Around a decade ago, an astonishing assortment of hominin bones was discovered in the depths of South Africa's Rising Star Cave. Within two years of the discovery, researchers had determined that the bones represented a new species, which they named Homo naledi. Short, stout and small-brained, the species trampled through South Africa between 335,000 and 241,000 years ago and behaved brutishly.Well, that's what most paleoarchaeologists and paleoanthropologists who read about the discovery assume ...read more

Popular among dinosaur lovers and Jurassic Park fans alike, Spinosaurus was once a mighty predator of the Late Cretaceous Period. The dinosaur's long, paddle-like tail likely helped propel it through the water and its crocodile-like snout made it apt at hunting fish. Most notably, it had a large sail on its back. The debate on whether or not this dino used its sail for swimming is still ongoing.  The story behind the first discovered Spinosaurus fossils is almost as interesting as an ...read more

When Jules Verne published Journey to the Center of the Earth in 1864, multiple unsubstantiated hollow Earth theories were alive and well, speculating about what might exist deep beneath our feet.That’s because, by many measures, we know less about Earth’s interior than we know about outer space. Still, we can confidently say it is dense and made up of multiple compact layers that humans have failed to reach, despite multiple attempts.Various operations have set out to drill the deepest hole ...read more

The brightest outpourings of energy in the universe are gamma ray bursts. They are typically born as stars or other objects collapse into black holes and send out blasts of high-energy photons billions of light years across the universe.Most commonly, the collapsing objects are massive stars that have burned through their nuclear fuel and imploded, causing gamma rays to shoot out in opposing directions.But the universe has other tricks up its sleeve, according to a new paper. For the first time, ...read more

Dogs are still the most popular pet in the U.S. (sorry, cats) and only getting more popular. Just last year, the percentage of homes with at least one dog rose to nearly 45 percent, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association.For many of these first-time pup parents, smaller breeds may seem the easier or safer option. But looks can be deceiving. According to numerous studies over the past two decades, certain pint-sized breeds are stubborn as mules and prone to barking, biting, sna ...read more

All the stars in our galaxy are moving relative to one another, usually at speeds no more than about 100 kilometers per second. Some stars move much faster, and a few have huge velocities, of the order of 1000 kilometers per second. These hypervelocity stars have an interesting history. Astronomers believe these stars probably started life as one half of a binary system with one star then being captured by the powerful gravitational field of the supermassive black hole at the center of our galax ...read more

Old Billy was a draft horse, probably a Shire, who lived and worked in England in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. He was 62 years old when he died. In those days, that was a pretty advanced age for a human; for a horse, it was remarkable. It's thought that Old Billy is the longest-lived horse on record.How Long Do Horses Live?On average, domesticated horses live 25 to 30 years. Ponies tend to live even longer. (Horses in the wild typically make it only to about 15 years old ...read more

Did you know? Your camera (or smartphone) is a fantastic tool you can use to help scientists better understand the world and answer big questions affecting us and our planet.Next time you’re taking a walk, visiting a local park, heading out on an outdoor adventure or even just exploring your own basement, you can aid REAL scientific research by photographing plants, animals, fungi and more!Need help getting started? Watch the recording of our June 20 SciStarter LIVE! event: Photography 101: H ...read more

A raccoon-sized bear that lived a short and painful life some 32 million years ago has suddenly risen to prominence thanks to a new paper that has declared it a new species, Eoarctos vorax. The so-called “dawn bear the voracious eater” helps to establish North America as an important venue for the evolution of early bears, a process scientists have largely relegated to Europe.Paleontologists first unearthed the skeleton in 1982 from the Fitterer Ranch site in southwestern North Dakota, but p ...read more

Imagine a future in which humans have built advanced spacecraft, capable of traveling at a significant percentage of the speed of light. Scientists have also become aware of a large black hole in our galactic neighborhood — now well within our reach.When a team of researchers assemble to travel to the black hole, one curious question might rise above all others: “What would happen if we flew straight into it?”For now, this hypothetical scenario is still a long way off. Yet for as long as w ...read more