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One Last One Fermi
The sheer abundance of stars in the universe suggests that, somewhere, an intelligent lifeform should be warming itself on a distant planet. Even if life evolves rarely, ET should be phoning. Yet, by all appearances, humanity seems to be flying …
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Sum Answer Bee
Bees seem to understand the idea of zero – the first invertebrate shown to do so. When the insects were encouraged to fly towards a platform carrying fewer shapes than another one, they apparently recognised “no shapes” as a smaller …
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Alien vs Temperature
Did climate change already kill all the aliens we’ve been searching for? According to astrophysicist Adam Frank, it’s certainly a possibility — and whether humans are doomed to the same fate may already be out of our hands. Jeff and …
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Trip Down The Stares
In 2015, a psychologist in Italy figured out how to induce a drug-free altered state of consciousness by asking 20 volunteers to sit and stare into each other’s eyes for 10 minutes straight. Not only did the deceptively simple task …
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Permanent Record
When considering musical artists, your favorite record of theirs is often the first to which you listened. It makes sense that the first album one encounters of a band will, over time, accumulate the most repeat listens. It has the …
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High Blood Treasure
James Harrison, an Australian man whose blood contains a rare antibody that can create a treatment that saves babies’ lives, has donated plasma one last time. Harrison, known as “the man with a golden arm,” has donated blood and plasma …
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Sleep Depredation
A study by University of Manchester researchers has shown for the first time that a bad night’s sleep is associated with suicidal thoughts the next day in people with depression. That data revealed that poor sleep quality and short sleep …
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Trouble Stuffed
Judges of the prestigious Wildlife Photographer of the Year have disqualified a winning contestant after the anteater in his prize-winning photograph was judged “highly likely” to be a taxidermy specimen. Called “The Night Raider,” the image was taken by photographer …
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How the Sausage is Maid
A Canadian man finally got the chance to clear his name after 17 years in exile from a hotel in British Columbia. His ordeal began in 2001, involving a flock of seagulls (the animals, not the band) and a suitcase …
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Nowhere You Are
In a triumph of data collection and analysis, a team of researchers based at Oxford University has built the tools necessary to calculate how far any dot on a map is from a city — or anything else. The research …
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