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Scans of severed skull fragments from Iberian Peninsula

Severed head rituals were more widespread in Iron Age Iberia than we thought

Antique film camera on stack of black and white pictures

$13 thrift store camera hid 70-year-old undeveloped film

A white pickup truck is driving away from the viewer across a flat sandy plain with tall, smoothly sculpted dunes rising in the background. Small patches of dry grass are scattered in the foreground.

Death Valley National Park needs help ID’ing joyriding vandals

05 September 2020, Saxony-Anhalt, Halberstadt: Soprano Johanna Vargas (l) and composer Julian Lembke (r) use the organ pipes. Since 2001 the organ has been playing the music piece "ORGAN2/ASLSP" by John Cage without interruption. It is said to last 639 years. On Saturday, September 5, 2020, the 14th sound change of the John Cage Organ Art Project Halberstadt has been completed. In addition to the previous five pipes c'(16'), des'(16'), dis', ais' and e'', there are two new pipes g sharp and e. The next sound lasts until February 5, 2022. Then the g sharp will be dropped again. If everything goes as planned, the performance of the piece will last until the year 2640 Photo: Matthias Bein/dpa-Zentralbild/dpa (Photo by Matthias Bein/picture alliance via Getty Images)

Pipe organ plays single song for 639 years

Various angles of silver pendant with Roman gem inlay next to measurement references

Metal detectorist finds medieval pendant with a Roman ‘secret’

Declaration of Independence broadside

Rare copy of Declaration of Independence going to auction

Milky way galaxy over observatory

Amazon’s 180 internet satellites are already too bright. It wants 3,000 more.

Funeral urn on table next to four lit candles

80% of Americans may opt for cremation by 2045

Scene from Bayeux tapestry showing Halley's comet

Halley’s comet may need a new, medieval name

Medieval portrait of Richard Rolle

Forgotten, priceless medieval book found in school library

Yellow bananas arranged against a blue background

Penis size may matter more to men than women

Four images side-by-side showing angles of a saxophone-inspired instrument called the Post Digital Sax

The 10 weirdest and wildest musical instruments of 2026

Pouring whiskey into glass from bottle near wooden barrel on table

Scottish distillery wants to bottle whisky in aluminum, not glass

Canada and USA reenacting the war during 1812

British soldier’s long-lost memoir rediscovered in Cleveland

Blockbuster video store exterior at night

How to make a Blockbuster VHS sleeve for any movie

Woman paying for something on laptop while holding credit card

Congress trying to make it easier to unsubscribe (again)

elon musk, game of thrones, queen elizabeth, barack obama

Wikipedia’s 25 most popular entries of all time

Four desktop homescreens showing SETI@home software running

100 mystery sounds under review for signs of extraterrestrial life

Depiction of the fourth horseman of the apocalypse, Death, riding a mythical creature, presumably a winged lion. Below him is a personification of famine (Fames), pointing to her open mouth. The depiction was created in Erfurt in the mid-14th century; the connection to Neuses may be drawn due to the date – St. Mark’s Day – of the annual memorial procession leading to the mass grave. Source: Klassik-Stiftung Weimar

Medieval plague victims likely found in mass grave in Germany

White axolotl seen underwater

Endangered Species

Is it illegal to own an axolotl? It depends.

Peregrinen 4 quadcopter drone taking off from launch pad

Father and son reclaim Guinness World Record for fastest quadcopter drone

Diver underwater investigating Viking shipwreck

600-year-old Viking shipwreck is the largest of its kind

Close up of man's hands reaching into box of apples at orchard

Test your apple farming skills with this free video game

Group of ancient Roman whetstones discovered in Britain

800 ancient Roman blade sharpeners found in Britain

Hand holding TV remote in front of out of focus TV screen

A little TV after a long day is good for your brain

Pint of beer next to a cheeseburger

Beer waste helps lab-grown meat taste meatier

Close up of hands playing chess, with white checkmating

Chess isn’t fair—so rearrange the pieces

Close up of microwave vacuum dried beet chips and hands reaching to grab them

Food scientists cook up healthier chips that don’t taste awful

a global density map of the world's buildings

Browse a 3D map of the world’s 2.75 billion buildings

E-scooter on fire in safety demonstration video from CPSC

Cozy up (safely) to an e-scooter’s lithium battery yule log

3D printed Christmas tree made from ice

Physicists 3D-printed a Christmas tree made of ice particles

Swearing and smiling emojis side by side on blue background

Go ahead and swear—it’s good for your health

Young sad girl sitting alone at home on sofa listening to sad music on wireless headphones crying and wiping her nose with a paper tissue.

