Zoom is lifting the 40-minute video call limit on the free version of its videoconferencing app so families can have extended virtual chats over Christmas and the New Year. The US firm behind the hugely popular app, which has seen user numbers soar due increased home working from the current pandemic, is lifting the call … Read more
A hoard of more than 100 elephant tusks aboard a sunken ship that was lost for nearly 500 years has been traced to West Africa in a new study. Scientists used DNA analysis to compare the well-preserved tusks – recovered from a 16th century Portuguese shipping vessel called the Bom Jesus that was discovered in … Read more
Researchers are getting closer to uncovering the identity of a mysterious Roman woman who died in the 4th century AD and was buried in an elaborate grave in what is now Spitalfields Market in London. The so-called Spitalfields Roman Woman, whose grave was first discovered in 1999, is though to have been a person of great wealth … Read more
A man who lived in America about 1,000 years ago was forced to live on grasshoppers after contracting a tropical disease that made his colon swell up to six times its normal size. US researchers studied the microscopic gut contents of the now mummified man, buried in the Lower Pecos Canyonlands of Texas, US. They found the … Read more
King of the Cave: Venomous centipede is discovered at the top of the food chain in a sulphurous Romanian cave thought to be the most isolated ecosystem on the planet By Ian Randall For Mailonline Published: 12:37 GMT, 17 December 2020 | Updated: 12:37 GMT, 17 December 2020 A venomous centipede — dubbed the ‘King … Read more
Non-contact infrared thermometers are commonly used in workplaces and restaurants as a screening tool for Covid-19, but a recent article by two leading experts have questioned the validity of these temperature checks. Dr William Wright at the Johns Hopkins University and Dr Philip Mackowiak, Emeritus professor of medicine at the University of Maryland, say the devices … Read more
Scientists have identified the world’s earliest python from 47 million-year-old fossils recovered from a quarry in southwest Germany. Remains of the new python species, called Messelopython freyi, were discovered in Messel Pit, a UNESCO World Heritage Site near the German city of Darmstadt. Researchers report in a new paper that the ‘completely preserved’ species had a length … Read more
The worst part of shopping for clothes online is having to mail things back if they don’t fit. Amazon Fashion is tackling that headache with a new service called ‘Made for You’ that creates custom-measure t-shirts. You can choose different fabrics, necklines, sleeve lengths, fits and colors—and even create a custom label with your name … Read more
When people think of orchids, they think of the most exquisite and exotic flowers, which can be traded for thousands of pounds. The Gastrodia agnicellus — small and brown, with flowers that barely open — may come as a bit of a disappointment by comparison. But, unshowy as this ‘ugly’ orchid may be, it smells … Read more
Could anything be better than chilling by the sky-blue waters of Belize, with servants doing your grunt work? Not for the longfin damselfish, who has turned the planktonic mysid shrimp into a virtual farmhand. The tiny shrimp have been trained to help the damselfish fertilize the algae farms that make up its diet, according to … Read more