Archaeologists have unearthed fragments of several human skulls from a dig site in southeast Turkey with some rather unusual groove patterns scratched into their surface.
The incisions and perforations appear to be intentional, making them the first evidence of a funerary ritual in that part of the world, and possibly evidence of an ancient cult.
Situated a stone’s throw from the Syrian border, the Palaeolithic site of Göbekli Tepe already has a reputation as a game-changer for archaeologists providing the oldest evidence of prehistoric worship.
Carved stones surrounding a number of massive T-shaped pillars mark out what archaeologists can only conclude to be a temple, one that predates Stone Henge by 6,000 years.
The site’s foundation around 9,000 BCE puts it right on the cusp of the dawn of agriculture, cha (1356)…
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The Yellowstone Supervolcano Has Just Seen 878 Earthquakes in Two Weeks
Yellowstone has had a turbulent June. In just two weeks, the supervolcano that lies underneath the national park was hit with 878 earthquakes.
The dense series of earthquakes, called an earthquake swarm, began on June 12. Within one week, the USGS had already recorded 464 earthquakes.
“This is the highest number of earthquakes at Yellowstone within a single week in the past five years,”reported the USGS in a statement released last week.
The majority of the earthquakes were no greater than a magnitude of 1, but the largest reached a magnitude of 4.4, which is the biggest earthquake experienced in Yellowstone since March 2014.
But, thankfully, we don’t need to freak out anytime soon. It is extremely unlikely tha (896)…
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The Reason You Get a ‘Runner’s High’ Is Not What You Think
There’s possibly no better feeling than the calm and happiness that follow the completion of a long, tough run.
So where does this so-called ‘runner’s high‘ come from?
You’ve probably heard it get chalked up to a rise in endorphins, the ‘happy’ chemicals that induce feelings of pain relief and pleasure. But it’s actually more complicated than that.
The ‘endorphins make you happy’ idea
The idea that increased levels of endorphins are responsible for that post-workout happy feeling came out of 1980s research that showed endorphin levels in the blood spiked after prolonged exercise.
Some researchers assumed these chemical (1026)…
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The World’s Tropical Zone Is Expanding, And We Should All Be Worried
The Tropics are defined as the area of Earth where the Sun is directly overhead at least once a year – the zone between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn.
However, tropical climates occur within a larger area about 30 degrees either side of the Equator. Earth’s dry subtropical zones lie adjacent to this broad region. It is here that we find the great warm deserts of the world.
Earth’s bulging waistline
Earth’s tropical atmosphere is growing in all directions, leading one commentator to cleverly call this Earth’s “bulging waistline”.
Since 1979, the planet’s waistline been expanding poleward by 56 kilometres to 111 kilometres per decade in both hemispheres.
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Scientists Are Getting Creepily Close to Being Able to Read Our Minds
Scientists are one step closer to becoming mind readers after new research identified some of the complex brain patterns that go into forming sentences in our heads.
Brain patterns generated by certain sentences could be predicted with 87 percent accuracy in the study, based on an ‘alphabet’ of 42 different concepts covering size, location, colours, actions, and other elements that make up complex thoughts.
We should note that the researchers from Carnegie Mellon University can’t tell exactly what you’re thinking about, at least not yet – your secrets are safe for now – but their system is able to decode the types of thoughts you’re having based on brain scanning.
That’s because different parts of the brain handle different types of thought, so certain neurons might fire for thinking about an object like a lightbulb, and other (864)…
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