WEIRD HISTORY
A portrait of Harriet Tubman in 1878. Library of Congress/Getty Images – By Kate Clifford Larson, Professor of History, Brandeis University Originally Published: 2022 Apr 28 – Harriet Tubman was barely 5 feet tall and didn’t have a dime to her name. What she …
An ancient kauri tree log from Ngāwhā, New Zealand. Nelson Parker – By Rich Haridy 2025 Feb 13 – A perfectly preserved ancient tree fossil offered scientists an unprecedented view into a moment 42,000 years ago when the Earth’s magnetic field went haywire. The …
Air samples are collected from three sarcophagi in storage at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Emma Paolin – By Michael Irving 2025 Feb 13 – We know what they look like, and even sound like, but there’s one question you might not have pondered: …
A new handheld device could extinguish fires using compressed air fired in a vortex ring, carrying a conductive aerosol. Depositphotos – By Michael Irving 2025 Feb 06 – Fighting fire usually involves water or foam, but they can be messy and environmentally destructive. Engineers …
If a health claim about a dietary intervention sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Mizina/iStock via Getty Images Plus – By Aimee Pugh Bernard, Assistant Professor of Immunology and Microbiology, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus Published: 2025 Jan 28 – …
A compound called EBC-46 has shown promise as a potential HIV cure, using a “kick and kill” mechanism to remove dormant reserves of the virus. Depositphotos – By Michael Irving 2025 Jan 31 – HIV has become a more manageable condition in recent years, …
The FDA has approved a novel first-in-class analgesic. Original image via Depositphotos – By Paul McClure 2025 Jan 30 – The US Food and Drug Administration has approved the use of a novel painkiller as an effective treatment for short-term moderate-to-severe pain in adults. …
DeepSeek’s open-source model shows that the US way is not the only AI way. Depositphotos – By Bronwyn Thompson 2025 Jan 27 – The US AI giants got a wake-up call this week, when fledgling Chinese firm DeepSeek wiped a record-breaking trillion dollars off …
It’s a lot easier to get salmonella from pet dogs than you might think. Justin Veenema / Unsplash – By Abhimanyu Ghoshal 2025 Jan 26 – You’ve probably heard that Salmonella is most commonly transmitted through food or water contaminated by the bacteria of …
AI detects lung diseases from the tiniest of ultrasound details. Generated by DALL-E – By Bronwyn Thompson 2025 Jan 23 – A breakthrough new AI model is able to detect the presence of different lung diseases from ultrasound videos, with 96.57% accuracy, and it …
