacled kids from Seattle who taught themselves programming from a Teletype terminal, learned the basics of business from Fortune magazine and dreamed of “a computer in every home and on every desk.” Paul Allen was the self-described “idea man,” the shy son of librarians. Bill Gates was the business-oriented partner

Books are pretty amazing – gateways to other worlds, compact parcels bursting with knowledge. And if you grow up surrounded by books, you’re going to get a bit of a boost in life compared to non-readers. At least, that’s the conclusion of a new study, which found that teens who leave school before graduating, but

It’s been several months since the late Stephen Hawking passed away, but posthumous writings by the groundbreaking scientist show the great man still had much more to tell us. Just days after Hawking’s final academic paper was published online, the world-famous physicist is back in the spotlight for a different reason: a stark, controversial prediction

The remains of a child unearthed in a 5th century CE Italian cemetery are indicative of the unease that must have been felt in the region as a malaria outbreak ravaged the population. The 10-year-old child was given what is known as a “vampire burial” – with a large rock placed in the body’s mouth,