Science

Pig-boar hybrids in Fukushima evacuation zone rewrite wild genomes

Chelsea Haney — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 01:20:52 GMT

When escaped domestic pigs bred with wild boar after the Fukushima evacuation, researchers gained a rare chance to observe large-scale hybridization. New findings show that maternally inherited rapid breeding accelerated genetic turnover, quickly diluting pig ancestry in the wild population. The result offers a novel lens on how fast-breeding traits can quietly reshape wildlife genetics.

Category: Environment, Science

Tags: Animals, Evolution, Japan

Our chins appear to be an evolutionary side effect

Chelsea Haney — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 23:47:44 GMT

Male nipples. Whale pelvic bones. Vestigial hind limbs in snakes. Evolution is full of features that look purposeful. But upon closer inspection, science tells us that they are actually by-products of development and shifting gene expression. New research suggests the human chin may be one such evolutionary spandrel, a term biologists use for a trait that emerges as a consequence of other changes rather than as a direct adaptation.

Category: Biology, Science

Tags: Evolution, Human

Researchers gene-edit the bitterness out of grapefruit

Jay Kakade — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 14:10:37 GMT

In the late 1990s, molecular biologist Yoram Eyal, and colleagues at The Volcani Center in Israel, identified the key gene and enzymes responsible for producing the bitterness compounds in grapefruit. Now, using the genome editing technology CRISPR/Cas9, the team has inactivated the gene in a type of grapefruit (Citrus paradisi) to eliminate that bitter taste.

Category: Biology, Science

Tags: CRISPR, Food technology, Fruit

Newfound giant virus holds clues to how complex life evolved

Chelsea Haney — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 12:59:00 GMT

For more than two decades, giant viruses have unsettled one of biology’s most fundamental boundaries: the line between simple viruses and complex cells. With genomes rivaling some bacteria, and gene sets that resemble those of eukaryotes (cells with membrane-bound nuclei and other internal compartments), they have forced scientists to rethink how cellular complexity may have emerged. A newly discovered giant virus now sharpens that debate, offering fresh clues about how the defining feature of most complex life, the nucleus, may have evolved.

Category: Biology, Science

Tags: Virus, Evolution, Life, Cells

Google says its upcoming data center will cool itself without water

Abhimanyu Ghoshal — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 09:33:00 GMT

Among the many problems posed by the rapid proliferation of data centers around the world is the strain on local water supplies. These facilities need plenty of water for cooling the vast arrays of servers and other computing equipment, which slow down when they run too hot.

Category: Environment, Science

Tags: Google, Data Center, Water, Cooling, Texas, Artificial Intelligence

Video: Fire tornado cleans up oil spills

Michael Franco — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 11:29:44 GMT

Oil spills in oceans can spell disaster for ecosystems, but options for mitigating them are limited and can come with their own environmental challenges. A new "fire tornado" from Texas A&M University might soon be able to come to the rescue.

Category: Environment, Science

Tags: Gulf Oil Spill, Oil, Smoke, Texas A&M Universty

The world’s oldest known vertebrates had two pairs of eyes

Jay Kakade — Tue, 17 Feb 2026 02:47:00 GMT

The earliest ancestors of all backboned animals, including humans, may have viewed the world with four eyes, not just two. The remnants of those extra eyes persist in the human brain today as the pineal organ, which is deep inside our brain, regulating our sleep cycle, but no longer forms images.

Category: Biology, Science

Tags: Evolution, Animals, Eye

Humans in space: Are astronauts obsolete?

David Szondy — Sun, 15 Feb 2026 14:03:00 GMT

The Artemis II mission, which will return US astronauts to lunar space, has run into problems that have critics demanding NASA remove the crew from the flight for safety reasons. The bigger question is, why do we have astronauts at all?

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: Mars, Moon, Orion Spacecraft, artemis, International Space Station, Apollo, Features, xxShowcase

Forests glow under UV light, and deer can see it

Jay Kakade — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 02:03:00 GMT

When a predator like a lion walks through the grasslands, it makes its presence known by roaring, which can be heard miles away. Since the lion is at the top of the food chain, it doesn’t particularly require privacy. But for animals like deer, making loud sounds isn’t exactly the safest way to communicate. So, to get noticed, deer mark areas with rubs and scrapes, known as signposts. Now, a new study in Ecology and Evolution reports that these signposts hold a hidden glow, and other deer can see it.

