Troy Oakes

New Clues Answer Questions to Early Civilization in the United States

The discovery of a site, which dates back 14,550 years, shows that human civilizations existed in the southeastern United States much earlier than scientists previously believed by as much as 1,500 years. According to a research team led by a Florida State University professor, the discovery of stone tools alongside mastodon bones in a Florida ...

Troy Oakes

Female archaeologist with mastadon bones.

Traces of Life in the Earth’s Deep Mantle

The rapid development of fauna 540 million years ago has permanently changed the Earth — far into its deep mantle. A team led by ETH researcher Andrea Giuliani found traces of this development in rocks from this deep mantle layer. It is easy to see that the processes in the Earth’s interior influence what happens ...

Troy Oakes

Earth as seen from space.

175,000-Year-Old Underground Circles Built by Neanderthals

All too often, Neanderthals are seen as thick-browed thugs. As recently as the late 1990s and early 2000s, the mainstream scientific community rejected the idea that Neanderthals were intelligent or sophisticated. Over the years, after their discovery, scientists have tried to understand why Neanderthals died out and we survived, with the assumption that they were inferior in ...

Troy Oakes

Neanderthal's face.

This 12-Million-Year-Old Dog May Not Have Been Man’s Best Friend

The discovery of a 12-million-year-old dog fossil has placed yet another species on the growing list of discoveries. However, this dog, which lived in a time when the massive megalodon shark roamed in the oceans, would not have been man’s best friend. The new canine species has been named Cynarctus wangi, named after Xiaoming Wang, ...

Troy Oakes

A drawing of cynarctus wangi.

The Midnight Terror Cave of Maya Sacrifices

The Midnight Terror Cave sounds like something that was made up to give you night terrors. But if you were aged between 4 and 14 years when the Maya’s were around, it was your living nightmare. The grim discovery in Belize of the appropriately named Midnight Terror Cave has shed more light on the long ...

Troy Oakes

Skulls on the floor of the Midnight Terror Cave.

Could English Ivy Lead to Better Medical Adhesives and Stronger Armor?

English ivy (Hedera helix) may have the answers to wound healing, stronger armor for the military, or even better cosmetics, and it all comes down to its natural glue. Researchers from Ohio State University have discovered that tiny particles are responsible for English ivy’s ability to hold onto things, even under hurricane and tornado conditions. ...

Troy Oakes

English ivy.

The Chemical Fingerprint of Viking Artifacts

A new study examining the chemical make-up of iron artifacts from the Viking age aims to uncover new insights into where they came from that could reveal previously unknown information about historic events. Scientists from the University of Nottingham are leading the study, which will examine 90 iron Viking artifacts. These Viking artifacts are weapons ...

Troy Oakes

Two viking ships sailing.

Most Medieval Manuscripts of Chivalric and Heroic Tales Have Been Lost

New research finds that, while the Knights of the Round Table has won global fame, most medieval English chivalric and heroic tales have been lost. Meanwhile, more than three-quarters of medieval stories in Icelandic and Irish survive to the present, in an unusual pattern suggesting that island ‘ecosystems’ helped preserve culture. 90 percent of medieval manuscripts of ...

Troy Oakes

Armor gloves and a suit of armor.

4 Worst Catastrophes Earth Has Survived

We all at some time or another think about life-changing catastrophes, but have you given much thought to Earth’s life-changing events? Most people have never heard of these catastrophes. 4 catastrophes that have happened to Earth 1. The Giant Impact Scientists think the Moon formed shortly after Earth around 4.5 billion years ago. A new ...

Troy Oakes

Artist's rendering of Earth and moon seen from space with a massive fireball aproaching.

Hubble Captures Swirling Galactic Trio

The mass of dust and bright swirls of stars in this image is the distant galaxy merger IC 2431, which lies 681 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Cancer. The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured what appears to be a triple galaxy merger in progress, as well as a tumultuous mixture of star ...

Troy Oakes

Hubble telescope in space.