News

The US Supreme Court has killed a crucial 40-year-old legal precedent that empowered federal agencies to interpret laws and to decide on the best ways to implement them. Now, if there is a dispute over ambiguous language in laws that could be addressed by deferring to agency expertise, federal judges can simply decide what it […]

A highway rest stop in Yakima, Washington, had an unusual visitor recently, with a mammal called a kinkajou (Potos flavus) – usually found in the forests of the Neotropics – being found by Interstate 82 in the Pacific Northwest state. The animal was rescued by Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife Police officers on June […]

On September 12, the Royal Observatory Greenwich will announce the winning shots of the Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition. But before the announcement, the team has shared with us a shortlist of some of the most evocative shots among the entries.  Advertisement Picking them was not easy – there were over 3,500 entries by […]

Charlotte, the celebrity stingray that was controversially declared to be pregnant despite only sharing her tank with sharks rather than males of her species, has died. Advertisement The Aquarium and Shark Lab in Hendersonville, North Carolina, announced the sad news on their social media late Sunday night while thanking fans for their “love and support.” […]

Far above the Arctic Circle, the stumps of old trees are so large they were first spotted from an aircraft, looking completely incongruous on an island where little grows, let alone great trees. A study of these trees’ nuts has offered insight into the world 45 million years ago, when the Arctic was a much […]

Chinese space company Beijing Tianbing accidentally launched a rocket during a test of its first-stage power system on Sunday. The company – also known as Space Pioneer – fired up the first-stage Tianlong-3 rocket in what was supposed to be a static test. However, due to a structural failure the rocket was launched to its […]

Large parts of the Arctic are ablaze this summer with some of the worst wildfires in recent history following a spate of unusually hot and dry weather.   Advertisement Much of the activity is flaring up in Russia’s Sakha Republic, a part of Siberia with an average yearly temperature of -7.5°C (18.5°F). Even in the […]

Have you ever wondered why male mammals don’t produce milk for their young? Well, a new mathematical model may explain it, and it has a lot to do with microbes. Advertisement The absence of male lactation in mammals has perplexed scientists for years. There is currently no universally satisfying reason why males should not produce […]

Some 3,000 meters (9,843 feet) beneath the Arctic Ocean, scientists are exploring a bubbling field of hydrothermal vents along the Knipovich Ridge near Svalbard, the northernmost settlement on Earth. Advertisement The hydrothermal vent field was recently discovered on the seafloor within the triangle between Greenland, Norway, and Svalbard on the boundary of the North American […]

In a major first for a project aiming to restore the population of wildcats in Scotland, at least two females have given birth in the wild – and the footage of their kittens is as “awwww”-inducing as you’d expect. Advertisement Last year, 19 captive-bred wildcats were released into Scotland’s Cairngorms National Park by Saving Wildcats, […]

High in the upper atmosphere, from the edge of space to well within it, there is the ionosphere. Atoms and molecules there are missing electrons, so they are electrically charged. They are influenced by what is happening nearer to the surface but also by the Sun. New observations suggest that there is more understanding to […]

Beryl, the first named hurricane of this year’s Atlantic season, has made a historic start even before it’s due to reach the Caribbean this morning and, according to officials, it seems set to continue making its mark. Advertisement While the Atlantic hurricane season runs all the way from June 1 through to November 30, the […]

Researchers have identified a plant that could survive the harsh conditions on Mars, potentially helping future humans to terraform it. Advertisement If humans ever want to set up a home elsewhere in the Solar System, Mars seems like the most viable bet, beating off the competition by not being a hell world, having a surface […]

They say to do one thing every day that scares you, but can we suggest you don’t make that holding in a sneeze? From rupturing your windpipe to puffing up your face, holding in a sneeze can be dangerous to the unlucky few. Fortunately, that whole thing about your eyes popping out of your head […]

Two sticks found in a cave in southeastern Australia show signs of processing that perfectly match curse-making practices described in the 19th century. The sticks have been dated at an estimated 11,000 and 12,000 years old, which would make this the longest period over which we have evidence for the continuation of a cultural practice […]

Researchers looking for fossilized grape seeds across Colombia, Panama, and Peru, have found seeds that are between 60 and 19 million years old – and one example is from the oldest grape ever found in the Western Hemisphere. The researchers think that the proliferation of grapes might have come as a result of the changes […]

Some countries have a bounty of animal species in one particular group: Peru and Columbia, for example, have the most butterfly species of any country. By contrast, North America has only two species of venomous lizard and only one is found in the United States – the Gila monster. Advertisement Description: The Gila monster (Heloderma […]

Something rare and highly unusual was caught on camera in Bangladesh by scientists studying bird colonies. The fishing cat that quacks like a duck is famous for its aquatic hunting skills, and yet their cameras revealed – for the first time – that they also hunt in the treetops. Advertisement What are fishing cats? Fishing […]

Outside of entomology circles, bugs aren’t generally known as a romantic or particularly charming kind of animal. There are exceptions, however: fireflies, with their eerily beautiful glow, have long captured imaginations the world over, appearing in legends and lore from as far afield as Japan, Italy, and Miranda. Advertisement But as beloved as they are, […]

Despite its name, the mammoth was not the largest Pleistocene land animal. That status goes to its relative, the straight-tusked elephant (Palaeoloxodon antiquus), which, due to weighing up to 13 tonnes, was twice the size of a modern African elephant and lived across Asia and Europe until around 100,000 years ago. Anthropologists have sought evidence that Neanderthals hunted Palaeoloxodon, maybe […]