Category: Biology, Science

Tags: Bioluminescence, Deer, Forest, Communications

New technique targets 'sweet spot' to destroy bacteria

Michael Franco — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 00:03:00 GMT

In the front lines of combat between scientists and bacteria, there's a notorious group of bugs that belong to a nefarious organization known as ESKAPE. These bacteria are particularly good at evading the effects of antibiotics, making them a major cause of hard-to-treat infections, often transmitted during hospital stays. The acronym that classifies them consists of the first letters of the six bacteria that belong to the group: Enterococcus faecium, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Acinetobacter baumannii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Enterobacter species.

Category: Biology, Science

Tags: Antibiotic-resistant bacteria, Bacteria, Infections, Immunotherapy, University of Melbourne

8,000-year-old pottery suggests math predates writing

Jay Kakade — Sun, 08 Feb 2026 00:03:00 GMT

We generally associate the origins of mathematical thinking with the emergence of writing, about five to six thousand years ago. However, a new study challenges this assumption looking at floral designs found on the painted pottery sherds from the Halafian sites across northern Mesopotamia, dating back 8000 years.

Category: Archaeology, Science

Tags: Mathematics, Archeology, Evolution, Art

Plants that touch each other are more resilient to stress

Jay Kakade — Sat, 07 Feb 2026 11:03:00 GMT

New research has found when plant leaves physically touch each other, they seem to form a biological signalling network to warn each other about the upcoming stress. This can boost their resilience to withstand intense light, which is a common environmental challenge.

Category: Biology, Science

Tags: Plants, Stress, Communications, Evolution

Wood polymer gives thermal paper an eco-friendly makeover

Maryna Holovnova — Sun, 01 Feb 2026 03:03:00 GMT

Scientists have already learned how to make helmets, batteries, and even sports cars from wood, so applying it to something like thermal paper might not sound that exciting. Yet it could actually affect our lives far more than we realize.

Category: Environment, Science

Tags: EPFL, Paper, Wood

CERN supercollider gets sustainable side hustle heating local homes

David Szondy — Sat, 31 Jan 2026 00:03:00 GMT

Okay, CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) might have uncovered the Higgs boson and helped redefine our concept of physical reality, but what has it done for us lately? How about a side hustle heating several thousand homes in the neighborhood?

Category: Environment, Science

Tags: CERN, Particle accelerator, Heating, Sustainability

New system turns smartphones into radiation detectors

Michael Franco — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 13:07:29 GMT

Researchers at Hiroshima University (HU) in Japan have developed a way to leverage the cameras on smartphones to provide accurate radiation readings. The system they created costs less than US$70 and could be a big help in disaster situations.

Category: Science

Tags: Radiation, smartphones, Nuclear, Hiroshima University

Swingers and long-game players: The wild sex lives of beluga whales

Bronwyn Thompson — Sun, 25 Jan 2026 11:02:00 GMT

For the first time, we know more than we ever expected to know about the sex lives of the majestic beluga whale. It's complicated, to say the least, but it also shows just how strategic nature is at keeping an isolated group of animals alive.

Category: Biology, Science

Tags: Florida Atlantic University, Whale, Marine Biology, Animal science, Evolution, Reproduction, Conservation

Jellyfish sleep just like us, and even take midday naps

Jay Kakade — Sun, 25 Jan 2026 07:34:00 GMT

Turns out jellyfish and sea anemones – among the ancient creatures with a nervous system instead of a brain – have a very similar sleeping routine to our own. A new study published in Nature Communications reveals that these animals not only sleep but do so for the same portion of their day as humans, spending about one-third of the day sleeping. The findings also suggest that sleep evolved long before the brain to help maintain cells under stress.

