Scientists at the University of Waterloo have identified one of the doomed crew members of Captain Sir John S. Franklin's 1846 Arctic expedition to cross the Northwest Passage. According to a recent paper published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, DNA analysis revealed that a tooth recovered from a mandible at one of the relevant archaeological sites was that of Captain James Fitzjames of the HMS Erebus. His remains show clear signs of cannibalism, confirming early Inuit reports of desperate crew members resorting to eating their dead.

"Concrete evidence of James Fitzjames as the first identified victim of cannibalism lifts the veil of anonymity that for 170 years spared the families of individual members of the 1845 Franklin expedition from the horrific reality of what might have befallen the body of their ancestor," the authors wrote in their paper. "But it also shows that neither rank nor status was the governing principle in the final desperate days of the expedition as they strove to save themselves."

The majority of health insurers in the state’s individual and small employer health insurance markets will raise premiums between 9% and 15% next year, in yet another sign health care costs are back on the rise.

The largest animal on Earth is thought to be the blue whale, but these strange sea creatures can grow even longer — reaching up to 150 feet (46 meters) in length.

There are around 175 species of siphonophores living in the deep sea throughout all of Earth’s oceans, although not every species is found in each ocean. Many siphonophores are long and string-like, but some, like the venomous Portuguese man o'war (Physalia physalis), resemble jellyfish.

Although a siphonophore may look like a single animal, it is actually a colony made up of individual organisms called "zooids," which each have a distinct function within the colony despite being genetically identical. Some catch prey and digest food, while others enable the colony to reproduce or swim. An individual zooid cannot survive on its own because they specialize in one function, so they rely on each other to form a "body."

Members of a task force in Minnesota are making progress toward issuing a report on how the state might regulate psychedelics, including psilocybin, MDMA and LSD. The group earlier this month held preliminary votes on certain policy recommendations—including on eliminating penalties for personal possession and regulating clinical access to some entheogens—with more votes expected at its next meeting in October.

Two recommendations that are already approved by the body are the creation of a state-regulated clinical psilocybin program and the appropriation of research dollars to study the therapeutic use of psilocybin, MDMA and LSD. It will be up to lawmakers, however, to introduce and pass any psychedelics-related legislation to formally enact the suggestions.

As Russian missile strikes and heavy assaults by ground troops pace deadly attacks on Ukraine, a new report by University of Virginia researchers reveals another destructive facet of Russia's invasion.

Using commercial satellite imagery and other open-source information, associate professor of sociology Fiona Greenland and other researchers with UVA's Cultural Resilience Informatics and Analysis, or CURIA, Lab determined that multiple ancient Ukrainian burial mounds have been damaged in two locations currently occupied by Russian troops—a potential violation of international law.

These historically significant burial sites, called "kurgans," were constructed by the ancient peoples of the Ukrainian steppe. The mounds, up to 65 feet tall, contain human remains and artifacts dating back as far as 3000 B.C.E.

A team of student volunteers on an archaeological dig in northern France has had a surprise communication from the past.

Regulators issued a permit to Magellan Pipeline Company at a hearing last week, keeping in view the objections of several tribal nations who say the pipestone quarried at the national monument and the surrounding areas are central to the spiritual practices of tribes across the continent.

“It’s just too much of a risk,” Upper Sioux Community tribal historic preservation officer Samantha Odegard told the commission.

Pipestone National Monument was created in 1937 to protect the rights of Indigenous people to quarry pipestone — or catlinite, a soft, red stone used to make pipes and works of art. The National Park Service consults with 23 tribal nations with documented ties to the quarry on the monument’s activities.

On Saturday, the Minneapolis Institute of Art will open the Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room. According to Mia, the shrine is only the third of its kind in the U.S. and the only one outside of the East Coast.

At a preview event, Gelek Namgyal, the vice president of the Tibetan American Foundation of Minnesota, spoke about what this means for the local Tibetan community. According to the foundation, Minnesota has the second largest Tibetan population in the country after Queens, N.Y., with an estimated 5,000 Tibetans living in the state.

“This is a great opportunity for everyone, regardless of cultural and religious background, to be able to explore Tibet culture, religion and Tibetan arts, which basically emphasizes love and compassion,” Namgyal said.

Researchers still don’t know the cause of a recently discovered malware infection affecting almost 1.3 million streaming devices running an open source version of Android in almost 200 countries.

Security firm Doctor Web reported Thursday that malware named Android.Vo1d has backdoored the Android-based boxes by putting malicious components in their system storage area, where they can be updated with additional malware at any time by command-and-control servers. Google representatives said the infected devices are running operating systems based on the Android Open Source Project, a version overseen by Google but distinct from Android TV, a proprietary version restricted to licensed device makers.

Researchers in Mississippi have discovered a previously unknown species of parasitoid wasp that matures inside the bodies of living, adult fruit flies before bursting out of them like a xenomorph in the "Alien" movies.

