Small branding irons from ancient Egypt were likely used to mark the skin of human slaves, a new study suggests. Several ancient texts and illustrations, as well as 10 branding irons dating to 3,000 years ago, suggest that ancient Egyptians branded slaves. These branding irons, actually made of bronze, are now in the collections of […]
There are five basic human senses: touch, sight, hearing, smell and taste. The sensing organs associated with each sense send information to the brain to help us understand and perceive the world around us. However, there are in fact other human senses in addition to the basic five that you couldn’t live without. These lesser-known […]
The nerve that enables the human clitoris to detect pleasurable touch contains thousands more nerve fibers than once estimated — about 10,000, rather than 8,000. Medical researchers discovered this by doing something that had never been done before: They actually counted the fibers. Previously, it was widely accepted that the clitoris contained about 8,000 nerve […]
Archaeologists in northern Germany have unearthed 10,000-year-old cremated bones at a Stone Age lakeside campsite that was once used for spearing fish and roasting hazelnuts, major food sources for groups of hunter-gatherers at that time. The site is the earliest known burial in northern Germany, and the discovery marks the first time human remains have […]
Researchers used electric signals to teach brain cells to play the retro video game “Pong.” (Image credit: Shutterstock) (opens in new tab) A synthetic minibrain made out of human and mouse neurons has successfully learned to play the video game “Pong” after researchers hooked it up to a computer-controlled electrode array. It is the first […]
Thousands of years ago, a swath of land along what is now the western coast of England served as a superhighway for humans and animals alike. Today, the ebb and flow of each passing tide reveals more of the ancient footprints that these long-gone travelers stamped into the once mud-caked route. Reminders of their travels […]
Human skulls are pierced with coffin nails and human bones are turned into Ouija board pieces; almost nothing is off-limits in the U.K.’s thriving online human remains trade, a Live Science investigation has found. Buying and selling human remains isn’t illegal in the U.K., provided that the body parts sold aren’t used for transplants, and […]
Archaeologists investigating an early Neolithic settlement in Slovakia have discovered the battered remains of about 35 people, many of them teenagers, who appear to have been decapitated and then thrown into a ditch almost 7,000 years ago. The location of the grisly find this summer and the positions of the skeletons suggest the victims were […]
Archaeologists in Georgia have found a 1.8m-year-old tooth belonging to an early species of human that they say cements the region as the home of one of the earliest prehistoric human settlements in Europe, and possibly anywhere outside Africa. The tooth was discovered near the village of Orozmani, which lies about 60 miles south-west of […]
The human body possesses hundreds of bones, from the long bones of the limbs to the fused bones of the skull. But what is the smallest bone in the human body? And what is the largest bone? The smallest human bone A baby’s body has about 300 bones at birth. These eventually fuse to form […]
