Mysterious gold stash found on hiking trail perplexes researchers
An Anglo-Saxon ship found at the Sutton Hoo estate in Suffolk, England, has long captivated history enthusiasts since its discovery on the eve of World War II.
And the site of the seventh century royal burial has yielded still more wonders of the ancient past in more recent decades. In 1986, a tractor harrow unearthed pieces of a Byzantine bucket.
Made from a thin sheet of copper alloy, the artifact depicts a North African hunting scene. The sixth century object had made an unusual journey from Antioch (in modern-day Turkey) to the eastern coast of Britain, researchers believe.
Archaeologists found and assembled fragments of the bucket over the years, but its base — and any clues that could shed light on its purpose — remained elusive.
Now, new excavations at Sutton Hoo have revealed the entire base of the bucket, as well as the contents it once housed: cremated remains, along with precious items that might help unveil the person's identity.
In another remarkable find, when two hikers exploring the Krkonoše Mountains in the Czech Republic happened upon an aluminum box jutting from a stony wall, they uncovered a mysterious cache of gold bracelets, cigar cases, a powder compact and hundreds of coins.
The duo took the discovery to the Museum of Eastern Bohemia in Hradec Králové, where experts are now studying the pieces.
Community residents have been sharing speculations on where the trove could have come from, as none of the coins are of local origin, said Miroslav Novak, head of the museum's department of archaeology.
One hypothesis is that the collection is related to departures of Czech and Jewish populations prior to World War II, or the post-war German exodus in 1945, he said. But the most recent coin in the stash is dated 1921, which adds another layer to the riddle.
If you've ever wondered why your teeth ache after biting into something very cold or sweet like ice cream, ancient fish may be the root cause (no pun intended!).
New research has shown that dentine, the sensitive interior of human teeth, likely evolved from the sensory tissue within bumps on the exoskeletons of armored fish 465 million years ago.
The fish used these bumps, called odontodes, to sense their surroundings in Earth's early oceans, which were teeming with predators. Over time, the genetic tool kit for odontodes was repurposed for teeth in animals — and even humans.
During the study, scientists had another surprising revelation: A fossil long thought to belong to an ancient fish was something else entirely.
Biologists and engineers at the University of California, Berkeley, teamed up to create an acrobatic robot with the leaping and landing skills of an animal. Watch this squirrel-like robot's parkour moves.
Camera traps on Jicarón Island, an uninhabited island off the coast of Panama, have captured perplexing behavior by some male capuchin monkeys, according to a new study.
A white-faced capuchin, nicknamed 'Joker' for a scar on his mouth, was seen kidnapping baby howler monkeys — and other juvenile male capuchins followed suit. Other than toting the babies on their backs, none of the capuchins interacted with or cared for the howlers, and eventually all the infants died of starvation.
Given the endangered status of the howler monkey population on the island, researchers set out to find the possible motivations behind such unusual behavior — and they uncovered a behavioral tendency the primates share with humans as the likely reason.
Two distant galaxies have entered into a 'cosmic joust' while in the process of merging into one larger galaxy.
As the massive objects hurtled toward one another at more than 1.1 million miles per hour (1.8 million kilometers per hour), one galaxy repeatedly pierced the other with intense radiation.
The dynamic activity, powered by a bright object at the galaxy's center, disrupted gas clouds and stellar nurseries — and it could prevent stars from forming in the future.
You don't want to miss these must-reads:
— After back-to-back explosive mishaps, SpaceX has been cleared by the Federal Aviation Administration to launch the latest Starship test flight as early as Tuesday. The company plans to reuse a key component of the launch vehicle for the first time.
— An ancient reptile relative made tiny clawed footprints that were fossilized in 356 million-year-old rock. The tracks are rewriting the way scientists understand the evolution of four-legged creatures.
— As any owner of an orange cat knows, golden-hued felines are special. Now, scientists think they know why: an unusual genetic mutation that has not been found in any other animal.
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