The rarest whale in the world is the spade-toothed whale (Mesoplodon traversii), with only seven confirmed specimens to date since first reported in the 1800s, and nobody’s ever seen one alive. All but one of them have been reported in the seas around New Zealand. Last December saw the first-ever dissection of one after it […]
These Fish Have Two Eyes On One Side Of Their Face, But They Don’t Start Out That Way
Congratulations! It’s a bouncing baby flounder. Look at its sweet, symmetrical eyes. Adorable, aren’t they? Well, take a picture, because they won’t stay there for long. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content. For flounders and other flatfish, it’s a rite of passage […]
Very First Humans To Make And Use Tools Imported Their Stones 3 Million Years Ago
The very first humans to make and use stone tools may have sourced their raw materials from distant locations, demonstrating a surprisingly sophisticated resource-management strategy. Previously, it was thought that the cognitive capacity for such behaviors didn’t arise until 2 million years ago, yet evidence from a prehistoric site in Kenya suggests that our ancestors […]
300,000-Year-Old Skull Shows Neanderthals Lived Alongside Another Ancient Human Ancestor
A nearly complete human skull that was discovered in a Greek cave in 1960 has remained at the center of a major anthropological debate for over six decades. However, researchers have finally settled the matter by revealing that the cranium belongs to a species that’s more primitive than both Homo sapiens and Neanderthals, yet existed […]
“An Underwater Photographer’s Dream”: Watch Big-Bellied Seahorses Passing Eggs Between Each Other
Down beneath the ocean waves are all manner of secret surprises, from mysterious-looking new species to gentle seahorses floating in the current. One diver was lucky enough to capture a key moment as she witnessed eggs being passed between two seahorse parents. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or […]
The Largest Moon In The Solar System Could Be A Dark Matter Detector
The Solar System’s largest moon could be a dark matter detector, according to a new paper. All we have to do is look. As far as astronomers studying the observable universe can tell, only around 5 percent of it is made up of matter. The rest, or the overwhelming majority of it, is made up […]
First Insect Proven To Use Milky Way For Orientation Uses Its Superpower To Push Big Balls Of Poop
The sky at night. It inspires awe. It inspires thoughts of an existential nature: Who are we? Why are we here? And, perhaps most importantly of all, in which direction should I roll this big ball of shit? That is, if you’re a dung beetle. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please […]
How An Eclipse And One Of The World’s Most Dangerous Volcanoes Changed Chemistry For Good
If you think of helium, you are probably thinking of party balloons and squeaky voices. That doesn’t do the element justice. It has a large number of technical and industrial applications, and is the second most common element in the universe. On Earth, though, it is pretty scarce, and the fact that it is lighter […]
Earendel: The Most Distant Star Ever Seen Might Not Be What We Thought
Back in 2022, the Hubble space telescope appeared to have found the most distant star ever discovered. Named Earendel – morning or rising star in old English – a new paper suggests it might not be what we thought. Earendel was spotted by Hubble due to a fortunate case of gravitational lensing, where light from […]
Unique White Dwarf Heavier Than The Sun Is Hiding A Merger In Its Past
Astronomers report the finding of a unique new object that doesn’t fit with categories that were only established in the last few years. They have observed an ultra-massive white dwarf with an outer layer of hydrogen and helium, 10 billion times thinner than other white dwarfs. This object is believed to be the product of […]
Ancient Crater Lakes Rewrite Saharan Climate History, And Possibly Civilization’s Origins
Deep lakes in the Sahara lasted until more recently than previously thought, fed by an unexpected water source. The discovery indicates that some of the Sahara was a welcoming place for humans more recently than anyone had realized, painting a different picture of the region at the time the first civilizations appeared. The world’s largest […]
Rare Crystalline Gold Accounts For Just 1 Percent Of The World’s Gold, And It’s Beautiful
Gold has captivated humans for millennia, but it comes in many different forms out in the wild. Among the rarest and most peculiar is crystalline gold, which forms deep underground and maintains its original shape – crafted by the formation of cracks in Earth’s crust. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please […]
First-Of-Its-Kind Footage Shows Human Embryo Implantation In Real-Time
For the first time ever, researchers have captured a human embryo implanting in real-time, revealing new details about the surprisingly strong mechanical forces this little bundle of cells uses to burrow itself into the uterus. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content. Embryo […]
Meet Splash: The World’s First Search-And-Rescue Otter Hunting For Missing People In Florida
This is Splash – a wannabe search-and-rescue superstar training to hunt for missing people in Florida’s murky waters. Oh, and did we mention he’s an otter? The intrepid mustelid is the latest addition to the team at Peace River K9 Search and Rescue. They’ve traditionally used dogs to track the scent of missing people, but […]
New Species Of Early Human Lived Alongside The Oldest Known Homo, We Still Don’t Fully Know What Long COVID Actually Is, And Much More This Week
This week, a world-first study has found “sex reversal” is surprisingly common among wild Australian bird species, Gabon’s orange cave crocodiles appear to be evolving into a new species, and even bird songs obey Zipf’s law of abbreviation, just like all human languages. Finally, we explore just how unlucky the only person to ever be […]
New AI Model May Predict Success Of Future Fusion Experiments, Saving Money And Fuel
Scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have announced that a new artificial intelligence (AI) model accurately predicted the results of a nuclear fusion experiment conducted in 2022. The model correctly assigned a probability greater than 70 percent that ignition was likely in that experiment. This outdid existing supercomputer approaches while also offering researchers a more […]
Orange Crocodiles, New Human Species, And Death By Meteorite
This week on Break It Down: The discovery of some fossilized human teeth reveals the oldest known members of our genus weren’t alone; their neighbors were a species we’ve never found before. A world-first study reveals that sex reversal is surprisingly common in wild Australian birds. A law of abbreviation that mysteriously fits all human […]
The World’s Largest Terrestrial Carnivore Has Clear Fur And Black Skin, But You Wouldn’t Know It
Polar bears have become something of an icon for the Arctic. The world’s largest land predators, they are big, they are beautiful, they are – not white, actually. Across their evolution they’ve developed some curious adaptations for life in the cold, and we don’t yet understand all of them. The rest of this article is […]
Deep-Sea Explorers Found A Sunken Whale Carcass – And Watched A Wild Banquet Unfold
On the final dive of the E/V Nautilus’ expedition season in October 2019, during a live-stream no less, researchers stumbled across a rare discovery on the seafloor. As their camera penetrated the depths of the Davidson Seamount off central California’s coast, the skeletal remains of a whale came into view, to the team’s audible excitement. […]
Does Jupiter Have A Solid Core, And If So, How Big Is It?
One of the first things anyone interested in the Solar System learns is that out beyond the asteroid belt lurk the gas giants, of which Jupiter is the largest. Does that mean that Jupiter and its peers are pure gas? Or somewhere deep within is there a solid core? Just as there’s a big difference […]