Category: Biology, Science

Tags: jellyfish, Evolution, Sleep, Ocean

You can now make fish-free omega-3s from whisky waste

Shirl Leigh — Fri, 23 Jan 2026 16:26:00 GMT

Omega-3 fatty acids sourced from wild-caught fish stocks are valued for their studied health benefits such as healthy skin, joints, heart and brain function along with enhanced immunity, but this has resulted in a reduction in fish stocks globally. A Scottish firm is working on a solution, in the form of omega-3s made from whisky waste.

Category: Environment, Science

Tags: Omega Garden Technology, Fish, Whisky, Conservation, Algae

Undersea earthquakes are supercharging the Southern Ocean

Chelsea Haney — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 11:27:00 GMT

Each year, vast blooms of phytoplankton spread across the Southern Ocean, drawing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and fueling Antarctica’s marine food web. For decades, scientists have attributed these pulses of life to familiar forces – sunlight, winds, and ocean circulation. But new research suggests another, far less visible driver may be at work: earthquakes beneath the seafloor, whose activity may be influencing ocean surface conditions.

Category: Environment, Science

Tags: Ocean, Earthquake, Geology, Minerals, Marine Biology

Forestry-waste pine bark could be used to pull antibiotics out of wastewater

Ben Coxworth — Wed, 21 Jan 2026 20:00:00 GMT

It's a sad fact that antibiotics are constantly entering the environment through the wastewater stream, boosting the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. There could soon be a cheap new way of removing those antibiotics from the water, however, using plentiful pine bark.

Category: Environment, Science

Tags: Antibiotic-resistant bacteria, Wastewater, University of Oulu, Wood

Could glowing green skin be an alternative to blood sampling?

Ben Coxworth — Wed, 14 Jan 2026 21:47:44 GMT

Blood sampling is painful and invasive, plus it only tells you what's going on in the patient's body right when the sample is taken. So, how about this? Permanent skin grafts that glow green when specific biomarker chemicals are present in the bloodstream.

Category: Science

Tags: Skin, University of Tokyo, Stem Cells

Don't like ice ages? Blame Mars

David Szondy — Wed, 14 Jan 2026 05:33:00 GMT

Why did the ice ages occur? If you need a scapegoat, a new study by Stephen Kane of UC Riverside suggests pointing the finger at Mars. According to computer models, the pull of the Red Planet may have altered the Earth's orbit until things got nippy.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: Climate, Mars, UC Riverside, Weather, Ice, Astronomy

This animal's armor has upended a key law of evolution

Bronwyn Thompson — Tue, 13 Jan 2026 13:03:00 GMT

For more than a century, biologists assumed that the bony plates embedded in the skin of lizards – like natural chain mail – were an ancient feature that some lineages inherited and others later lost. But new evidence suggests this is completely wrong.

Category: Biology, Science

Tags: Museum, Evolution, Bones, Australia, Animal science, Animals, Environment

COVID lockdowns changed the beak shape of these city birds

Chelsea Haney — Sun, 11 Jan 2026 11:03:00 GMT

When COVID-19 lockdowns emptied city streets, urban environments changed almost overnight. New research suggests that Los Angeles city birds responded just as quickly, with measurable shifts in beak shape during this period. The changes coincided with altered food availability and reduced human activity, offering a rare opportunity to examine how human behavior can rapidly shape biological traits in urban wildlife.

Category: Biology, Science

Tags: Birds, Evolution, Coronavirus (COVID-19), UCLA, Complutense University of Madrid, University of Granada, lockdown

Spray-on armor for plants offers a new tool for global food security

Malcolm Azania — Sun, 11 Jan 2026 07:03:00 GMT

There is, as the United Nations notes, a global food crisis in 68 countries, with 318 million people facing acute hunger. Fortunately, some researchers in the US are turning their attention to finding ways to give plants a fighting chance against drought and disease.

Category: Science

Tags: UC San Diego, Plants, Crops, Agriculture, Antibacterial

Super-smart, eavesdropping dogs pick up new words like human toddlers

Michael Franco — Fri, 09 Jan 2026 12:03:00 GMT

Spelling F-O-O-D or O-U-T might only get you so far around your dog if he or she is considered a Gifted Word Learner (GWL). Researchers have just figured out that even when you're not talking to them directly, they're still acquiring new terms.

