The Most Interesting Science News Articles of the Week

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By Live Science Staff

Each week we uncover the most interesting and informative articles from around the world, here are 10 of the coolest stories in science this week.

Hobby Lobby pays

A cuneiform tablet that is part of the Iraqi artifacts to be forfeited by the arts and crafts chain Hobby Lobby.

Credit: U.S. Attorney's Office Eastern District of New York

In its quest to amass a huge collection of biblical-era artifacts, Hobby Lobby made some big mistakes.

The fact that the Greens built a collection of some 40,000 objects in just a few years raised eyebrows among scholars and cultural-property experts. As a result, the company will pay the U.S. government $3 million and forfeit thousands of cuneiform tablets, clay stamp seals and other artifacts that were falsely labeled and shipped to its Oklahoma offices. [Read more about the smuggled artifacts.]

Secrets at the Temple of the Moon

The Temple of the Moon may have a tunnel underneath it.

Credit: Melitón Tapia/INAH

A secret passageway discovered near the Pyramid of the Moon in the ancient city of Teotihuacan may have been a way for the people there to emulate the underworld, archaeologists said.

Researchers found the tunnel in early June by using an electrical tomography scan, the INAH reported. To implement the scan, the researchers injected electric current into the subsoil and measured the resistance of the different materials found there. Then, they used the resulting data to create preliminary 2D and 3D models. [Read more about the secret tunnel.]

The fate of Earth

Earth could turn into a hothouse planet like Venus, with boiling oceans and acid rain, if humans don't curb irreversible climate change, physicist Stephen Hawking claimed in a recent interview.

Despite being the same size as Earth and having roughly the same gravity as our home planet, it's a far cry from our water-drenched planet. Venus is the hottest planet in the solar system, with temperatures reaching 870 degrees F (466 degrees C). [Read more about firey prediction.]

Psychopathic tendencies

Psychopaths, with their superficial charms but lack of empathy, may act the way they do because their brains are wired to overvalue immediate rewards, a new study finds.

The researchers found that inmates who scored high for psychopathy showed greater activity in a brain region called the ventral striatum for the more immediate choice than those who scored lower in psychopathy. Previous studies suggested that the ventral striatum is linked with the ability to evaluate the value of different choices. [Read more about brain wiring.]

Popular, dangerous trend

A woman who ate her placenta after giving birth wound up spreading a potentially deadly infection to her baby, according to a new report of the case. The mother had paid a company to make pills from her placenta after the birth of her baby, and she began taking these placenta pills three days after the baby was born.

The placenta pills tested positive for the same strain of GBS that had infected the baby, the researchers said. Although the CDC scientists couldn't rule out the possibility that other family members had transmitted the bacteria to the baby, the child's infection probably came from the mother, the scientists said. She had high levels of the bacteria in her system, they found, which likely resulted from her taking the placenta pills. [Read more about the infection.]

Solar windows

A close-up photo of one of Physee's installed PowerWindows at Amsterdam's main business district.

Credit: Jasper Juinen

A tech startup on a mission to make modern commercial and housing estates energy neutral has outfitted the headquarters of a Dutch bank with the world's first commercial, fully transparent solar-power-generating windows.

The windows could generate 8 to 10 watts of power, according to Grapperhaus. [Read more about the double duty.]

A new particle

The LHCb experiment.

Credit: CERN

The world's largest atom smasher has revealed a new kind of particle, and so far, it leads a charmed existence.

Physicists previously predicted the existence of the Xi-cc, but it wasn't clear what the mass of the particle would be; nobody knew if the theoretical predictions were correct. [Read more about 'charming' particle.]

Predicting the berg

The ESA's CryoSat mission was used to measure the thickness of the eventual iceberg that will calve from Antarctica's Larsen C ice shelf.

Credit: University of Edinburgh–N. Gourmelen

It hasn't calved yet, but scientists already have a pretty good idea of what the iceberg splitting from Antarctica's Larsen C ice shelf will look like.

Now, scientists with the ESA's CryoSat mission have used data from the Earth Explorer satellite to better quantify the size of the Larsen C iceberg. The satellite uses an instrument called a radar altimeter to measure the elevation of the ice. [Read more about gigantic iceberg.]

Cancer vaccine?

Cancer vaccines — which are intended to help patients fight cancer by enlisting the individuals' own immune systems to attack cancer cells —showed promise in two small new studies.

In the new studies, two separate research teams used two different kinds of vaccines to attack melanoma. The scientists detailed their findings online today (July 5) in two studies in the journal Nature. [Read more about the new treatment.]

Why the Sun is Dangerous

During next month's Great American Total Solar Eclipse, you may be tempted to take in the historic event by gazing directly at the sun, but you absolutely should not do this without the proper eye protection, experts say.

It's thought that this damage happens when photons (light particles) create free radicals, which are highly reactive molecules that can "poison" cells and kill them, Van Gelder said. The damage occurs in the fovea, a spot in the retina that is responsible for sharp, central vision. [Read more about the sun.]

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