Your Daily Science News Source from Around the Globe
The strength and direction of Earth’s magnetic field has changed a lot over the millennia. Scientists are eager to study its past patterns to work out how the field might…
“Mamama,” “dadada,” “bababa” – parents usually welcome with enthusiasm the sounds of a baby’s babble. Babbling is the first milestone when learning to speak. All typically developing infants babble, no…
Australia’s oceans are home to a startling array of biodiversity – whales, dolphins, dugongs, and more. But not all components of Aussie marine life are the charismatic sort of animal…
We know that Earth’s magnetic field is always shifting in its direction and its strength. Just how quickly these changes are happening is of great interest, considering this planetary feature…
Towering beneath sparkling waters off the coast of Australia’s Palm Islands is an ancient coral community that predates the European settlement of its neighboring continent. This giant coral community has…
Early on their quest to reach the Lonely Mountain in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit (1937), Bilbo Baggins and company cross paths with an enormous, shape-shifting warrior named Beorn. “Sometimes he…
Human activity has shrunk the size of wild animals the world over, and yet recent research has found many mammals living near cities have become steadily larger, both in length…
Can you remember what you had for dinner last Tuesday? Or on this day last year? It turns out that cuttlefish can, right up to old age – the first…
Sometime around 3.5 billion years ago, life on Earth was ignited into existence from molecular beginnings, and branched through time into the spectacular array of entities we know and love…
A huge horde of mixed animal bones, including the remains of humans, has been found in an ancient lava tube in Saudi Arabia. The hollowed cave, called Umm Jirsan, is…
Three volcanoes in the Alaskan chain of Aleutian islands are currently erupting, and two others are rumbling with disquiet. According to a report by NBC, it’s been at least seven…
The main types of dog coats we see today have been around since the earliest days of domestication, according to new research. Some patterns might even outdate wolves themselves. Until…
Fruit bats might not have the greatest eyesight, but they know a good smell when they sniff one. Even in the dark of night, the olfactory receptors in their brains…
People in New Zealand have cut down so many trees, some native insects are losing their wings. In the space of 750 years, humans have changed the natural landscape of…
About 3,500 feet under the South Pacific sits a piece of land 2 million square miles in size – about half as big as Australia. But scientists can’t agree on…
East-facing sunflowers are happier, healthier, and more productive than those that face other directions – and it’s all down to the warmth of the morning Sun. That’s the conclusion drawn…
When plants first ventured onto the land, evolving from freshwater-dwelling algae, more than 500 million years ago, they transformed the planet. By drawing carbon dioxide from the air, they cooled…
Legends of the last ice age, woolly mammoths played a pivotal ecological role in the grassy tundra they once roamed. So much so, that scientists have even proposed resurrecting them…
A dead jellyfish that recently washed up on a beach in the UK shows off its last meal – a whole, and rather surprised-looking, fish – through its translucent belly,…
Unlike numerous other animals, cats show a strange unwillingness to work for their food. When given the choice between a freely available meal and a meal trapped inside a puzzle,…
When humans interact with each other, we tend to follow invisible rules. We may greet each other with ‘hi, how are you?’ to indicate the start of a conversation; once…
Mount Etna’s southeastern crater has grown in height after six months of activity, Italy’s volcano monitoring agency said Tuesday, making Europe’s tallest active volcano taller than ever. The famous volcano’s…
The specter of terrifying volcanic eruptions is emblazoned in our imaginations from childhood: an earth-shattering explosion, followed by gushing bursts of lava and billowing smoke. The dangers of large-scale volcanic…
In 1895, on turning 50, Elie Metchnikoff became increasingly anxious about aging. As a result, the Russian Nobel prize-winning scientist, and one of the founders of immunology, turned his attention…
In the wetlands of the west coast of North America – from Alaska to California – there lives a herb-like plant that has just been discovered to have the occasional…
With a seven-meter wingspan, and a mouth bristling with fangs, a newly discovered pterosaur would have ruled the skies over Australia’s northeast around 110 million years ago. It’s the largest…
Slathering yourself in deadly poison is a great way to discourage predators from trifling with you and your cousins. There is, however, one massive flaw in this genius plan –…
Through a process known as RNA interference (RNAi), scientists have been able to modify the genetic make-up of the daddy long-legs arachnid so that its distinctive spindly limbs become twice…
A nearly 28,000-year-old cave lion cub, discovered frozen in the Siberian permafrost, is so well preserved, you can still make out each and every one of her whiskers. Researchers in…
Plants thirst for water, just as we animals do, but exactly how they slurp it through their tissues has remained a bit of a mystery as attempting to see it…
Some types of bacteria are hardy enough to survive in the most inhospitable of conditions – and that includes concrete, as a new study proves. Not only can microbes survive…
The Earth is rumbling beneath Yellowstone National Park again, with swarms of more than 1,000 earthquakes recorded in the region in July 2021, according to a new US Geological Survey…
A long-lost piece of Stonehenge that was taken by a man performing restoration work on the monument has been returned after 60 years, giving scientists a chance to peer inside…
The strange-looking caecilians are limbless, worm-like amphibians that have been around for hundreds of millions of years, but they’ve never been found in the wild in the US – until…
Emperor penguins thrive on Antarctica’s coastlines in icy conditions any human would find extreme. Yet, like Goldilocks, they have a narrow comfort zone: If there’s too much sea ice, trips…
Despite their magnificent towering presence, giraffes have somehow managed to keep their social behavior largely under the scientific radar. As it now turns out, we humans have deeply misunderstood these…
Chipmunks in the South Lake Tahoe area have tested positive for plague, prompting officials to close several spots in the vicinity, according to news reports. Officials announced this week that…
Ever since its formation around 4.5 billion years ago, Earth’s rotation has been gradually slowing down, and its days gotten progressively longer as a result. While Earth’s slowdown is not…
Birds’ nests are snug little places: safe, warm, and lined with soft materials to keep the vulnerable babies comfortable and protected. For the tufted titmouse (Baeolophus bicolor) and its closest…
The ocean is vast, and deep, and dark, and inhospitable to us feeble land-dwelling creatures. There’s much that remains unknown or poorly understood in its roiling, seething belly. Technology is…
Paleontologists have uncovered an enormous fossil graveyard of squiggly, alien-like Jurassic sea creatures beneath a limestone quarry in the UK’s Cotswolds region. The fossil find includes perhaps tens of thousands…
Iceland may be the last exposed remnant of a nearly Texas-size continent – called Icelandia – that sank beneath the North Atlantic Ocean about 10 million years ago, according to…
Within the remains of 890-million-year-old microbial reefs – a world that was dominated by bacteria and algae – lie possible signs of multicellular animal life, 90 million years before there…
The jawbone of a bat that lived 100,000 years ago has been confirmed as belonging to an extinct species of giant vampire bat. The discovery of the jawbone of the…
Charles Darwin famously discussed the “imperfections” of the geological record in his book On The Origin of Species. He correctly pointed out that unless conditions are just right, it’s unlikely…