Category: Science

Tags: Dogs, Animals, Learning, Language, Eötvös Loránd University

Earth built a nuclear reactor two billion years before we did

Bronwyn Thompson — Fri, 09 Jan 2026 05:03:00 GMT

Two billion years before we made history and split the atom, the Earth had already accomplished it and was running its own nuclear reactors. And they operated for hundreds of thousands of years, as the first signs of multicellular life emerged.

Category: Environment, Science

Tags: Nuclear Fission, Atoms, Africa, Mining, Uranium, Nuclear, Geology, Natural compounds

Mysterious human-like creatures shared island cave with humans

Michael Franco — Thu, 08 Jan 2026 15:37:50 GMT

A 26-ft (8-m) deep excavation in Indonesia has revealed that humans and a hominin species that pre-dates humans used the same cave. The enticing possibility even exists that both species overlapped, sharing the space at the same time.

Category: Archaeology, Science

Tags: Archeology, Fossils, Tools, Griffith University, Evolution

World’s most powerful hypergravity machine is 1,900X stronger than Earth

Bronwyn Thompson — Thu, 08 Jan 2026 04:02:00 GMT

China has eclipsed its own – and the US – record, building a monster underground hypergravity centrifuge that can model scenarios with 1,900 times the real-world gravitational force of Earth, bending space and time with unprecedented power.

Category: Science

Tags: Gravity, China, Zhejiang University, Engineering

Extreme drilling unearths secrets of disappearing ice dome

Michael Franco — Wed, 07 Jan 2026 17:39:49 GMT

In northwestern Greenland, researchers working on the GreenDrill project have cored through a 500-meter-thick ice dome. They found something startling: the dome completely disappeared 7,000 years ago. And it might do it again.

Category: Environment, Science

Tags: Greenland, Ice, glacier, Climate Crisis, Warming, University at Buffalo, Columbia University

'Microneedling' of plants could boost growth and reduce fertilizer waste

Malcolm Azania — Sun, 04 Jan 2026 19:00:00 GMT

If you’re a gardener – and definitely if you’re a farmer – you want to spend less on fertilizer but while growing more food. Well, it’s time to send your thank-you basket of fruits and vegetables to researchers at the National University of Singapore, because they’ve created a magic wand for doing just that. Well, actually, a magic needle.

Category: Science

Tags: National University of Singapore, Microneedles, Plants, Agriculture, Crops

The mystery of Japan’s underwater 'crop circles' has a romantic twist

Bronwyn Thompson — Sat, 03 Jan 2026 13:13:37 GMT

In 1995, divers first noticed a group of bizarre sandy "crop circles" on the seabed around Amami Oshima Island, southwest Japan. But it took decades for scientists to identify the marine artists behind them – and why they were building such geometrically precise structures every year.

Category: Environment, Science

Tags: Fish, Marine Biology, Nest, nature, Reproduction, Animal science

Neanderthals weren’t picky meat eaters – they munched on maggots, too

Jay Kakade — Thu, 01 Jan 2026 05:21:00 GMT

Using chemical clues from Neanderthal bones, researchers have placed the species at the top of the food chain, alongside apex predators like lions – feasting on big animals such as mammoths or bison. However, experts have been missing out on one of their key, fat-rich, and easily collectible food sources: Maggots.

Category: Archaeology, Science

Tags: Neanderthal, Diet, Protein, Purdue University, Red meat

Neanderthals were actually making fire 400,000 years ago

Jay Kakade — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 04:03:00 GMT

The ability to make fire on demand has long been seen as a turning point in our evolutionary story. It unlocked benefits like cooking food, staying warm, and protection from predators. For thousands of years, our ancestors progressed from scavenging flames around wildfires to tending them and, eventually, sparking them deliberately.

Category: Archaeology, Science

Tags: Fire, Archeology, Neanderthal, British Museum, History, Evolution

The year that changed how we see the world around us

Bronwyn Thompson — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 00:03:00 GMT

It's that time of year again – and my personal favorite corner of science to look back on – when we recap the many fascinating discoveries in the plant and animal kingdom that made headlines in 2025.

