This week, we consider that wormholes might be hiding in plain sight disguised as black holes, an estimated 80 percent of animals may have died in a hidden sixth mass extinction 550 million years ago, and we ask the question – will we ever find a frozen Neanderthal?

Giant Rhino-Sized Turtle Found In Spain Is One Of The Largest In Earth's History

An ocean giant that once flapped its way through ancient oceans has been retrieved in Spain, and it’s one of the largest known turtle species ever to exist. The shelled behemoth’s pelvis indicates it could’ve stretched to almost 4 meters (13 feet) in length when it lived between 83.6 to 72.1 million years ago. Read the full story here.

The Black Holes We’ve Viewed Might Actually Be Wormholes

Wormholes theoretically join parts of space and time, allowing those who enter them a shortcut to distant locations. As telescopes advance, one question becomes more troubling: if wormholes are real, why haven’t we found any? Four Bulgarian physicists have proposed that maybe we have and just haven’t recognized them. Read the full story here.

Scientists Have Found COVID-19's Inside Man, And They Know How To Shut Him Up

We already knew that the protein GRP78 was implicated in the spread of COVID-19, but now a new study, aimed at identifying a more reliable way to combat the virus in the face of mutations and unvaccinated patients, has found that GRP78 may actually hold the key to controlling the virus’s replication rates. Read the full story here.

Earth May Have Had A Hidden 6th Mass Extinction That Was Actually The First

When it comes to the major mass extinctions on Earth, the first of the Big Five is considered to be the Late Ordovician, around 445 million years ago. But, evidence has been mounting for a few years that a major dying of animals took place about 100 million years before that. Some 550 million years ago, a sudden decrease in global oxygen availability led to the death of 80 percent of all mammals. Read the full story here.

If We're Living In A Simulation, A Computer Scientist Has A Plan To Escape

If we were in a hyper-realistic simulation, à la The Matrix, would it be possible to escape? Computer scientist Roman Yampolskiy has outlined in a new paper how we might escape, and what that would even look like. Read the full story here.

Feature of the week: 

Will We Ever Find A Frozen Neanderthal "Mummy" In The Permafrost?

Deep in the northern stretches of our planet, ice and permafrost hold countless relics from the distant past, mostly in the form of woolly mammoths, rhinos, and ancient wolves. There’s an intriguing possibility that one day we could find ancient humans perfectly preserved in this prehistoric refrigerator. Read the full story here.