Astronomy is often called the world’s oldest science, and it’s likely humans have used their knowledge of the night sky to get from point A to point B since prehistoric times. But this ancient art predates us by far longer than that.Animals, too, follow the stars, and probably have as long as they've existed. In recent decades, researchers have discovered impressive navigation skills in various birds, in seals, even in a few insects — the latter of which have low-resolution compound eyes.� ...read more

As the threat of world war loomed in 1941, scientists considered how to best feed millions of American soldiers. What types of nutrients would they need? And how could foods be fortified with these nutrients and packaged into ready-to-eat meals?Before the decade was over, scientists had identified 13 vitamins essential to human nutrition. Food historian Mark Bittman writes in Animal, Vegetable, Junk: A History of Food from Sustainable to Suicidal how the 1940s ushered in “vitamania” and cons ...read more

Content Warning: Brief Mention of SuicideNo one knows the cause of this ailment. Currently, no lab results can conclusively test for it. There is no approved treatment — let alone any kind of cure — for this health problem.Some doctors actually refuse to believe that the condition exists. But those doctors are wrong. In fact, research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) currently estimates that more than 3 million Americans suffer from the problem.As medical mysteries g ...read more

As winter's brutal grip on the Arctic has begun to loosen, the vast region's sea ice cover likely reached its maximum extent for the year on March 14. That maximum spread of the ice was not as paltry as it has been in some recent years. But according to the latest analysis from the National Snow and Ice Data Center, it was still 247,000 square miles below the 1981 to 2010 average.That's an area of 'missing' ice nearly as large as Texas. For the record, NSIDC data show that the maximum extent of ...read more

Black licorice may look and taste like an innocent treat, but this candy has a dark side. On Sept. 23, 2020, doctors reported that black licorice was the culprit in the death of a 54-year-old man in Massachusetts. How could this be? Overdosing on licorice sounds more like a twisted tale than a plausible fact.I am a toxicologist and author of the book “Pleased to Meet Me: Genes, Germs, and the Curious Forces That Make Us Who We Are.” I have a long-standing interest in how chemicals in food an ...read more

The brain is one of the most complex structures ever to exist. But, what if brains could be made better? What if they could be faster, able to solve more complex problems, and linked directly to the vast network of information we have available via the Internet? That's the lofty aim of the team at Neuralink. Elon Musk, who founded the firm in 2016, said the company's ultimate goal is to achieve a state of “symbiosis” with artificial intelligence. Neuralink still has a long way to go to meet ...read more

In the U.S., wildland firefighters are able to stop about 98% of all wildfires before the fires have burned even 100 acres. That may seem comforting, but decades of quickly suppressing fires has had unintended consequences.Fires are a natural part of many landscapes globally. When forests aren’t allowed to burn, they become more dense, and dead branches, leaves and other biomass accumulate, leaving more fuel for the next fire. This buildup leads to more extreme fires that are even harder to pu ...read more

Faulty memory sometimes gets the best of us, like when we're scrambling to find a lost pair of keys or a phone. There's good reason to invest in recent research on the humble chickadee, which apparently has the mind of a steel trap. In fact, these birds can remember things so well that they could help us understand how a memory takes form. Researchers from Columbia University’s Zuckerman Institute took a closer look at the brains of black-capped chickadees, an endeavor that has hatched an exc ...read more

Striped polecats (Ictonyx striatus), or the African zorilla, are small carnivores that look like North American skunks but aren't. They're more closely related to weasels and have smaller, slender bodies. There are plenty of fun facts about this creature, like what they actually use a stink gland for, and more. Let's take a closer look at the striped polecat.1. Striped Polecats Are the Skunk’s Doppelgänger (Credit: Karel Bock/Getty Images)If a striped polecat looked at a North American skunk ...read more

When you think about dirt, you’re probably picturing soil. There’s so much more going on under our feet than the rock dust, or “dirt,” that gets on your pants.When I began studying soil, I was amazed at how much of it is actually alive. Soil is teeming with life, and not just the earthworms that you see on rainy days.Keeping this vibrant world healthy is crucial for food, forests and flowers to grow and for the animals that live in the ground to thrive. Here’s a closer look at what’s ...read more