Category: Biology, Science

Tags: Wildlife, Best of 2025, Animal science, Behavior, Genetics, Evolution, Conservation, Spiders, Ants, Snakes, orca, Birds, Plants

The 'Hell-Plant' of Death Valley offers hope to a hotter world

Malcolm Azania — Mon, 29 Dec 2025 17:30:00 GMT

We humans are a delicate bunch. We don’t have bark, boney exo-plates, or lush fur to protect us from hostile environments, so we have to steal what other creatures produce just to survive in regions around the only planet that supports us. A few naked days in Earth’s hottest deserts would be more than enough to kill nearly all of us.

Category: Environment, Science

Tags: Climate Crisis, Michigan State University, Plants, Agriculture, Crops

Bio-mimicry? Try 'beaver-mimicry' dams to offset climate chaos

Malcolm Azania — Sun, 28 Dec 2025 18:00:00 GMT

The descendants of black-bear-sized giants who could haul massive rocks with their mouths, modern Castor canadensis once numbered as many as 400 million in North America. Felling mighty trees with their orange, iron-infused, nearly invincible incisors, they created their terraforming, hydro-engineering, half-submerged eco-homes based on blueprints stored in their DNA. Now, thanks to merciless fur-hunting by humans, their population has plummeted by 97.5%.

Category: Environment, Science

Tags: Washington State University, Ecology, Environment, Water Conservation, Biomimicry

Ancient coffins clinging to cliffs are no longer a mystery

Bronwyn Thompson — Sun, 28 Dec 2025 06:03:00 GMT

High on the sheer limestone cliffs in southwest China, ancient wooden coffins remain wedged into rock faces hundreds of feet above the ground. Long treated as archaeological curiosities, these dramatic burials are now being re-examined using ancient DNA, and they point to a broader practice where separate cultures across Asia all paid their respects to the dead at similar "sky graveyards."

Category: Environment, Science

Tags: Chinese Academy of Sciences, Max Planck Institute, China, History, Deaths, Genetics, xxViral or high CTR

Digging up the past: Important dinosaur discoveries of the year

Bronwyn Thompson — Fri, 26 Dec 2025 03:03:00 GMT

Dinosaurs may be long extinct, but 2025 made it abundantly clear that they’re anything but settled science. Over the past year, new fossils, reanalyses of famous specimens and the use of increasingly sophisticated tools have continued to upend what we thought we knew about how these animals lived, moved, fed and evolved.

Category: Biology, Science

Tags: Dinosaurs, Paleontology, Archeology, Bones, Historic, Extinction, Evolution, Best of 2025, Animal science

Watch: World's biggest snowman dwarfs city in northeastern China

Bronwyn Thompson — Thu, 25 Dec 2025 03:03:00 GMT

If you're chionoandrophobic, we recommend looking away now. Standing about 62 ft (19 m) tall, measuring roughly 46 ft (14 m) long and 36 ft (11 m) wide, 2025's largest snowman has been erected in northeast China. The smiling icy monster required some 124,000 cubic feet (3,500 cubic meters) of snow, and has already become a big tourist attraction in the city of Harbin.

Category: Environment, Science

Tags: China, Snow, Winter, Construction

Advancing with animals: Standout biomimicry of 2025

Bronwyn Thompson — Thu, 25 Dec 2025 00:03:00 GMT

From water-skipping robots to elephant-skin inspired cooling materials, engineers have continued to find inspiration in nature in order to move technology forward for humans.

Category: Science

Tags: Engineering, Biomimicry, Animal science, Green+Technology, Robotic construction, Robot, nature, sustainable design

Record-breaking drilling expedition solves massive earthquake mystery

Michael Franco — Tue, 23 Dec 2025 12:44:14 GMT

Since 2011, scientists have been puzzled about the force resulting from a gigantic earthquake and tsunami that destroyed, among other things, Japan's Fukushima Nuclear Plant. Now, a Guinness World Record drilling expedition has solved the puzzle.

