Citizen science asks everyday volunteers to make observations of the world around them and add data to research projects that scientists use to answer big questions. When you make citizen science observations, you might enter the information into an app, take a photo or answer a few questions in an online form and hit submit. That might be the end of your part of the process, but submitting a data point is just the first step in the long, rigorous journey from observation to scientific conclus ...read more

This article was originally published on Nexus Media. On a clear morning in April, after milking his seven cows, Tim Sauder looked over the pasture where he had just turned the animals out to graze. Like many dairy farms, Sauder’s fields swayed with a variety of greenery: chicory, alfalfa and clover. But they were also full of something typically missing on an agricultural landscape — trees. Thousands of them.Between 2019 and 2021, Sauder planted 3,500 trees at Fiddle Creek Dairy, a 55-acre ...read more

An ambitious space project is underway to help answer a fundamental question about our universe: Does life exist elsewhere in the solar system?On April 14, the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) successfully launched, with its sights set on the biggest planet in our orbit.After 13 years in the making, the craft left from the European Space Agency spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.JUICE Mission (Illustration Credit: Shutterstock/ joshimerbin)The mission is scheduled for arrival in the Jovian sys ...read more

As one of our most important organs, the brain oversees vital functions, ranging from our thoughts and emotions to our movements and how we respond to stimuli, among many other tasks. Not surprisingly, when a person suffers an injury to the brain, how their physiology responds to it depends on the part of the brain affected. Since the brain comprises of billions of neurons that take part in different functions of high-level regions and subregions, what happens if the prefrontal cortex (PFC) is d ...read more

People in the ancient Middle East kissed freely, smooching their romantic partners, friends, and family members, according to a new study. Researchers claim to have found evidence of humanity’s earliest recorded kiss. Until recently, the earliest evidence had come from a Bronze Age manuscript from South Asia from 3,500 years ago, although the new study moves the date of the first documented kiss back to at least 4,500 years ago.The study relied upon cuneiform script written on clay tablets fro ...read more

Genetic analysis has uncovered the mysterious origin of the Picts, a people group that lived in many parts of northern Britain roughly 1,500 years ago.Research reveals that the ethnic group, which many thought might have come from Eastern Europe, had a local origin similar to other British Celtic groups.“They matched closer to the Iron Age British genome,” says Adeline Morez, a paleogeneticist at the French National Center for Scientific Research in Paris.The Picts have long been an enigmati ...read more

Did medical equipment capture a near-death experience (NDE) in the brains of two very different coma patients after they were removed from life support? That’s the question at the center of a new study, which may have evidence of two women encountering a bright light or having a similar experience.The first of the patients, aged 24, suffered a heart attack at home and underwent three defibrillations at the hospital – Michigan Medicine, the hospital of the University of Michigan – plus a pa ...read more

The fact that freshwater whales actually exist on our planet deserves far more fanfare — especially considering how their populations are declining.Many species of river dolphins, specifically, live in waterways spanning multiple continents and countries around the globe. Their unique habitats correlate with strange attributes and extraordinary behaviors not found in marine dolphins and other cetaceans.But, as the world's major rivers change under human development, river dolphins seem to be p ...read more

If you feel like something is wrong — say, your stomach or your leg is hurting — you can typically explain to others what’s going on. Maybe you tell a doctor what your symptoms are and what your pain level is, while adding other information to aid the practitioner’s understanding.But cats can’t tell us how they’re feeling.Whatever their ailment, what are some signs that might help us understand our feline friends better and to know if something is wrong? Read on to learn what to look ...read more

Scientists have long thought the humble sea sponge, an animal that feeds by filtering water through itself, forms the oldest group of animals on earth. But a new study claims that the comb jelly phylum is in fact older and carries genetic material from distant, non-animal ancestors.Comb jellies, which look like miniature jellyfishes, use rows of cilia hairs to swim through the ocean and catch prey with tentacles that release a sticky, mucous-like substance. Like other animals, they meet the stan ...read more