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According to a statement released by the University of Tübingen, evidence of quarrying some 220,000 years ago has been discovered at the Jojosi site in eastern South Africa by a team of researchers led by Manuel Will of the University of Tübingen. It had been previously thought that early modern humans found stones for making tools incidentally as they looked for food. Team member Gunther Möller reassembled more than 350 rock fragments recovered from the site into "refits," or stones that had been broken apart by knapping. "With these 3D puzzles, we were able to see precisely where and how...

A new analysis of turtle shell fragments unearthed at the Paleolithic site of Neumark-Nord in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt suggests Neanderthals regularly hunted the diminutive European pond turtle. A team led by archaeologist Sabine Gaudzinski-Windheuser from the Institute for Ancient Studies at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz analyzed 92 turtle shell fragments from the site dating back 125,000 years, and found evidence that the turtles had been butchered and their shells cleaned. The team suspects Neanderthals did not eat the turtles, which grow to be no longer than eight inches and weigh around two pounds. "Pond turtles have a comparatively...

Amid a rebranding campaign by climate activists to shift emphasis toward “extreme weather,” they turned to Thomas Karl, Director of NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center, for assistance. They needed him to manufacture the “science” to back up their claim that extreme weather events were becoming more frequent and severe. Karl did not disappoint them. He produced a report that backed up everything that they claimed was happening. The centerpiece of the report was a graph that John Clauser recently brought to everyone’s attention at the 16th International Conference on Climate Change. This graph (see below), which is supposed to provide...

The vile street takeovers afflicting Los Angeles are getting more and more violent, police say, and they expect things will only get worse heading into the summer. Los Angeles cops swarmed more than 90 street takeovers already far in 2026, making at least 79 arrests, impounding 114 race cars, grabbing four stolen vehicles and seizing four firearms. At least five people were shot at LA county street takeovers this past weekend alone. Cops say the illegal gatherings are getting more and more bloody — and with warmer weather coming, things will only get worse. “There’s robberies, rapes, shootings, murders, stabbings,”...

According to a statement released by the University of Liège, a 2,000-year-old fragment of papyrus recovered from the archives of the French Institute of Oriental Archaeology in Cairo preserves 30 previously unknown verses written by Empedocles of Agrigentum, a Greek philosopher who lived in the fifth century B.C. The work of Empedocles had been known only through quotes recorded by later authors, such as Plato, Aristotle, and Plutarch. Papyrologist Nathan Carlig of the University of Liège realized that the papyrus fragment, labeled P. Fouad inv. 218, was an unknown fragment of Physica, a poem written by Empedocles. These verses concern...

A new study of southern Norway's Raknehaugen mound conducted by Lars Gustavsen of the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research suggests that it does not contain a burial and may have been built in response to a landslide, according to a Phys.org report. "I actually discovered the landslide scar more or less by accident," Gustavsen said. "While investigating the visibility of the mound using LiDAR data, it suddenly appeared in one of the visualizations I was using to analyze the landscape," he said. When the mound was excavated in 1869 and 1870, no central burial mound was found. Excavations in...

The Trump administration will celebrate the groundbreaking of a controversial new natural gas pipeline in New York City on Tuesday — with the project set to run off the coast of the city to boost the region’s energy supply. President Trump strongly backs the Northeast Supply Enhancement pipeline and used his influence to persuade Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul to approve the permits allowing the project to proceed, despite fierce opposition from anti-fossil fuel environmentalists. Energy Secretary Chris Wright, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Environmental Protection Secretary Lee Zeldin will attend the event at Brooklyn’s Floyd Bennett Field, hosted by Williams...

The Department of Homeland Security is investigating allegations that embattled lefty California Rep. Eric Swalwell illegally employed a Brazilian nanny, officials said. Swalwell allegedly hired the nanny for his children and she continued to work for the family after her work authorization permit expired in 2022, the California Post exclusively revealed. DHS is now investigating after the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) referred the case to the department, Politico reported. “USCIS has been collecting information on the allegations involving Congressman Eric Swalwell hiring of a Brazilian national as a nanny without lawful work authorization,” DHS spokesperson Lauren Bis...

Explanation: The clouds may look like an oyster, and the stars like pearls, but look beyond. Near the outskirts of the Small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy some 200 thousand light-years distant, lies 5 million year young star cluster NGC 602. Surrounded by natal gas and dust, NGC 602 is featured in this stunning Hubble image of the region. Fantastic ridges and swept back shapes strongly suggest that energetic radiation and shock waves from NGC 602's massive young stars have eroded the dusty material and triggered a progression of star formation moving away from the cluster's center. At the estimated...

Drip, drip, drip. Three years after the COVID-19 pandemic, more details are being revealed concerning the failure of federal public health officials to come clean about lingering safety issues with the COVID-19 vaccine. Senate investigators have conclusively proved, for example, that Biden administration officials downplayed the risk of vaccine-induced myocarditis (heart inflammation) and failed to warn the public. Widespread and dangerous loss of trust in public health authorities is thus hardly unsurprising.

