Every three to four months, Mercury appears to travel backward across the sky and the internet becomes ablaze with worries about the mayhem that a Mercury retrograde has in store for us. Brands have even jumped on the bandwagon, offering Mercury retrograde merch, deals and sales.To astrologists, this planet’s vocation is communication and tech; according to Roman mythology, Mercury was the god of messages. Therefore, a Mercury in retrograde is often associated with a range of misfortunes and m ...read more

Southern resident orcas, known for their distinct toothy grins and black-and-white marbled body, are lately sporting large, gray patches and other types of discoloration with skin lesions. And, they appear to be spreading among the population, say concerned scientists in  a recent study published in PLOS ONE. Researchers often use skin disease as an indicator of health among marine species, which is why they need to know what the cause is of these mysterious patches on the killer whales. Read ...read more

Every few years, an eerie cycle plays out in the news. Headlines report the sightings of unidentified flying objects (UFOs/UAPs). Then, a government agency issues a denial.  In 2006, employees at Chicago O’Hare International Airport described seeing an unidentified object hovering quietly near a terminal. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) dismissed it as a weather event.Then in 2014, Navy pilots reported seeing a series of spinning saucers. The Pentagon did not comment at the tim ...read more

In 1902, Albert Einstein applied to become a patent clerk at the Federal Office for Intellectual Property in Bern. Although he would have rather worked as a teacher or lab assistant, the monotonous job turned out to be a vital step in his career. While his body was busy organizing files and mulling over stacks of paperwork, his unstimulated mind was free to wander, leading him to some of his greatest scientific discoveries.This anecdote, slightly embellished over the course of its retelling, has ...read more

On the Game of Thrones scale of dragon awesomeness, the real-life Komodo dragon may seem tame, but it is anything but.Sure, it can’t fly. You can’t ride it into battle. And it doesn’t breathe fire (although if you get close enough to smell its breath, your eyes and nose may feel like they’re burning). But it is the biggest creature of its kind, and a massive, rapacious predator with claws and teeth that can rip prey to shreds. Plus, when the conditions are right (or very, very wrong), it ...read more

A new fresco discovered at Pompeii further muddies the already murky history of pizza and the age-old art of putting toppings on flatbread. Found in an atrium buried under a collapsed ceiling and layers of pumice and volcanic ash, the painting shows a round bun loaded with toppings and condiments next to a massive vessel of wine.Does this 2,000-year-old food item count as an early pizza?A statement from the Archaeological Park of Pompeii, which oversees the site, says that “Whilst it looks lik ...read more

Picture a giant, duck-billed, camel-backed, feathery omnivore that weighs a massive 7 tons.It may sound like a hybrid creation straight out of the Jurassic World franchise — but this creature actually roamed the Earth some 70 to 66 million years ago, during the Late Cretaceous period.  “Deinocheirus was a peculiar, humpbacked dinosaur with a duckbill-like skull that grew to Tyrannosaurus size,” says Yuong-Nam Lee, a professor at Seoul National University who helped describe new research o ...read more

The first signs of the disease are so subtle that they can be tricky to catch. Sometimes, they come in the form of rude remarks or an occasional out-of-character comment. Sometimes, they appear as a struggle to stay organized or an increase in impulsive spending. And sometimes, wrong words and slurred sentences are the initial indications. Though these symptoms can seem small, frontotemporal dementia worsens with time, transforming the way that people act and communicate. Destroying the brain fr ...read more

Rusty-patched bumble bees (Bombus affinis), are crucial pollinators of wildflowers and crops, like apples and cranberries. Named after the reddish patch on its back, the insect was listed as federally endangered in 2017.Experts estimated that numbers have declined by 87 percent in the last two decades. Before its population declined, rusty-patched bees were found in prairies, woodlands, farms, gardens and parks across the eastern U.S., the upper Midwest and parts of Canada.In a recent study publ ...read more

Researchers in Australia recently discovered a new species of demon catshark – a dusky deepwater shark with striking white eyes – by following a trail of some odd-looking eggs. Years ago, Brett Human, then a volunteer at the Western Australian Museum, came across an odd, yolk-yellow shark egg in the museum’s collection that had deep T-shaped ridges. Female catsharks incubate the eggs in their bodies for a while before sticking them to the sea floor, where they can take many months to hatch ...read more