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Long before birds ruled the sky, a giant dragonfly-like beast earned the title of being the largest known insect of all time. Known as Meganeuropsis permiana, this extinct bug had an estimated wingspan of 71 centimeters (28 inches), around the size of a well-fed pigeon. Remains of Meganeuropsis permiana suggested it looked a lot like […]

It’s October, which means it’s spooky season and in some fantastic astronomical timing, the Sun, Moon, and Earth have all lined up to give us a Blood Moon partial lunar eclipse this weekend, where the Earth will appear to take a bite out of the Moon like a cosmic vampire. Lunar eclipses occur when the […]

Just a few days ago we reported on how spiders are masters of not getting tangled in their own webs – but that doesn’t mean the silken traps are safe spaces for them. In the first known case of its kind, scientists have witnessed a spider being attacked and killed on its own web by […]

During World War II, the seabed started moving. At least, that’s what it looked like to sonar technicians who couldn’t figure out why the ocean depth kept changing dramatically from night to day. We now know that this “false seafloor” was the result of deep scattering layers, walls consisting of millions of animals that undergo […]

The collarbone of an unknown hominid that lived in East Africa around 1.8 million years ago is remarkably similar in length and curvature to that of a barrel-chested modern man. Discovered in Tanzania in 2005, the ancient fossil provides evidence that our ancient ancestors may have been as broad as we are, despite differences in […]

The more we learn about planets inside and outside our Solar System, the more difficult the question “Well, where the hell are aliens then?” seems to become. As well as finding a slew of planets in the habitable zones around their stars and locating new classes of exoplanets that may be good candidates for life, […]

In 2018, a team of researchers attempting to investigate the use of sulfide solutions to reduce mercury emissions from alumina refineries made another, bigger discovery: an ion once considered an essential part of chemistry calculations simply does not exist. While investigating the use of sulfide solutions to reduce mercury emissions, the team began looking at […]

Cosmonauts on board the International Space Station (ISS) conducted a spacewalk in order to fix a leaking radiator on Wednesday.  The leak, confirmed earlier this month by Russian space agency Roscosmos, came from the backup radiator mounted on the outside of the Nauka module launched in 2021. The main radiator remains operational, but Rosmocos scheduled […]

Declassified imagery from Cold War-era spy satellites has revealed hundreds of long-lost Roman forts across Syria and Iraq. Ancient forts were first documented in the Near East in the 1920s when Jesuit priest Father Antoine Poidebard undertook one of the world’s first aerial archaeological surveys. His studies counted a line of 116 forts, suggesting that […]

A woman who began hearing strange noises turned out to have a spider living in her ear, alongside an exoskeleton it had shed while occupying her head. The 64-year-old showed up at an otolaryngology clinic after four days of abnormal beating, clicking, and rustling sounds keeping her awake. She had a pretty clear idea of […]

Archaeologists in Egypt have discovered an exceptionally long papyrus scroll containing excerpts from the legendary Book of the Dead alongside the mummified inhabitants of an ancient cemetery. Located within the Tuna el-Gebel necropolis, the newly unearthed graveyard served as the final resting place for senior officials and priests during the New Kingdom, which existed between […]

Two pristine coral reefs have been discovered deep underwater off the Galápagos Islands, surprising Schmidt Ocean Institute scientists piloting the remote-operated vehicle (ROV) SuBastian. The discovery was made during an expedition that had set out to study underwater cliff ecosystems and came away with two new coral reefs and some previously uncharted sea mounts to […]

In a weird quirk of the natural world, lots of species glow. From dormice to puffins, they are lighting up under UV light for reasons scientists still aren’t sure about. While the sea has a bioluminescent glow created by dinoflagellates, known as sea sparkle, fungi are also joining the glow up, with their own bioluminescence […]

Medieval philosophers debated how many angels could dance on the head of a pin; modern scientists are getting close to sticking a particle accelerator on one instead. Particle physicists have announced the demonstration of a nano-accelerator that uses lasers to push electrons to high speeds. Naturally tiny machines like this are not going to replace […]

Some animals look more like Pokémon than Pokémon do, and this is surely true of the hammerhead bat. With the intimidating species name Hypsignathus monstrosus, it sounds like a villain, but the hammerhead bat is a fruit-slurping sweety. Also known as the hammer-headed fruit bat, or – our personal favorite – the big-lipped bat, it […]

An infrared aurora has been spotted on Uranus for the very first time, providing insights into the strange magnetic fields that can be found on the solar system’s distant icy giants.  Down here on Earth, aurorae are caused by solar winds clashing with highly energetic charged particles in the atmosphere, resulting in the particles emitting […]

Just in time for Halloween, NASA has just released this image of a ghoulish face that emerged on the planet Jupiter.  The image was taken on September 7, 2023, during the 54th close flyby of Jupiter by NASA’s Juno mission. It was snapped up over the gas giant’s far northern regions, called Jet N7, when […]

Thought to have originated around 162 million years ago, jewel wasps now represent one of the most diverse groups of insects on the planet. However, their fossil record only went back 100 million years – until now. A lump of amber has revealed a 130-million-year-old family of jewel wasps, and with it, insight into their […]

Life On Our Planet has landed on Netflix, introducing some of the biggest and beastliest creatures from the history of life. Its narrator Morgan Freeman was amazed to learn that millipedes have existed for more than 300 million years, and of all the varieties they’ve churned out in that time, the most impressive has to […]

How many close friends would you say you have? Ever wonder if that number is smaller or bigger than the average? Well, wonder no more, because new data from the Pew Research Center has you covered. They asked a panel of US adults to talk about their friendship groups, and some of the results may […]