Digging 3 meters down into the dark marine mud of a former log storage pond in Mindanao, Philippines, scientists have discovered five live specimens of an elusive creature previously known only through the 1 to 1.5–meter-long calcium carbonate shells it left behind.

By carefully chipping away at the end of a chalky tube (right, above), researchers found a long, black, wormlike mass oozing from its casing – the first live specimen of the giant shipworm Kuphus polythalamia. The animal’s length makes it the longest of any living bivalve, a class of typically small critters including clams, oysters, and scallops. And as far as shipworms go, which usually burrow into and feed on wood from ships or sunken trees, K. polythalamia is unique for squa ...

Before the test you can study alone or in a group – which option is the way to go?

Everybody has their preferred method of studying. Some are a.m. studiers, some are more nocturnal. Some power through with no nourishment, others make their desk look like the dinner table at a Bavarian holiday party. But no matter when, where or how, studying can always be broken down into a dichotomy: studying in a group or studying alone.

Study groups pool the brainpower of several classmates. Granted, this pool might only amount to slightly more knowledge than you possess yourself, but at other times the pool can be akin to the Mensa JV team. That's why you should always hedge your bets with a decent amount of self-studying. Knowing a bit about the material ...

Chances are you've never tasted crude oil, and if you had the chance, you'd probably pass 99.9% of the time. Interestingly, however, crude oil tastes sweet when its sulfur concentration is lower than 0.42% per volume. Sulfur in crude oil is an impurity, and gives off the smell of rotten eggs when found as hydrogen sulfide. Sour crude oil has a sulfur volume higher than 0.50%. The terms "sweet" and "sour" originated from the practice of nineteenth century prospectors who would literally taste or smell the crude to determine its quality. ...

Started in Imperial China in the 10th or 11th century, upper-class court dancers would wrap their feet to make them permanently smaller.

Although this made it difficult for a woman to walk, small feet indicated that a woman’s husband did not need his wife’s labor. To make the feet even smaller, sometimes the baby’s feet were broken and wrapped tightly. Some baby’s toes were cut off! Footbinding was banned by the Chinese government in 1911, but continued to be practiced in some places for several decades, as shown in the picture above. ...