It sounds like a paleontological crime scene: dozens of ancient amphibian fossils found buried relatively close together. The bones of the crocodile-sized creatures — known as metoposaurid temnospondyls — lie intact. What brought them there? What killed them? Why did the fossils remain undisturbed?Researchers report a detailed analysis of the single-largest collection of the species’ fossils found together in Wyoming in the journal PLOS ONE. But the survey of what appears to be a mass die- ...read more

The stars in our galaxy are serenading us with songs, that is, if we take the time to translate them.According to a new paper published in Nature, constant “starquakes” cause some stars to fluctuate in brightness — a result that seems mostly unrelated to music. But by translating these fluctuations in brightness into fluctuations in acoustic frequencies, scientists can tune in to a star’s sound, learning important information about its age and its other traits. Studying 27 separate stars ...read more

With winter having come to a close, people living near the Rocky Mountains will have to reckon with the effects of snow contamination, an enduring issue magnified by mining activities in the region. A new study provides an unprecedented look at the heightened levels of contaminants that have been carried to the Rockies by winter storms. The study, recently published in the journal Environmental Pollution, has pinpointed mining operations in the Pacific Northwest as the source of contaminants. M ...read more

There is now a pacemaker smaller than a grain of rice that is designed to help the tiniest of hearts. Researchers from Northwestern University have successfully developed a pacemaker that fits in the tip of a syringe and can be inserted non-invasively into the hearts of newborn babies with congenital heart issues, according to a new study published in Nature. The pacemaker works with an external flexible chest piece that monitors the heart and sends a beam of light into the chest when it detec ...read more

When it comes to food poisoning, the body — well, more specifically, the brain — keeps score. Almost everyone can relate to eating something that caused them, to put it delicately, to suffer severe gastrointestinal distress that then renders them incapable of ever consuming that particular food again. Now, neuroscientists have pinpointed the exact spot (albeit in a mouse’s brain) where such traumatic memories appear to be recorded and stored, according to a study published in the journal N ...read more

Thanks to modern technology (and based on skull remains), we can now reconstruct a likely approximation of the faces of our ancient Neanderthal ancestors. When we look at those faces, we see beings that resemble us in many ways, but with more robust features, larger noses, and forward-projected midfaces, especially compared to our narrower, more delicate features.The exact mechanisms behind the differences in facial features between Neanderthals and modern humans are still not fully understood. ...read more

Prozac’s approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1988 heralded the dawn of a new age in treating depression since it focused on serotonin, a brain chemical that, when in short supply, contributes to depression. It was more targeted and had fewer and generally less harsh side effects than the classic treatments— tricyclics and monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs). Since then, a total of seven selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) that essentially help the neurotra ...read more

Life looked different after an asteroid crashed into the planet around 66 million years ago. The dinosaurs died out, the arboreal mammals declined, and the terrestrial mammals thrived. The traditional story that’s told is that the asteroid decimated the dinosaurs and that the decimation of the dinosaurs allowed mammals to trade the treetops for the ground. But what if that traditional story is wrong? What if the mammalian transformation from arboreal to terrestrial was already underway at the ...read more

While volcanoes have brought profound changes to landscapes here on Earth, volcanic activity on other planets and moons has followed a different path. It's easy to imagine space volcanoes as even more ferocious and devastating versions of the ones scattered across Earth, but in reality, most of them have fallen into dormancy.Volcanic features have been observed on our fellow rocky planets, Venus and Mars, but they largely appear to be inactive right now. Some scientists, however, have suggested ...read more

In January 2025, researchers on the Schmidt Ocean Institute’s R/V Falkor (too) had to divert their plans after an iceberg roughly the size of Chicago broke away from the George VI Ice Shelf, a floating glacier that had been attached to the Antarctic Peninsula ice sheet.As the iceberg broke away, it exposed an area of seabed previously unseen by humans. There, they found it teeming with a variety of sea life. An Iceberg the Size of the Windy CityThe iceberg, named A-84 by the U.S. National Ice ...read more