According to a Phys.org report, Haichao Li of Sichuan University led a team of researchers in the analysis of fragments of iron discovered in southwestern China at the Sanxingdui site, a city occupied between 2800 and 600 B.C. So far, eight sacrificial pits containing metal objects such as bronze masks, trees, and figurines have been excavated at the site. The three iron fragments, which appear to have been parts of an ax-like weapon, were discovered in Pit 7. Because this object was found in the sacrificial area, the researchers suggest that it had ritual significance. Metallographic and scanning electron microscopy-energy...

According to a Phys.org report, a team of researchers led by Jean-Luc Houle of Western Kentucky University explored two Late Bronze Age mounds in Mongolia known as khirigsuurs for evidence of feasting. Khirigsuurs, found in Mongolia and parts of southern Siberia, usually contain human burials and are surrounded by deposits of horse skulls. These are sometimes accompanied by horse neck vertebrae and hooves, and the burned bones of sheep or goats. Houle and his colleagues looked for the rest of these horses and evidence of butchering at khirigsuur ZK-956, which has been dated to between 1054 and 906 B.C. A...

Top Secret Location this time, as I get a unique opportunity to inspect an ultra rare Medieval Wayside Cross, next to a lost Roman road, deep on a private estate with no public access. Believed to have been erected in the 13th or 14th centuries to provide reassurance for Christians travelling the ancient Roman road, this remarkable survivor has never been seen on video before and it speaks of the afterlife of the Roman road, before it disappeared from view. Along the way we get to see a well-defined surviving section of the road in the form of a causeway...

Explanation: Comet R3 is brightening rapidly -- will it survive? C/2025 R3 (PanSTARRS) has been slowly brightening and extending an ion tail since its discovery last year. This shedding mountain of dirty ice puts on its best sky show this month, though, because it passes its closest to both the Sun (April 19) and the Earth (April 25). The featured image, showing R3 already sporting a tail extending over 10 degrees, was taken two nights ago from Sion, Switzerland with the big mountain Bietschhorn on the left. Comet R3 will be visible during mid-April before sunrise. Although the future brightness...

It’s the end of the world as we know it — a lot sooner than we think. A team of researchers have drastically scaled back the going estimate of how long it will be until the universe ceases to exist. Previously, scientists believed it would be 10¹¹⁰⁰ years until the very last objects in the cosmos would disappear forever — that’s a 1 followed by 1,100 zeroes, in layman’s terms. But a new study published in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics by a trio of researchers at Radboud University in the Netherlands posits the real figure as closer...

Rome is one of the most famous cities in history. But it did not rise in an empty land. Before empire, before marble, before the Roman world takes over the map, central Italy is already crowded with graves, hilltop communities, powerful neighbors, painted tombs, and cities of the dead. This episode explores the older world that shaped Rome before Rome shaped the Mediterranean. This map-based history documentary covers early Rome and central Italy from 800 to 500 BC, including Villanovan culture, hut urns, Veii, Tarquinia, Cerveteri, Pyrgi, Pontecagnano, and the growth of Rome in the 6th century BC. Using archaeology,...

Earth's mysterious 'humming' vibration has surged for more than a week, prompting reports from some people who say the phenomenon is disrupting their sleep and causing ringing in their ears. Known as the Schumann Resonance, this natural vibration is often described as the Earth's 'heartbeat,' a steady electromagnetic rhythm generated by lightning bouncing between the planet's surface and the ionosphere, which sits roughly 30 to 600 miles above the surface in the atmosphere. Space weather monitoring app MeteoAgent reported an intense surge in Schumann Resonance readings starting on Monday, labeling them 'high' and potentially disruptive. However, experts cautioned that such...

Explanation: On flight day 6 (April 6) the Artemis II mission achieved a historic lunar flyby. Rounding the lunar far side, the deep space maneuver marked humanity's first venture to the Moon since Apollo 17 in 1972. The Orion spacecraft Integrity reached a maximum distance of nearly 407,000 kilometers, and the Artemis II crew, Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen, set the record for the farthest distance from Earth traveled by any human since the Apollo 13 crew in 1970. From behind the Moon on flight day 6, a solar array wing camera recorded this space...

A former Yolo County Sheriff’s Office lieutenant is one of five people charged with murder following a fireworks warehouse explosion that killed seven workers in the rural Northern California community of Esparto last summer, authorities said. Samuel Machado is accused of illegally having 1 million pounds of fireworks on his property at the time of the blast and using his law enforcement position to shield the illicit operation from scrutiny for years, according to the Yolo County district attorney’s office. Machado was placed on administrative leave following the violent July 1 explosion, which was felt by residents up to 20...

Eating a high-quality plant-rich diet that includes whole grains, vegetables, and fruits may prevent cognitive impairment — even when people start that diet in their late 50s and 60s, according to a new study. "It's never too late to start eating healthy to lower the risk of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias," said senior author Unhee Lim, a professor of population sciences at the University of Hawaii Cancer Center in Honolulu, in an email. Older adults who cut many unhealthy foods from their diet over a decade had a 11% lower risk of Alzheimer's and dementia when compared with adults...