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A pit on the moon’s surface. (Credit: NASA/Goddard/Arizona State University) Turn-of-the-century science fiction posited the existence of aliens living deep within the surface of the moon. Someday, those subterranean creatures could very well be us. New data from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has uncovered a 30-mile-long cave under the moon’s surface, likely the relic of lava flows on the surface. Though the existence of lava tubes isn’t something new, th ...read more

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Is this dog soooo in love with you, asking for another treat, or just panting from the heat and slurping up its own drool? New research suggests dogs’ facial expressions are an attempt at communicating with us. (Credit Lars Curfs/Wikimedia Commons) Hey dog owners, you’re not imagining it: Researchers think your pooch may be trying to say something with a pout or pleading eyes. Everyone who lives with dogs may be rolling their eyes right about now and saying &ldq ...read more

(Credit: Shuttershock) We’ve seen drones modeled after geckos, insects and if you’ve watched Black Mirror there’s no way you can forget the massive bee drone swarms. Now, scientists are looking to one of nature’s best fliers, the albatross, for tips to help drones fly longer distances. The albatross is one of the world’s largest living birds, with a wingspan of up to 11 feet across. It can fly hundreds of miles in just one day, while exerting ve ...read more

A daisy showing the faint blue halo that helps pollinators find their way to nectar. (Credit: Edwige Moyroud) Subtle halos on flowers function as bright blue landing pads for bees. Tiny ridges on flowers, visible only at the nanoscale, serve to reflect blue and ultraviolet light that draws in pollinators. To bees, it appears as a ring around the flower’s center, and lets them and other insects immediately differentiate between a nourishing plant and a dead end. The trait seems ...read more

(Credit: Shutterstock) Remember AlphaGo? You know, the artificial intelligence that in 2016 soundly defeated the finest players humanity could muster in the ancient Chinese strategy game of Go; thus forcing us to relinquish the last vestige of board game superiority flesh-and-blood held over machines? Remember that? Well, here’s something to chew on: Google’s AI research arm DeepMind, the same benevolent creator that spawned AlphaGo, has already rendered that gluteus maximus-spanki ...read more

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Researchers confirmed fatty tissues had been preserved in the preen gland (in box) of a 48-million-year-old bird fossil. (Credit O’Reilly et al 2017, doi:10.1098/rspb.2017.1050) It really is true: fat hangs around a long time whether you want it to or not. Okay, so we’re not talking about stubborn love handles and saddlebags, but researchers have confirmed that fatty tissues were still identifiable in the partial fossil of a 48-million-year-old bird. The new research hints ...read more

Mount Sinabung, Indonesia. (Credit: Yosh Ginsu/Unsplash) Ancient Egypt was the most powerful civilization in the world for a time. The monuments built by laborers to honor pharaohs stand to this day, testament to the vast resources at their command. But the architectural excess hid a crippling weakness. Egypt sits in the middle of a vast desert. To support a population that numbered in the millions, large-scale agriculture was vital, and for that you need water, and therefore, the Ni ...read more