For about 15 minutes on July 21, 1961, American astronaut Gus Grissom felt at the top of the world – and indeed he was.Grissom crewed the Liberty Bell 7 mission, a ballistic test flight that launched him through the atmosphere from a rocket. During the test, he sat inside a small capsule and reached a peak of over 100 miles up before splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean.A Navy ship, the USS Randolph, watched the successful end of the mission from a safe distance. Everything had gone according ...read more

In the urgent quest for a more sustainable global food system, livestock are a mixed blessing. On the one hand, by converting fibrous plants that people can’t eat into protein-rich meat and milk, grazing animals like cows and sheep are an important source of human food. And for many of the world’s poorest, raising a cow or two — or a few sheep or goats — can be a key source of wealth.But those benefits come with an immense environmental cost. A study in 2013 showed that globally, livesto ...read more

The language of science continually changes. Throughout the last ten years, a wide range of words and phrases have emerged from obscurity into common usage in science. These include zika, Ebola, ChatGPT and so on, words that reflect the ebb and flow of scientific research and broader events and fashions within science and society. These changes show up in the papers, reviews and articles that scientists are constantly producing. Indeed, various researchers have attempted to map the evolution of ...read more

Pilot whales have always been joined at the hip. In fact, the tendency for a group of pilot whales to follow the direction of a group leader is exactly what earned them their name. Now, these nomadic oceanic dolphins are finding themselves navigating into shallow waters, leaving them stranded on various beaches in masses. A Sudden Increase in Pilot Whale StrandingAlthough stranding of pilot whales has been occurring for millions of years, there has been an alarming increase of global mass strand ...read more

It goes by many different names: rumination, repetitive negative thinking, negative thought syndrome, spiraling thoughts. But whatever you call it, it can have damaging consequences for your mental health. The experience — let’s call it rumination — can include dwelling on past mistakes or worrying about future events or decisions you’ll have to make. While reviewing and learning from the past and preparing for the future are healthy (even necessary) mental processes, rumination is some ...read more

A hammerhead shark less than one meter long swims frantically in a plastic container aboard a boat in the Sanquianga National Natural Park, off Colombia’s Pacific coast. It is a delicate female Sphyrna corona, the world’s smallest hammerhead species, and goes by the local name cornuda amarilla — yellow hammerhead — because of the color of its fins and the edges of its splendid curved head, which is full of sensors to perceive the movement of its prey.Marine biologist Diego Cardeñosa of ...read more

The far side of the moon has been shrouded in mystery for years, and questions have piled up about its differences from the near side, which we see nearly every night here on Earth. In a push to ascertain the moon’s uncharted secrets, progress on exploring the far side has accelerated in recent years. In early June 2024, China made the news as its newest space probe, Chang’e 6, landed on the moon’s far side, marking a bold direction for future lunar exploration. What Is the Chang’e 6 Mi ...read more

It would seem obvious that rising sea levels that cut off the last population of woolly mammoths on Wrangel Island from the Siberian coast 10,000 years ago caused in-breeding, leading to their eventual extinction. But a new genetic analysis, reported in Cell, counters that claim.That result was unexpected, since an earlier report indicated that the mammoth population likely built up harmful genetic mutations, according to Love Dalén, a scientist with the Centre for Palaeogenetics of Sweden, and ...read more

Axolotls are perhaps the most instantly recognizable amphibians in the world. At once cute, curious, and infinitely fascinating due to their unique biological traits, these ever-young creatures capture the imagination. Axolotls are a type of salamander, endemic to Mexico and only found in two places; the waterways and canals of Lake Xochimilco and Lake Chalco around Mexico City. They are often photographed as seemingly grumpy or with a joyful, childlike grin. Their infinite likability aside, the ...read more

When Sydney hosted the 2000 Summer Olympics, an unlikely hero emerged: an unofficial mascot known as Fatso the Fat-Arsed Wombat. Introduced by comedians, it helped to kick off a wave of love for a critter not always adored by human Australians. Over the centuries, the native marsupial has been eaten in stew and maligned as a pest. Now, it’s a focus of conservation and animal welfare efforts.Wombats are closely related to koalas and nurture their young in pouches like other marsupials. Of the t ...read more