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In the fevered corners of the internet where men — primarily white — gather to "optimise" every little detail of their bodies, there is a belief that even the brain can be beaten into shape to make men seem more attractive. Here, cortisol affects "facial fat redistribution", dopamine affects "eye contact quality", serotonin affects "resting expression", and acetylcholine affects “intelligence in social contexts".

Explanation: Sometimes we can all use a little help from a friend. NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory needs a boost to stay in orbit after almost 22 years of service. This video shows an artist's visualization of the Swift Boost Mission: The Katalyst's LINK spacecraft was launched aboard a Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL rocket on July 3 and it is now en route to rendezvous with Swift and boost it to a higher orbit over the course of the next several months. This type of maneuver has never been attempted before. If successful, it will be the technology demonstration of...

If they were visible to the naked eye, these structures would be huge in the sky. Image Credit: UCLan/Stellarium ========================================================================= The cosmological principle states that, on the largest scales, the universe is uniform and isotropic. In other words, it should look broadly the same no matter where you are or which direction you look. You would not expect to find a single enormous structure in one particular region of the sky. Finding two in relatively close proximity is even more surprising. Five years ago, researchers discovered the Giant Arc, a vast crescent of galaxies stretching 3.3 billion light years across...

The Chinese Tianwen-2 mission has captured the first imagery of a space object that some astronomers are calling Earth’s “quasi-moon.” The object was captured in images released by the China National Space Administration (CNSA), after its Tianwen-2 spacecraft reached the tiny asteroid 469219 Kamoʻoalewa. Initially discovered in 2016, the asteroid became the target of a sample return mission launched by China on 28 May 2025. Officially the CNSA’s second mission under its Planetary Exploration of China Program, Tianwen-2 aims to return close to 100 grams of samples from the surface of the small object. Earth’s Mysterious Quasi-Moons Quasi-moons are the...

Millions of retirees are set to cash in. The first wave of Social Security checks will hit accounts — or be distributed for those who still love a paper check — on July 8. Typically, payments are issued on Wednesdays and roll out three times a month based on your birthday. This means recipients born from the first to the 10th of the month will get their monthly benefits on Wednesday, July 8, according to the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) payment calendar. Those born from the 11th to the 20th are paid on the third Wednesday, and beneficiaries born after...

Image Credit & Copyright: Rod Prazeres Explanation: Where can you find dragons fighting in the night sky? In the southern constellation of the Altar: Ara. The dragons are, of course, actually made of suggestively shaped gas and dust. The celestial home of the mythological battling beasts is cataloged as NGC 6188 and located about 4,000 light years away near the edge of a large molecular cloud. Massive, young stars of the embedded Ara OB1 association were formed there only a few million years ago, sculpting the dark shapes and powering the nebular glow with stellar winds and intense ultraviolet radiation....

Ancient inscriptions written in Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke, have revealed a forgotten chapter of early Christianity's rise across the Roman Empire. Etched into stone, the text mentions both Jesus Christ and Mithras, the deity worshipped by a mysterious all-male religion once popular among Roman soldiers and merchants. The inscriptions were discovered at the entrance to an underground Mithras temple in southeastern Turkey, where researchers say it records the sanctuary's symbolic closure by early Christians around 1,700 years ago. Located at Zerzevan Castle, the remarkably preserved temple still contains four sacrificial hangers, a basin believed to have collected the blood...

Located in Thailand's Loei Province, Phu Khat stands as the highest peak in the Phu Khat Wildlife Sanctuary, rising to a height of 1,307 metres above sea level.In a routine patrol by Rangers from the sanctuary, two previously unknown archaeological sites were discovered near the mountain summit, both only 300 metres apart.Collectively named Pha Pang Puey, the sites feature carved or eroded linear markings across the rock face, forming geometric or abstract patterns rather than natural fractures – indicating ancient rock art. The rock surface is primarily reddish-brown, interspersed with lighter grey patches caused by lichen and erosion.According to experts,...

The largest Roman bathhouse complex ever discovered in the Netherlands has surfaced, shedding new light on the wealth and importance of the ancient Roman city of Ulpia Noviomagus.Researchers from the archaeological firms RAAP and BAAC were conducting routine investigations in Nijmegen's Waalfront district, a site slated for new residential development. The excavation, which began in September of last year and will conclude in July, uncovered a public bathhouse, residential blocks, luxury townhouses, streets, and a tower dating back nearly 2,000 years...The bathhouse complex, or thermae, covered at least 4,900 square meters, making it the second-largest excavated Roman public bath complex...

James from History Victorum explores the expansive House of the Faun, detailing its architectural layout, including two atriums and peristyles. The tour highlights intricate mosaics, such as the famous Alexander Mosaic and depictions of daily life, while examining household artifacts that provide clues about the inhabitants. House of the Faun | Pompeii, Italy Alexander Mosaic | 4K | 13:38 History Victorum | 22.3K subscribers | 334,345 views | February 1, 2022

Explanation: What are these two bands in the sky? The more commonly seen band is on the left and is the central band of our Milky Way galaxy. Our Sun orbits in the disk of this spiral galaxy so that from inside, it appears as a band of comparable brightness all the way around the sky. The less commonly seen band, on the right, is zodiacal light -- sunlight reflected from dust orbiting the Sun in our Solar System. Zodiacal light is brightest near the Sun and so is best seen just before sunrise or just after sunset. On some...