Category: Environment, Science

Tags: Earthquake, Seismic, Tsunami, Japan, Fukushima, Cornell

5,200 holes carved into a Peruvian mountain left by an ancient economy

Bronwyn Thompson — Sun, 21 Dec 2025 17:03:00 GMT

For nearly a century, a strange band of thousands of holes carved into a Peruvian hillside has defied explanation. Stretching for nearly a mile (1.5 km) along the edge of the Pisco Valley, Monte Sierpe – "serpent mountain" appears to be a deliberate, repetitive and almost mathematical feature – but its real purpose has so far eluded scientists.

Category: Environment, Science

Tags: University of Sydney, Market, Agriculture, Mountain, Archeology, Farming, Mathematics, xxViral or high CTR

These spiders create doppelgängers to deter predators

Chelsea Haney — Sun, 21 Dec 2025 12:03:00 GMT

Step aside, Van Gogh. Some spiders are out here making self-portraits for survival. New research shows that several orb-weaving species construct giant web-mounted “doppelgängers” convincing enough to confuse potential predators. It’s an unexpectedly clever form of deception that blurs the line between instinct and ingenuity.

Category: Biology, Science

Tags: Spiders, Art, Predator, Evolution

No DNA evidence at crime scene? Protein analysis comes to the rescue

Abhimanyu Ghoshal — Sat, 20 Dec 2025 19:03:00 GMT

Your next favorite true crime podcast might have some new forensics jargon to make sense of. Researchers in Australia have developed a new way to identify humans – similar to how we do with DNA and dental records – that could come in handy while investigating crimes.

Category: Science

Tags: Forensics, Protein, Hair, Edith Cowan University, Crime, DNA, Identification

Leaf-scan tells farmers when fruit is ripe – without destroying it

Ben Coxworth — Sat, 20 Dec 2025 09:03:00 GMT

It's ironic … in order for farmers to know if their fruit is ripe, they regularly have to pick and analyze pieces of that fruit, reducing their yields. Utilizing a new technique, however, they could soon leave all the fruit intact, analyzing the leaves beside it instead.

Category: Science

Tags: Agriculture, Crops, Plants, Fruit, Food technology

Saturnian moon may be the solar system's biggest slushie

David Szondy — Fri, 19 Dec 2025 03:23:35 GMT

According to a NASA study, Saturn's moon Titan may be the most fantastically large slushie of all time. Based on a reexamination of data from the Cassini probe collected in 2012, the moon's long-suspected global ocean may actually be a slurry of ice and rock.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: Cassini, Saturn, Titan

Discarded mussel shells may be diverted from landfills – to sandblast jeans

Ben Coxworth — Thu, 18 Dec 2025 18:28:33 GMT

The tons of discarded mussel shells generated by the seafood industry may be organic, but they're still very slow to biodegrade in landfills. They may soon find new life, however, sandblasting jeans in the textile industry.

Category: Environment, Science

Tags: University of the Basque Country, MIT, Textile, Recycling, Waste

Airless wheel can change shape and drive through fire

Abhimanyu Ghoshal — Wed, 17 Dec 2025 19:01:00 GMT

Sending a rover into space to explore other celestial bodies comes with a dizzying array of challenges, and one of the most complex is ensuring the vehicle doesn't break down out there.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: Space exploration, Moon, Rover, Wheel, KAIST

Mystery behind the collapse of the ancient Harappan empire finally solved

Jay Kakade — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 02:03:00 GMT

The culprit behind the mysterious disappearance of one of the most advanced urban civilizations at the time, contemporaries to Mesopotamians and Egyptians, has finally been identified: a series of severe, long-lasting droughts that dried rivers across the Indus Valley more than 4,000 years ago.

Category: Archaeology, Science

Tags: Archaeology, Weather, Evolution, Egypt

Most radioactive site in US is moving on from the Manhattan Project

Chelsea Haney — Sun, 14 Dec 2025 14:03:00 GMT

A nuclear production facility in Washington state, called the Hanford site, once forged the plutonium that reshaped the world. Now it’s forging glass; a quiet act of undoing at one of Earth’s most contaminated sites.

Category: Environment, Science

Tags: Nuclear, Nuclear weapons, Pollution, Waste, xxShowcase

First-ever footage: Orcas use dolphins as 'radar-equipped scouts'

Michael Franco — Fri, 12 Dec 2025 14:57:00 GMT

For the first time ever, a unique cooperative hunting arrangement between dolphins and orcas has been documented. Researchers believe killer whales find salmon by tailing dolphins, who in turn benefit from bite-sized fish pieces.