The sneaky predator, which researchers have named Syntretus perlmani, is the first wasp found to infect adult fruit flies — similar wasp species are known to target flies during their younger, more vulnerable larva and pupa life stages. The wasps are parasitoids rather than parasites because they always kill their hosts, while parasites usually don't.

A team of scientists came across the wasp by chance while collecting a common fruit fly called Drosophila affinis in their backyards in Mississippi. They published their findings Wednesday (Sep. 11) in the journal Nature.

Last month, in a profile of newly named Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz, The New York Times included a throwaway line about "the time his wife had seized his Dreamcast, the Sega video game console, because he had been playing to excess." Weeks later, that anecdote formed the unlikely basis for the unlikely Crazy Taxi: Tim Walz Edition mod, which inserts the Minnesota governor (and top-of-the-ticket running mate Kamala Harris) into the Dreamcast classic driving game.

"Rumor has it that Tim Walz played Crazy Taxi so much his wife took his Dreamcast away from him... so I decided to put him in the game," modder Edward La Barbera wrote on the game's Itch.io page.

It’s a well-worn cycle by this point.

A politician suggests Minneapolis is a charred husk of the city it once was, and Minnesotans take to social media to share picturesque images of its parks and skyline with sarcastic captions. Tuesday was no different.

Former President Donald Trump asserted that the state’s largest city “burned down” during his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris and, within moments, social media was rife with posts depicting grassy hills and scenic sunsets.

The earliest humans to settle the Great Lakes region likely returned to a campsite in southwest Michigan for several years in a row, according to a University of Michigan study.

Until recently, there was no evidence that people from the Clovis period had settled the Great Lakes region. The Clovis people appeared in North America about 13,000 years ago, during the geologic epoch called the Pleistocene. During the Pleistocene, sheets of glaciers covered much of the world, including Michigan, making the land inhospitable for human settlers. But a 2021 U-M study confirmed that Clovis people built a camp, now called the Belson site, in southwest Michigan.

This year marks the 90th anniversary of the 1934 Minneapolis Teamsters’ strikes. These strikes changed the course of history and the lives of tens of thousands of working people. They transformed Minneapolis from one of the country’s most notorious anti-union citadels into a “union town” and inspired labor organization from Fargo to Omaha and Duluth to St. Louis. The story of this transformation still resonates with the challenges faced by working women and men in 2024.

Some mammoth bones have been gnawing at North Dakota State Geologist Ed Murphy for more than 35 years.

Murphy on Tuesday described for the North Dakota Industrial Commission how he became aware of a find of mammoth bones in 1988. He updated the commission, which oversees the North Dakota Geological Survey, because his department, in cooperation with the State Historical Society, plans to excavate part of the site and may need to request money from the state to finish the job.

The Minnesota Historical Society is digitizing more a hundred years of Native American newspapers, so they can be accessed online.

“To be able to just archive our histories as it happens, and especially that first-person perspective,” said Rita Walaszek Arndt, program and outreach manager for Native American Initiatives at the Minnesota Historical Society. “Being able to have those primary sources from the people is really important.”

Minneapolis Police Department officers reported using physical force against suspects more than 1,000 times in 2022, one of the highest per-capita rates of police force in the nation, according to data released this week.

MPD officers reported using force at the same rate in 2022 as they did in 2020, the year George Floyd was murdered by MPD officers, led by Derek Chauvin.

Over the same time period, police use of force rose precipitously in neighboring St. Paul, roughly doubling from 2018 to 2022, according to the data. On a per-capita basis, St. Paul police are now more likely to use force against suspects than MPD officers.

This prehistoric carving, discovered inside a cave in France, depicts a steppe wisent (Bison priscus), a now-extinct species of bison. It was crafted from a piece of reindeer antler that was previously used as a spear thrower for hunting, according to the Bradshaw Foundation.

Despite its small size — roughly 4 inches (10.5 centimeters) wide — the figurine contains a wealth of meticulous details, including finely carved individual hairs across the animal's body and a pair of horns jutting from its head, giving the piece a lifelike quality.

The Neolithic farmers and herders who built a massive stone chamber in southern Spain nearly 6,000 years ago possessed a good rudimentary grasp of physics, geometry, geology and architectural principles, finds a detailed study of the site.

Using data from a high-resolution laser scan, as well as unpublished photos and diagrams from earlier excavations, archaeologists pieced together a probable construction process for the monument known as the Dolmen of Menga. Their findings, published on 23 August in Science Advances1, reveal new insights into the structure and its Neolithic builders’ technical abilities.

How did early humans use sharpened rocks to bring down megafauna 13,000 years ago? Did they throw spears tipped with carefully crafted, razor-sharp rocks called Clovis points? Did they surround and jab mammoths and mastodons? Or did they scavenge wounded animals, using Clovis points as a versatile tool to harvest meat and bones for food and supplies?

UC Berkeley archaeologists say the answer might be none of the above.

Instead, researchers say humans may have braced the butt of their pointed spears against the ground and angled the weapon upward in a way that would impale a charging animal. The force would have driven the spear deeper into the predator's body, unleashing a more damaging blow than even the strongest prehistoric hunters would have been capable of on their own.