The heat was Frank-ly unbearable. A semi-truck leaked a whopping 40,000 pounds of sticky Frank’s RedHot sauce onto an Ohio highway amid a brutal heatwave last week. The truck carrying loads of the popular condiment began leaking while traveling north on Interstate 71 in Delaware County on Thursday, leaving a trail of the spicy sauce on the roadbed before its driver realized, the Columbus Dispatch reported. The driver eventually pulled into a truck stop as fire crews followed the trail of the bright-red mystery fluid to find its source. “Our crews were out on the highway trying to track it...

Explanation: What has happened to Saturn's moon Iapetus? Vast sections of this strange world are dark as coal, while others are as bright as snow. To help better understand this unusually tinted moon, in 2007 NASA directed the robotic Cassini spacecraft then orbiting Saturn to swoop within 2,000 kilometers. Pictured here, from about 75,000 kilometers out, is the hemisphere of Iapetus that is always trailing. A large impact crater seen in the south spans 500 kilometers and appears superposed on an older crater of similar size. The dark material is seen increasingly coating the easternmost part of Iapetus, darkening craters...

Ugandan-born, socialism-loving New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has emerged as a “kingmaker” in the Democrat party, says Phillip Elliot of TIME. Two prominent House Democrats lost their primaries to insurgent rivals while a third left-wing candidate defeated the Brooklyn Borough chief,” he writes. “All together, the results demonstrated the fragility of an Establishment imprimatur, the power of the New York Mayor’s blessing, and the ascendancy of socialism. Elliott then goes on to do this silly thing that Democrats have done for a few decades now, and suggests that this “ascendancy of socialism” is not, as Donald Trump and some...

This rare Bronze Age shield was deposited in a bog over 3,000 years ago.It was discovered in Auchmaleddie, Aberdeenshire, Scotland in 1897.Due to its fragile state, it has been kept flat in storage for decades. Until now.Our Artefact Conservator Bethan Bryan and Curator Dr Matthew Knight assess the shield ahead of conservation work. This process involves lifting the shield to look at its underside, which has not been viewed in over 3,000 years. Find out what clues it has about its use and how it was made.The shield has been conserved for display in the free exhibition 'Scotlands First Warriors'...

A 4th of July weekend celebration turned into a fiery nightmare when fireworks went screaming into the stands at BMO Stadium in Los Angeles — sending panicked fans scrambling for cover. Just minutes after Angel City FC defeated the Orlando Pride 2-0, the club’s Independence Day weekend pyrotechnics display went haywire. Instead of launching into the sky, multiple mortars allegedly fired sideways across the field and toward packed seating sections. “The end is actually the worst. I saw several flames go into the crowd. It was terrifying!” one shaken Reddit user wrote. Another fan said the experience was still haunting...

He’s still AWOL. Iran’s “probably gay” and badly disfigured new supreme leader has reportedly been barred from showing up at his own father’s funeral. Mojtaba Khamenei asked to perform rites over his father Ali Khamenei’s dead body, when the late ayatollah is set to be buried in his hometown of Mashhad on July 9 wrapping up the dayslong state funeral. But security officials told him no deal, according to two members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps who spoke to the New York Times. Khamenei’s security team reportedly believes Israel would try to assassinate him if he shows his face...

The next time an ambitious adventurer gets trapped in a flooded cave, the person coming to their rescue might not be a human at all. It might be a mind-controlled, diving-suit-wearing cockroach. Sorry, entomophobes. These cyborgs are already being used in search-and-rescue operations and pipeline inspections, but so far those efforts have been limited to dry land. That’s changing. Researchers at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore 3D-printed a flexible diving suit that roaches wear like a backpack. A chemical oxygen generator inside of it creates oxygen when the bug swims underwater and pumps it through tubes connected to the spiracles...

Explanation: On July 4th, 1997, using its own array of fireworks, a parachute, and a cocoon of airbags, the Mars Pathfinder spacecraft bounced like a giant beach ball at least 15 times before it came to rest on the surface of Mars at 10:07 AM Pacific Daylight Time. After its then novel airbag-assisted landing sequence was completed, Pathfinder transmitted this color mosaic to mission operators on Earth. In the scene from another world, the Mars Sojourner robot rover is visible in the foreground, crouched on top of the unfolded Pathfinder. About the size of a large house cat, the six-wheeled,...

Cyborg cockroaches have actually been a thing for a while - with researchers attaching electrodes to the brain and sensory organs, enabling them to direct the insects like a remote-controlled car. Now, though, scientists at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore have taken things one step further by creating a cybernetic diving suit that can enable a cockroach to breath underwater. A 3D-printed 'backpack' attached to the insect contains a chemical oxygen generator and pumps the breathable air through special tubes. Experiments showed that the system provided enough of an oxygen supply for the insect to survive and swim around underwater...