Category: Biology, Science

Tags: orca, Whale, Dolphin, Predator, Marine Biology, Dalhousie University

Trees hold the secret to the deadly plague that ripped through Europe

Bronwyn Thompson — Fri, 12 Dec 2025 06:32:00 GMT

Hidden inside the narrow growth rings of Pyrenees trees lies the strongest evidence yet for what set the Black Death in motion. For the first time, researchers have combined high-resolution climate reconstructions with medieval records to draw a direct connection between a sudden climatic shock and the arrival of the plague in Europe, where it killed tens of millions between 1347 and 1353.

Category: Biology, Science

Tags: pandemic, University of Cambridge, Tree, volcano, Climate Crisis, Europe, Infections, Bacteria, Disease

Armenia’s ancient 'dragon stones' are the work of a 6,000-year-old water cult

Bronwyn Thompson — Fri, 12 Dec 2025 04:17:00 GMT

Archeologists say they have finally cracked the 6,000-year-old mystery of Armenia’s “dragon stones" – massive carved monoliths scattered across high-altitude volcanic slopes and pastures where no ancient settlements ever existed.

Category: Archaeology, Science

Tags: Archeology, Stonehenge, Religion, Water, Europe, Geography, Environment

Ancient innovation: Neanderthals put a lot of thought into their crayons

Jay Kakade — Thu, 11 Dec 2025 00:03:00 GMT

The expression of symbolic behavior, such as drawing, dates back to Paleolithic societies. Alongside modern humans (Homo sapiens), we now know that Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) also engaged in abstract behavior.

Category: Archaeology, Science

Tags: Archaeology, Evolution, Art

'Healthy chocolate' can now taste like the real thing

Shirl Leigh — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 21:19:07 GMT

Over the past few years, chocolate fans may have noticed a concerning change in the taste and texture of their favorite brands, due to confectioners adjusting their recipes in response to global cocoa shortages and sky-high prices.

Category: Science

Tags: National University of Singapore, Chocolate, Food

Your pet dog, even the chihuahua, may still carry wolf genes

Jay Kakade — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 01:11:22 GMT

Most pet dogs carry a little wolf inside them; tiny snippets of wolf DNA that slipped into dog genomes after domestication. A new study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has found that almost two-thirds of dog breeds have a small amount of wolf genes, which may have provided them with unique advantages to survive in diverse human environments.

Category: Biology, Science

Tags: Pets, Dogs, Genetics, DNA, Evolution

How much faster you'd 'age' on Mars – relatively speaking

David Szondy — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 03:39:34 GMT

If you're going to Mars you'd best take along a jar of anti-aging cream because while you're there you're going to age faster than on Earth thanks to the Theory of Relativity. It's only 477 millionths of a second per day, but that tends to add up.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: relativity, Time, NIST, GPS

Positivity spreads like a contagion among bumblebees

Chelsea Haney — Sun, 07 Dec 2025 20:03:00 GMT

Bumblebees have a way of looking both adorable and slightly overserved, wobbling from flower to flower like fuzzy little potatoes. They seem simple, almost carefree. But a new study suggests there’s far more happening beneath those tiny wings than meets the eye – and something that few people ever associate with bees.

Category: Biology, Science

Tags: Bees, Communications, Insect, Southern Medical University, Animal science, Behavior, Animals

Bunnies on a trampoline? How this 'harmless fun' is creating a huge issue

Chelsea Haney — Sun, 07 Dec 2025 12:03:00 GMT

In recent months, AI-generated wildlife clips have flooded social media, merging real animal behavior with playful fabrications. From leopards in backyards and raccoons riding crocodiles, to bunnies on trampolines, scientists warn that these digital deepfakes are distorting people’s sense of what the natural world looks like. And when people cannot distinguish real wildlife from digital fiction, conservation loses something essential: A public that understands what is really at stake.

Category: Biology, Science

Tags: AI Art and Music, Conservation, Animals, Ecosystem, University of Cordoba, Wildlife, Animal science