Pop music has gotten sadder over the last 50 years

Library aisle showing rows of books

Librarians can’t keep up with bad AI

Close up of musician playing 3D printed carbon fiber cello

This 3D-printed cello puts a carbon fiber spin on a classic

Rhesus macaque bones in Roman animal cemetery grave

Roman generals gifted kittens and piglets to their pet monkeys

Underhammer 18th century pistol on table

Rare 19th century pistol used to rob Tulsa liquor store

An ancient Pompeii wall at a newly excavated site, where Associate Professor Admir Masic applied compositional analysis (overlayed to right) to understand how ancient Romans made concrete that has endured for thousands of years.

Pompeii’s ruins challenge Rome’s famous concrete recipe

Photograph of the fresco Trionfo della Morte, taken at its original location in the Camposanto Monumentale in Pisa. The fresco, known as the “Triumph of Death” and attributed to the painter Buonamico Buffalmacco, is not precisely dated; scholarly estimates range from 1335 to 1350. While it does not depict the Black Death explicitly, the selected detail shows victims of an epidemic from diverse social backgrounds, their souls carried off by demons.

Medieval volcanoes may have ignited the Black Death

1804 dollar seen from the front and back of the coin.

A long lost silver dollar may be worth $5 million

A brightly coloured illustration which can be viewed in any direction. It has many elements to it working together: men in suits around a table, someone in a data centre, big hands controlling the scenes and holding a phone, people in a production line. Motifs such as network diagrams and melting emojis are placed throughout the busy vignettes.

How to glimpse a pre-AI internet

Medieval grave slab made from Purbeck stone in museum exhibit case

Medieval shipwreck mistaken for underwater ‘rubbish’

Charles Darwin’s Address Book is a small brown leather notebook, with “VISITS” and “ADDRESSES” printed on its spine (photo 1) and index-letter tabs in alternating black and red. The entries were begun by his wife, Emma Darwin, and are in her pleasant, rounded handwriting (photo 2), shortly after their marriage in January 1839. Latter entries were by Darwin (photo 3), and he continued to use this Address Book throughout his lifetime.

Flip through Charles Darwin’s digitized address book

Big Foot Crossing sign in the wilderness of Colorado

What Bigfoot hunters get right (and very wrong)

Fibonacci spiral overlaid on cactus blossom

Break out the calculators: November 23 is Fibonacci Sequence Day

Black and white photo of Shoshoni Infant in cradleboard

Indigenous women engineered energy-efficient baby carriers

Front and back of Omega penny design

The U.S. Mint is auctioning the last pennies—and they could sell for millions

Man listening to headphones while writing at desk

Humans sync their blinks and brain waves to a song’s beat

Close up of replica of silver goblet from Near East engraved with sun god

4,000-year-old silver goblet tells a tale of chaos and order

Man with his head down on his desk in front of laptop from stress

The 100 life decisions people dread most, according to psychologists

Scuba diver investigating propellor of WW2 aircraft crash underwater

80 years ago, a WWII B-17 bomber crashed in the Baltic. Scientists are finally learning who was onboard.

Glass openwork vessel excavated at Cologne dating to around 350–400 CE with an image of an inscription on the right. Inscription: BIBE MVLTIS ANNIS (Drink [may you live] for many years!). Credit: State Collection of Antiquities and Glyptothek, Munich. Photos by Christa Koppermann

Ancient Rome’s fanciest glasses are full of cryptic symbols

Close up of Egyptian ceramic vessel with inscriptions

Opium may have been a daily habit for Ancient Egyptians

hands holding forensic evidence slip in front of moss

Moss can be a key witness in murder investigations

Swedish silver medieval coins in a pile

Fisherman searching for worms finds 20,000 medieval silver coins

Various angles of fragmented human skull

Medieval duke’s remains recount his grisly murder

V0015163ER Two hooded figures and a King grieve over a dead person whil Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://wellcomeimages.org Two hooded figures and a King grieve over a dead person while another masked figure comes to cleanse the room of the plague. Woodcut by V. Solis. Published: - Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Centuries of Black Death misinformation started with a poem

Seized ivory and rhino tusks photographed by law enforcement

Endangered Species

Endangered rhino horns and elephant tusks seized in California

Musket and cannonballs recovered in Scottish battlefield

18th century lead ammo found in Scottish Highlands

CT scan displaying German sword blade with engraved name on it

Renaissance sword reveals a hidden engraving

Scan of hieroglyphs on Mayan Foundation Rock

Mystery Mayan ruler was no king

Back angle of man scratching head and looking at rows of TVs in electronics store

Your eyes can only handle so much HDTV

Awa Guajá couple, family of Takarentia, only contacted 5 days before this picture was taken, 1992.

Half of all uncontacted Indigenous tribes may disappear by 2036

Group of people speaking in conference room, out of focus image

Men speak with a vocal fry just as much as women