News

Moss spores have reproduced after nine months on the International Space Station (ISS), an announcement that sounds more impressive when you learn they were on the outside, exposed directly to the perils of space. Although single-celled organisms have demonstrated the same capacity previously, this is the first time a land plant has shown such powers […]

In 2017, the US’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), and the related Advanced Aerospace Weapons System Application Program (AAWSAP) were made public for the first time following an investigation by the New York Times.  The programs, funded by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), were pretty out-there. Operating between 2007 and 2012, AATIP investigated unexplained […]

Exploring new caves during the Upper Palaeolithic was fraught with danger, which is why one group of ancient humans in Italy made sure to take their trusted four-legged companion with them when they stepped into the darkness. Analyzing the fossilized foot and paw prints left behind during this subterranean excursion, researchers say that these 14,400-year-old […]

The Grand Canyon is so immense and otherworldly that it can feel distant from the day-to-day life of most humans. But for some people, this awe-inspiring natural wonder is their ancestral home. Eleven tribes have deep historical connections to the lands associated with or bordering the Grand Canyon National Park, according to the National Park […]

There’s no getting away from the fact that finger monkeys are downright adorable. These pint-sized primates are the smallest monkeys in the world and are also known as pygmy marmosets. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content. Where do finger monkeys live? There […]

To say it’s been a bit wet in Southern California of late would be something of an understatement. At the end of last week, a powerful atmospheric river dumped an extreme amount of rainfall on the region, including in Death Valley. According to a Facebook post from Death Valley National Park, Furnace Creek – which […]

“Well, why not call it The Big Chill? Or the Nippy Era? I’m just saying, how do we know it’s an Ice Age?” “Because of all the ice!” That’s the interaction between two Macrauchenia that kicks off Ice Age, everybody’s favorite squirrel-led foray into the Pleistocene. It touches on an interesting point, really, because although […]

For the first time, the effects of a geomagnetic superstorm on the Earth’s protective plasmasphere have been observed in detail. The storm in question compressed the plasmasphere by 80 percent, leaving us to wonder what even larger storms of the past did. The auroras of May 10-11, 2024, were almost certainly seen by more people […]

To our best of our understanding, the Moon formed from Earth following a colossal impact. A Mars-sized world we nicknamed Theia slammed and merged with the primordial Earth, throwing material into space. Some fell back onto the planet, while some spread out and formed the Moon. New analysis is providing novel insights into Theia and […]

Sniffing another being’s armpit to judge their social status might seem like an animalistic activity that’s beneath modern humans, who tend to prefer to rely on fancy clothes and job titles to express their worth. But body odor may actually play a significant role in how men are perceived, especially in terms of dominance, according […]

If you’re interested in bats, there’s a good chance you know that around 70 percent of bat species are insectivores, some capable of consuming hundreds of insects an hour, some gobbling down up to a third of their body weight during a single night of hunting. Some species even eat spiders, though it is not […]

A team looking at the dynamics of objects in the Kuiper belt, the ring-shaped region of icy bodies well beyond the orbit of Neptune, believe they have found evidence for a “very old, undisturbed structure” in our Solar System. While the Oort Cloud, thought to be between 5,000 and 100,000 astronomical units (AU) from the […]

NASA has finally published several observations of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS that were taken during the long government shutdown. In a special press conference, the space agency released images from eight different missions that add to the Hubble, JWST, and SPHEREx observations from the summer, as well as those from NASA-funded ATLAS (Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert […]

Had you been in Cleveland 360 million years ago, you’d be swimming for your life. Not only would you have found yourself bobbing in a shallow sea, but there’d be something monstrous in the water: Dunkleosteus terrelli, a 4.2-meter (14-foot) apex predator unlike any fish alive today. The rest of this article is behind a […]

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the foremost public health authority in the United States, is at time of writing openly stating on its website that “the claim ‘vaccines do not cause autism’ is not an evidence-based claim”. Against all scientific consensus on the matter, the agency instead spotlights the idea that […]

It’s a great shame that Tyrannosaurus rex and Otodus megalodon never got the chance to meet. Arguably two of the greatest predators the Earth’s ever seen, they were separated by time and territory as megalodon didn’t appear for over 40 million years after T. rex’s extinction and, well, it was a giant fish (that said, […]

What’s the riskiest decision you ever made? If the results of a new study are to be believed, there’s a pretty good chance you just answered either “quit my job” or “accept a new one” – or perhaps you’re one of the few whose anxieties just revolve around the rise of 5G. Whatever your definition of […]

More than 40 percent of all known chameleon species live on the island of Madagascar. Among those species is a group called the Calumma gallus species complex, which contains the “Pinocchio” chameleons, featuring males with all sorts of funky nose appendages. These fancy extras have been the main way of telling different species apart for […]

In October 2018, a man named Ippolit Bodounov boarded a plane from Russia to Toronto, Canada. Although we do not know how he felt as he made his way through the terminal and eventually took his seat for the long intercontinental flight, we can easily imagine he was at least a little nervous. That’s because […]

Fresh from finding potential biosignatures on the Bright Angel formation in Cheyava Falls, announced in September, NASA’s Perseverance rover has discovered a highly unusual and out of place rock on Mars. Every now and then, the rovers exploring the Red Planet send back an image of an unusual rock on our neighbor planet. These can […]