News

At the bottom of Buffalo Ford Lake at Yellowstone National Park, researchers have found interesting clues about the natural history of the area. Before the 1800s CE, the American bison was thriving. Estimates of buffalo numbers on the continent vary from around 30 to 60 million at the start of the century, but that quickly […]

Immense glaciers once covered the entire Earth, reaching even the equator, geologists have confirmed. The discovery that this also applied in the center of continents, where conditions would have been very dry deepens the mystery of where and how life survives. Geologists learned of the existence of recent ice ages by finding the legacy of […]

The corpse flower is one of the strangest plants on the planet, famous for the hot stench of death it unleashes when in bloom – a rare and short-lived event that lures in as many tourists as it does pollinators. Opportunities to study the mechanisms behind the odorous performance are rare, but scientists with access […]

Arguably the most impressive example of prehistoric rock art ever discovered has finally been interpreted, and the meanings behind the images are truly mind-blowing. Collaborating with Indigenous elders in the Colombian Amazon, researchers learned that the epic collection of ancient paintings alludes to a hidden spiritual dimension that shamans are able to navigate by transforming […]

Perplexing white blobs have been washing up on the shores of Newfoundland, Canada, in recent months, and one team of scientists that investigated them says that some contain a mix of synthetic rubber and industrial adhesive. The Canadian government is also doing its own testing but doesn’t seem ready to draw conclusions at this point. […]

The dollar sign may be one of the most recognized symbols in the world. More than a denotation of currency, it’s become a potent emblem of wealth, capitalism, and (in some imaginations) either freedom or greed. Its origins, however, are not so clear.  One of the most common misconceptions is that the symbol stands for […]

There is a lot that we do not know about the Sun but something quite shocking to most people is that we have never seen its poles. All our observations have been looking at the Sun face-on and from that disadvantaged view, scientists aim to work out what is going on there. The latest model […]

A neuroscientist who famously taught rats how to drive back in 2019 has explained why she did it, what we learned from it, and how those findings might relate to humans. In 2019, a study went viral for fairly obvious reasons. It involved training rats to drive little rat cars around a laboratory, earning themselves […]

Aging happens in one direction, right? We’re all slowly getting older, accumulating gray hairs and wrinkles, and there’s no going back. While it’s true that as humans we’re not getting any younger, the same can’t be said for comb jellies. When the going gets tough, these strange sea creatures have the incredibly rare ability to […]

Greenhouse gases cause global warming – it’s a fact that we’ve all seen or heard at some point, perhaps more often than usual recently with climate conferences and elections. But how exactly do they have this effect? The greenhouse effect One of the simpler ways we can answer that question is by thinking about how […]

If you’ve ever seen a behind-the-scenes snippet from a nature documentary, you’ll have witnessed the grueling life of a wildlife filmmaker. From getting stuck inside bait balls to getting leeches on your eyeball, monitoring wildlife makes for a testing existence, so what if there was an easier way? What if, say, we could give the […]

When Mount St Helens erupted in 1980, the resulting lava, ash, and debris turned the landscape barren for miles around. It was clear the land would take a long time to recover from the eruption. But one team of scientists had an idea about how they could help speed up the process; sending a few […]

Hurricane Helene made landfall in the United States on September 26, hitting the Gulf Coast of Florida. Its path of death and destruction was monitored in detail from the ground and space, and it was even spotted by an instrument located on the International Space Station. As the ISS flew over it, the Atmospheric Waves […]

There are some seriously strange lifeforms lurking in the depths of our oceans – ghost sharks and upside-down isopods, anyone? Now, two more join their ranks as researchers discover a pair of new bacteria species nestled in the tissue of deep-sea corals in the Gulf of Mexico – and they’re just as bizarre as befits […]

Animal rescue stories are some of the most popular on the internet, from adorable baby beavers to kittens with four ears. However, while the rescuers might have good intentions, “helping” can sometimes do more harm than good. Recent research into the UK hedgehog population has revealed the right times to step in to help our prickly […]

Our ancient ancestors were not picky about who they got into bed with, and the echoes of this prehistoric promiscuity can still be detected in human genomes from around the world today. Listed among our early romantic conquests are the Denisovans, and researchers now believe we mated with at least three distinct populations of this […]

A military spacecraft launched 55 years ago was moved from its orbit – and nobody is quite sure who did it, or why.  In 1969 the UK launched Skynet-1A, a military communications satellite placed in orbit above the east coast of Africa in order to relay information to British armed forces. It stopped working due […]

Viewed from space, the western edge of the Sahara Desert looks like another world. Its abundance of red-tinged sand turns into a sea of dunes that ebb and flow with the wind, unabated by foliage and other earthly obstacles. An astronaut aboard the International Space Station recently took this photograph while orbiting over southeastern Morocco, […]

Just when we thought we were starting to understand the mysterious object 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann, it has confounded us again. Four eruptions from its ice volcanoes in quick succession led to a 289-fold brightening. This is the largest set of eruptions since 2021 – and unlike a recent, smaller outburst, we did not see it coming. Comet […]

To visit the southernmost national park in the United States, you’ll need go a lot further than Hawai’i – around 4,184 kilometers (2,600 miles) further southwest, in fact. That’s where you’ll find the National Park of American Samoa, the only US national park south of the equator. Where is the southernmost US national park? The […]