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A hidden hoard of silver coins buried more than 2,000 years ago was recently discovered tucked inside a rock crevice, during an excavation in Modi'in, Israel, southeast of Tel Aviv. The Israeli Antiquities Authority (IAA) described the cache of 16 coins in a statement released yesterday (June 7), dating them to 126 B.C. The site where the coins were found is thought to be an ancient agricultural estate that belonged to a Jewish family. [Read More]

That's what scientists found after analyzing 70 fossils of wing scales and scale fragments unearthed in northern Germany. These 200-million-year-old fossils, which date to the Triassic-Jurassic boundary, are the oldest evidence on record of insects in the order Lepidoptera, the researchers said. Some of the fossils share features with modern moths in the suborder Glossata, which have a straw-like proboscis that can suck up fluids like nectar. Given their complexity, and the time it would've taken to evolve to have such complex features, these fossils push the calculated age of glossatan moths back by about 70 million years to the Late Triassic " [Read More]

Last week, headlines(opens in new tab) reverberated across the internet with seemingly groundbreaking news: Scientists had found a cause — and with it, a possible cure — of Alzheimer's disease. The culprit, the reports said, was the bacterium that causes gum disease. But have scientists really solved one of the 21st century's biggest medical mysteries? Experts tell Live Science that caution is needed and that untangling the knotty causes of Alzheimer's disease is far from straightforward. [Read More]

Whooping cough, also known as pertussis, is a bacterial infection of the respiratory tract that causes severe coughing. The disease is especially serious for babies. Cases of whooping cough in the United States have been on the rise in recent years, and in 2012, the number of U.S. illnesses soared to more than 48,000 — more than any other year since 1955, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. [Read More]

In the sophisticated world of counterfeiting, it can often be difficult to tell fakes from the real deal. But now, scientists have developed a new method that can stamp things with "atomic fingerprints" to keep phony products at bay. "There is no bigger crime than counterfeit crime," said Robert Young, a professor of physics at Lancaster University in the United Kingdom and chief technology officer of the tech startup Quantum Base. [Read More]

Archaeologists have uncovered more than 100 ancient inscriptions carved into rock at Wadi el-Hudi, where the ancient Egyptians mined amethyst. In addition to the carved-rock inscription, the researchers also found 14 stele (inscriptions carved on a stone slab or pillar) and 45 ostraca (inscriptions written on pieces of pottery). Analysis of the newfound inscriptions is underway. So far, archaeologists can tell that many of the inscriptions date back around 3,900 years, to a time that modern day archaeologists call the " [Read More]

Ancient Egyptians captured and temporarily tamed wild birds by the millions in order to mummify the animals in ritualistic sacrifices, new research suggests.  Egyptian catacombs contain troves of mummified birds, specifically African sacred ibises, stacked atop each other in tiny jars and coffins. But how did the ancient people collect all those birds to begin with? Given the sheer number of avian mummies, scholars have long theorized that Egyptians must have farmed ibises to meet demand. [Read More]

A thirsty chameleon that perished during its desperate search for water may no longer be of this world, but its mummy — naturally preserved by India's hot, tropical climate — has intrigued people the world over.   That includes those who think it's a hoax. The Indian chameleon (Chamaeleo zeylanicus) was likely looking for water from an old pipe that had been dry for years, said filmmaker and writer Janaki Lenin, who found the critter and posted photos of it on Twitter. [Read More]

SAN FRANCISCO – Earthquake cloaks, or huge arrays of precisely drilled holes and trenches in the ground, could — at least in theory — protect important structures like nuclear power plants from powerful seismic waves, researchers say. The array of holes, drilled at specific angles and depths, would extend sometimes hundreds of feet and scatter earthquake waves like pinballs, according to the scientists. The idea is still highly speculative, requires a large amount of space that might be impractical, and has not been tested in the ground, but if it works, it could theoretically be used to protect expensive infrastructure that cannot be seismically retrofitted, such as oil pipelines, Vladimir Liberman, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory, said here Thursday (Dec. [Read More]

An ill-fated 19th-century expedition that became trapped in the Canadian Arctic ended in a particularly gruesome type of cannibalism, new research suggests. The gory end was faced by the British navy on the Franklin expedition, the doomed 1845 voyage to discover a sea route through the Canadian Arctic to the Orient. Though scientists had long known that the shipmen likely resorted to cannibalism to survive, the new study reveals the true extremes the crew went to. [Read More]