facts

Many of us have a certain pose for photos, but have you ever noticed your face has a tendency to turn to the right each time? If so, you’re not alone. Research of paintings dating back to the 14th century has revealed people prefer to pose showing the left half of their face – and

  A gene linked to the amount of grey matter in our brains – and therefore our intelligence – has been identified. Scientists found a variant of the gene was associated with a thinner cerebral cortex – the outer layer of the brain known as grey matter – and that those who had it tended

Scientists have finally solved a visual illusion first discovered by Galileo over 400 years ago. He was perplexed to find Venus looked bigger than Jupiter with the naked eye – but not through a telescope. Now, researchers say the effect is an optical illusion that occurs because of the way our eyes see lightness and

By very virtue of being human, everyone has experienced infancy and toddlerhood. So why can most adults not remember anything that happened before the age of 3? Research has suggested that’s because infants don’t have the neural capabilities needed to retain an autobiographical memory. And now, a new study shows we start forgetting our earliest

  The process of conceiving a child and its development inside the body of the mother is a very beautiful and amazing phenomenon. Before it takes its first breath, a human baby has to pass through an incredible and miraculous transformation from a single cell to a complex, self-sustaining organism. This article contains the stages

  It might seem impossible to identify a dozen images flashing by in a fraction of a second. But a team of neuroscientists has found that the human brain can do just that at record-breaking speed. U.S. researchers discovered that the human brain can interpret images that the eye sees in just 13 milliseconds –

  We all know the basics about Albert Einstein. He was one of the greatest scientists of all time. He came up with the theory of relativity. He was born in Germany but moved to America, where he died in 1955. And yes, he rocked a wild hairdo. Albert Einstein, the kid with abnormally large

  Anyone watching the autumn sky knows that migrating birds fly in a V formation, but scientists have long debated why. A new study of ibises finds that these big-winged birds carefully position their wingtips and sync their flapping, presumably to catch the preceding bird’s updraft—and save energy during flight. There are two reasons birds

  An ultra-precise new galaxy map is shedding light on the properties of dark energy, the mysterious force thought to be responsible for the universe’s accelerating expansion. A team of researchers working with the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) has determined the distances to galaxies more than 6 billion light-years away to within 1 percent

  Why zebras have their stripes is one of the oldest mysteries in evolutionary biology. A team of UK researchers now claims it has uncovered evidence that the stripes are used by the African equines to dazzle predators. The markings, they claim, work as an optical illusion that conceal a zebra’s movements and protect it