While Earth’s one and only moon enthralls everyone on this planet, it can’t hold a candle to Saturn’s 274 moons, 128 of which were recently discovered and recognized by the International Astronomical Union. With this new surge in its moon count, Saturn prevails with the most moons out of any other planet in the Solar System. Astronomers are now wondering, though, how this abundance of moons emerged in the first place.Regular vs. Irregular MoonsAlthough Saturn boasts an impressive amount of ...read more

On both page and screen, we’re used to seeing dinosaurs and prehistoric birds as vibrant creatures exhibiting unique and diverse patterns in color and texture. But what about the mammals roaming the earth alongside them?In a new study published in Science, an international team of scientists has discovered that early mammals had dark and dull fur, no matter the species. This uniform fur coloring had evolutionary advantages and allowed mammals to avoid becoming prey to their more colorful neigh ...read more

About 34 million years ago, iguanas sailed 5,000 miles from western North America and settled in Fiji. It’s not uncommon for iguana species to hop a natural raft and drift to a new island, but according to new research published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, this may be the “the longest known transoceanic dispersal of any terrestrial vertebrate.”"We found that the Fiji iguanas are most closely related to the North American desert iguanas, something that hadn't been fi ...read more

An unexpected extended stay at the International Space Station will come to an end March 18, 2025 — weather and technology permitting. If all goes as planned, NASA astronauts Sunita "Suni" Williams and Barry "Butch" Wilmore will return to Earth, unintentionally joining the top 10 list of longest time for U.S. astronauts spent in space on a single mission.A Longer Stay on the ISSWhen Suni and Butch rode Boeing’s first-ever crewed Starliner to the ISS in June 2024, they were only expected to s ...read more

Sit comfortably and pay attention to your breath as you inhale and exhale. When thoughts drift into your mind, just ignore them and stay focused on your breath. Seems simple enough, right? But it turns out that this basic practice, known as mindfulness meditation, is powerful stuff. Not only does it help reduce stress and improve mood, but it actually changes your brain structure. And those changes can be quite beneficial. How Meditation Changes the Brain Sara Lazar is a neuroscientist at the ...read more

The ancient runes of an inscribed silver armband found in a buried Viking treasure hoard in Scotland are helping to reveal more about a place and time nearly lost to history.“The hoard has a ripple effect — it makes you want to reconsider what was in the area,” says Martin Goldberg, a curator at National Museums Scotland.The silver armband was part of the Galloway Hoard — buried treasure including ornate jewelry, gold and silver bullion, silk, and painted beads discovered in southwestern ...read more

As Earth’s surface continues to buckle from the burdens of climate change, its upper atmosphere faces different troubles altogether as greenhouse gases threaten space sustainability. A new study warns that the future could bring a sharp increase in space debris as satellites start to get stuck in Earth’s orbit because of climate change.The study, recently published in Nature Sustainability, cautions that greenhouse gases are causing the upper atmosphere to cool and shrink, leaving satellites ...read more

Many lifestyle factors are already known to influence cancer development, prompting people to modify their habits. Well-established connections include smoking as a cause of lung cancer, excessive alcohol consumption leading to liver cancer, and poor dietary choices increasing the risk of stomach, pancreatic, and colorectal cancers.A less conventional link between an unhealthy diet and lung cancer was recently identified by researchers at the University of Florida Health, in collaboration with t ...read more

Researchers who were curious about when ancient Europeans travelled to Africa followed the DNA. The route they discovered didn’t just track migration — it revealed pockets of resistance to the Neolithic revolution, as well as signs of sea-faring derring-do. A Societal ShiftDuring that period, starting around 12,000 years ago, societies started shifting from hunter-gatherers to farming. But not all of them. Most farmers from Anatolia (present-day Turkey) went on the move around 7,500 years ag ...read more

There are a lot of things that you might expect to see at an Australian high school. Backpacks filled to the brim with books? Sure. Forgotten pencils and half-finished pages of homework? Definitely. But a stone slab stamped with dozens of fossilized dinosaur tracks? That might be a little lower on your list.As surprising as it may seem, however, Biloela State High School in Queensland has long been home to one of Australia’s most footprint-filled stones from the Early Jurassic period. Describe ...read more