Natural disasters, such as tornados, hurricanes, earthquakes, fires, floods and volcanic eruptions, have caused devastating effects. However, human-caused disasters can have equally devastating impacts on the lives of countless people. Here are five of the biggest human-caused disasters to occur in modern history. 1. Chernobyl Disaster(Credit:JoRanky/Shutterstock)In 1986, an explosion at the Number 4 nuclear reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant released massive amounts of radioactive ...read more

Who was this girl, and why was her burial so special?Those are the questions archaeologist Hala Alarashi and her colleagues ask in a new paper published in PLOSONE that details the burial of an 8-year-old girl in an ancient Jordanian town sometime between 7,400 and 6,800 B.C. Interred with her bones in the village of Ba‘ja, they found the piecemeal remains of some sort of intricate jewelry that had no precedent at this point in neolithic history.“The making of the necklace appears to have in ...read more

Click-clack, click-clack! It’s a sound that many of us may have heard whenever our dogs walk or run across any surface that isn’t carpeted. If you have hardwood, your first thought might be, I hope he didn’t scratch my floors! But instead of worrying about that, maybe your first thought should be, is it time to clip my dog’s nails?The answer is probably yes. For many dogs, when their claws are so long that you can hear them tap-tap-tapping across any hard surface in the house, it’s oft ...read more

The Science Near Me blog is a partnership between Discover magazine and ScienceNearMe.org.Summer’s not over yet! Though many families are already wrapping up summer road trips and looking toward the beginning of another school year, there’s still ample time for curious people — of any age — to squeeze in some more summer fun (and learning) before temperatures drop.With Science Near Me, a free resource that gathers STEM opportunities from around the country, you can browse science-based a ...read more

Freshwater dolphins are some of the most unique mammals on the planet. Like bats, the dolphins use echolocation to forage for prey in the cloudy waters of the Orinoco and Amazon River basins. Now, researchers are using their clicks, buzzes and squeaks to monitor the species' movement within its habitat.Read More: River Dolphins Are Truly Unique and DisappearingWhat's Happening to the Freshwater Dolphin?A new study published in Scientific Reports looked at two different species of freshwater dolp ...read more

This story was originally published in our Sept/Oct 2023 issue as "Effective Altruism Goes Viral" Click here to subscribe to read more stories like this one.Paresh Patel used to be afraid of needles. Then he volunteered to catch COVID-19. When an email arrived with news that scientists at the University of Oxford in the U.K. were looking for volunteers willing to be infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus, Patel signed up. He had already caught and survived COVID in October 2020. Other than losing ...read more

Considered one of the world’s smallest butterflies and the tiniest in North America, the Western pygmy-blue (Brephidium exilis) has a wingspan between 1.2 and 2 centimeters and can easily rest on a fingernail. Other butterflies under the Polyommatinae subfamily, also known as blues or gossamer-winged butterflies, may be smaller. Some researchers even argue that some species of moth are even tinier.But despite the Western pygmy blue’s teeny size, it is resilient and can thrive in areas not no ...read more

Inbreeding is not just something that happens among animals held in captivity. It can also happen to endangered populations in the wild, as is the case with the highly threatened Florida panther. Only about 200 live in the wild, a vanishingly narrow gene pool.As a result, the panthers often suffer from misshapen tails, heart defects, undescended testicles and joint disease.According to a new study, endangered panthers share the ailment of joint disease with dire wolves (Aenocyon dirus) and sabre ...read more

Paleontologists in Thailand recently unveiled the discovery of a new dinosaur, Minimocursor phunoiensis, or “smallest runner” in Latin. The small, bipedal plant-eater likely ran in herds and occupied a lower rung on its local food chain. It would have dodged much larger predators, including the metriacanthosauridae theropods, predecessors to Tyrannosaurus Rex.The skeleton is one of the best-preserved ever recovered from Southeast Asia, where it was found in the Kalasin province in northeaste ...read more