Phil Plait

Bad Astronomy

SMBC on the brain

The British Royal Regalia - Crown Jewels (Image Credit: Lwsi Cox/Shutterstock) 

The British Royal Regalia - Crown Jewels

What is the British Royal Regalia? Learn more about the British Crown Jewels and how they are replaced medieval renditions after anti-monarchists destroyed them. 

More than 100 Items in the British Royal Regalia Symbolize Power and Tradition Through the Ages

Alignments of Carnac 
(Image Credit: Bettina Schultz Paulsson)

Alignments of Carnac

Learn how a rescue excavation revealed the definitive date of the Carnac megaliths and gave new clues to their function.

Ancient Stone Alignments in France Confirmed as Europe’s Earliest Megalithic Region

Stone alignments revealed an ancient temple, called Palaspata after the native name for the area. The temple complex is approximately 125 meters long by 145 meters wide — about the size of a city block — and includes 15 quadrangular enclosures arranged around a rectangular inner courtyard. This is a digital reconstruction of the temple. (Image Credit: Jose Capriles/Penn State/CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Digital reconstruction of ancient Palaspata temple

Recent archaeological discovery expands our knowledge on complex Indigenous societies in South America.

Ancient Temple Ruins Shed Light on Life of Tiwanaku, a Thriving Pre-Inca Civilization

Older than Stonehenge and the Pyramids of Giza, Newgrange is believed to have been built by a farming community that prospered in the Boyne Valley, County Meath, some 5,000 years ago. (Image Credit: Tjp Finn) 


Newgrange

Discover more about Newgrange and the people who were buried there. And what those people can tell us about the elites of Neolithic Ireland. 

Neolithic Ireland Was Likely Not Ruled by Incestuous God-Kings

Humans learned to thrive in a variety of African environments before their successful expansion into Eurasia roughly 50,000 years ago. (Image Credit: Ondrej Pelanek and Martin Pelanek)

African Bush Elephant

Learn more about the new  study which suggests humans had to adapt to different environments within the African continent before being able to successfully migrate out of it. 

Advanced Weapons and Communication Helped Humans Migrate Out of Africa 50,000 Years Ago

New radiocarbon dates from the Bronze Age Tiszafüred-Majoroshalom site (Eastern Hungary). Radiocarbon. 2025;67(2):428–40. (Image Credit: Kovács 1995, Abb. 1/A, 2-3 és Dani János et al. 2025)

SMBC on the brain

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