Science Daily

• A 2,700-year-old solar eclipse just revealed something surprising about Earth

  A solar eclipse recorded more than 2,700 years ago is revealing surprising secrets about Earth's rotation and the Sun's ancient behavior. By correcting an eight-kilometer error in the location of an ancient Chinese capital, scientists were able to reconstruct a total solar eclipse that occurred in 709 BCE and obtain more accurate measurements of how fast Earth was spinning at the time.

• Archaeologists may have just found the world's oldest shipwreck

  A mysterious shipwreck off Turkey’s coast may be the oldest ever discovered, dating back approximately 4,500 years to the age of the Egyptian pyramids. Although the wooden vessel has disappeared, its surviving pottery cargo reveals clues about an ancient trading network that may have connected distant Mediterranean civilizations. Researchers believe the ship may have crashed against rocks during a storm while transporting valuable goods such as oil, wine, or tree resin.

• Chinese scientists discover “D-rex,” a giant fungus with roots stretching back 65 million years

  Scientists have discovered a giant new fungus in China that grows up to 20 inches tall and weighs nearly five pounds, making it the largest known of its kind. Dubbed “D-rex,” its evolutionary lineage appears to have emerged shortly after the dinosaurs went extinct, raising intriguing questions about how that ancient catastrophe may have shaped its evolution.

• This mysterious mushroom makes people see hundreds of tiny humans

  For nearly a century, people in distant parts of the world have reported a bizarre experience after eating certain wild mushrooms: seeing dozens or even hundreds of tiny, colorful humans moving through the real world. Now, scientists have identified a mushroom species, Lanmaoa asiatica, responsible for these extraordinary hallucinations in China and the Philippines.

• New evidence suggests spinosaurus spent most of its life underwater

  Millions of years after animals first conquered land, some took an extraordinary evolutionary U-turn and returned to the water. Using machine learning and thousands of fossil measurements, Yale scientists have uncovered surprising clues about which prehistoric creatures truly became aquatic. Their findings suggest that Spinosaurus spent most of its life underwater, while some ancient marine reptiles previously thought to be fully aquatic actually spent considerable time on land.