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Spooky! The Top 10 Unexplained Phenomena

Spooky! The Top 10 Unexplained Phenomena

Earth's Mysterious Hum Explained Even planets can get a bad case of tinnitus, according to a new study that explains Earth's mysterious, never-ending hum. Scientists have long known that earthquakes can make the Earth sing like a bell for days or months. However, in the late 1990s, seismologists discovered the world also constantly vibrates at very low frequencies even when there are no quakes. This so-called microseismic activity is too faint for humans to feel. Now, researchers say ocean waves are the culprit behind these mysterious tremors. Many scientists had previously turned to ocean waves to explain our planet's unusual humming. But neither idea could account for the entire range of vibrations seen on earthquake sensors. "I think our result is an important step in the transformation of mysterious noise into an understood signal," lead study author Fabrice Ardhuin, an oceanographer at the French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea, told Live Science.

Top 10 Beasts and Dragons: How Reality Made Myth by Ker Than | March 01, 2011 03:39am ET Credit: © Kira Kaplinski | Dreamstime.comDragons are awe-inspiring patchwork creatures found in the myths and legends of cultures all around the world. In Europe, they are nightmarish fire-spewing reptiles, large and lizard-like, with the forked tongue of a snake and wings like a bat. In the ancient cultures of Mexico and South America, a divine feathered serpent known by various names was believed to renew the world after each cycle of destruction. In China, dragons are amphibious creatures that dwell in oceans, lakes, rivers and even raindrops. Despite their differences, many of the mythical dragons found throughout the world all began as vague serpentine ideas modeled after real creatures, beginning with a snake or some other fearsome reptile. Our short list of creatures and natural phenomenon reveal what may have inspired the look of dragons as well as creatures that are truly dragon-like. Author Bio Ker Than Ker Than on

Case Closed? Columbus Introduced Syphilis to Europe | Sexually Transmitted Diseases | Origin of Syphilis & Syphilis Epidemic In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue, but when he returned from 'cross the seas, did he bring with him a new disease? New skeletal evidence suggests Columbus and his crew not only introduced the Old World to the New World, but brought back syphilis as well, researchers say. Syphilis is caused by Treponema pallidum bacteria, and is usually curable nowadays with antibiotics. Untreated, it can damage the heart, brain, eyes and bones; it can also be fatal. The first known epidemic of syphilis occurred during the Renaissance in 1495. "Syphilis has been around for 500 years," said researcher Molly Zuckerman at Mississippi State University. Stigmatized disease The fact that syphilis is a stigmatized sexually transmitted disease has added to the controversy over its origins. Armelagos originally doubted the so-called Columbian theory for syphilis when he first heard about it decades ago. Armelagos and his colleagues took a closer look at all the data from these prior reports. In the seafood?

Conspiracy Theories – Top Ten Conspiracies by Benjamin Radford, Live Science Contributor | May 19, 2008 10:58am ET Credit: NASA Conspiracy. Just saying the word in conversation can make people politely edge away, looking for someone who won’t corner them with wild theories about how Elvis, John F. Kennedy, and Bigfoot are cryogenically frozen in an underground bunker. Yet conspiracies do exist. Many conspiracy theorists go much further, though, and see a hidden hand behind the world’s major events. At least that's what they want you to think ... Author Bio

5 Influential Leaders Who Transformed the World By Denise Chow, Staff Writer | December 06, 2013 07:34am ET Credit: Túrelio | Creative Commons Powerful leaders have the ability to shape history, and a select few have the distinction of truly changing the world. Here are five influential leaders who did just that. Author Bio Denise Chow Denise Chow is the Sci-Tech Editor at Live Science. Denise Chow on

Mystery Solved: How Alexander the Great Defeated Tyre No man is an island, but it turns out all Alexander the Great needed to take over an entire island was a little help from Mother Nature. A half-mile-long spit of sand once linked the ancient Lebanese island of Tyre to the mainland, according to a new study of the area's geological history. Alexander used the natural sandbar to build a causeway, allowing his army to overwhelm the island stronghold during a siege in 332 BC. Alexander's conquest of Tyre has long been known to archaeologists, but they never understood how he managed to build a viable overwater passage to the enemy. The challenge probably troubled the Macedonian king at first too, said study leader Nick Marriner of the CEREGE-CNRS, a French geosciences research institute. "All previous settlements on his journey from Macedonia had capitulated with little resistance. Details of the study are in the latest edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Sand spit ebbed and flowed And Alexander didn't stop there.

How Writing Changed the World Each Monday, this column turns a page in history to explore the discoveries, events and people that continue to affect the history being made today. Humans had been speaking for a couple hundred thousand years before they got the inspiration or nerve to mark their ideas down for posterity. But when a Mesopotamian people called the Sumerians finally did scratch out a few bookkeeping symbols on clay tablets 5,000 years ago, they unknowingly started a whole new era in history we call, well … history. The presence of written sources denotes the technical dividing line between what scholars classify as prehistory versus what they call history, which starts at different times depending on what part of the world you're studying. In most places, writing started about the same time ancient civilizations emerged from hunter-gatherer communities, probably as a way to keep track of the new concept of "property," such as animals, grain supplies or land. When memory failed Literacy a privilege

Top 10 Inventions that Changed the World by Natalie Wolchover | March 06, 2012 11:18am ET Author Bio Natalie Wolchover Natalie Wolchover was a staff writer for Live Science from 2010 to 2012. She hold a bachelor's degree in physics from Tufts University and has studied physics at the University of California, Berkeley. Follow Natalie on Google+. Natalie Wolchover on

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