News Desk

Newborn babies can anticipate rhythm in pieces of music, researchers have discovered, offering insights into a fundamental human trait… “Rhythm seems to be built on very ancient auditory abilities that we share with other primates, while melody appears to depend on human brain specialisations that are shaped by learning after birth”. The research was published in the journal Plos Biology.

How far back does the rich history of Italian olives and oil stretch? My new research, published in the American Journal of Archaeology, synthesizing and reevaluating existing archaeological evidence, suggests olive trees have been exploited for more than 6,000 years.

The tools resemble those made by people of the Clovis culture, which is widely recognized as one of the earliest cultures to leave behind archaeological evidence in North America. But strong evidence for the Clovis culture dates back only around 13,000 years…However, more recent evidence has overturned the notion that the Clovis were America’s first people. Footprints at White Sands in New Mexico date to more than 20,000 years. The research was published in Quaternary International.

A deer skull headdress unearthed at an archaeological site in Germany reveals that Stone Age hunter-gatherers shared sacred items, tools and ideas with a farming community there roughly 7,500 years ago, a new study finds. The study was published in the January issue of the journal Antiquity.

A new genetic study has revealed that the people of Deep Mani, who inhabit one of the remotest regions of mainland Greece, represent one of the most genetically distinctive populations in Europe, shaped by more than a millennium of isolation. The findings, published in Communications Biology, reveal that many lineages can be traced back to the Bronze Age, Iron Age and Roman period of Greece.

A report from an international coalition of advocacy groups says global drug prohibition has fueled environmental destruction in some of the world’s most critical ecosystems, undermining efforts to address the climate crisis.

Misleading headlines around New Jersey’s psilocybin pilot program reveal how misinformation and weak media literacy are distorting psychedelic policy debates nationwide.

In a new review published in Frontiers in Science, researchers warn that progress in AI and neurotechnology is moving faster than scientific understanding of consciousness. This gap, they argue, could lead to serious ethical problems if it is not addressed.

Recreating cosmic dust may help answer questions about how meteorites hitting Earth came to contain organic matter

Neanderthals purposefully collected and positioned horned and antlered animal skulls in a cave in what is now Spain, suggesting that these extinct human relatives had complex cultural practices over 43,000 years ago, a new study finds. The study was published Jan. 3 in the journal Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences.

A new study suggests that the intensity of spiritual or “mystical” moments felt during psychedelic treatment may predict how well veterans recover from trauma symptoms. Researchers found that soldiers who reported profound feelings of unity and sacredness while taking ibogaine experienced lasting relief from post-traumatic stress disorder. These findings were published in the Journal of Affective Disorders.

Archaeologists have discovered 5,000-year-old rock art in the Sinai Desert that depicts ancient Egypt’s brutal conquest of the region. The artwork “shows in a terrifying manner how the Egyptians colonized the Sinai and subjugated the inhabitants,” the archaeologists said in a statement. The new related study was published in the 2025 edition of the journal Blätter Abrahams.

There’s a bright side to every situation. In 2032, the Moon itself might have a particularly bright side if it is blasted by a 60-meter-wide asteroid. The chances of such an event are still relatively small (only around 4 per cent), but non-negligible… A new paper from Yifan He of Tsinghua University and co-authors, released as a preprint on arXiv, looks at the bright side of the potential science we could do if a collision does indeed happen.

Archaeologists have found that early humans in what is now China were using sophisticated stone tools as far back as 160,000 years ago.”This discovery challenges the perception that stone tool technology in Asia lagged behind Europe and Africa during this period”…The study was published Tuesday (Jan. 27) in the journal Nature Communications.

Roughly 5,500–6,000 years ago, the area including present-day Finland was inhabited by hunter-fisher-gatherers living in small village-like clusters…They also colored their dead and objects, before burial, with the same pigment. The fiery red color was undoubtedly meaningful in itself, but other meanings were also associated with the pigment’s ritual use. A study on this topic is published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.

Two artefacts found at a lake shore in Greece are the oldest wooden tools to be uncovered so far and date back 430,000 years. The research was published on Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.