Appreciating beauty is part of most people’s everyday lives. We find it in the natural world, in one another, in art and even in ideas. It feels good when we see something beautiful.But this appreciation of beauty presents a slight paradox.Studies on human aesthetic preferences have found that our evaluations of beauty converge on certain features: simplicity, symmetry, juxtapositions of color, and particular shapes, ratios and geometries. And yet, individuals can possess vastly different noti ...read more

Temnothorax nylanderi is a low-key species of ant found mostly in Europe, where it builds nests in tree bark and rotting branches and other woody, secluded places. This tiny brown arthropod leads a quiet life, preferring shade and shelter and staying out of the way of the woodpecker’s bill.But for all this quiet, T. nylanderi faces a strange, alien threat in the form of a parasite that turns its members into yellowed, sedentary oafs. These compromised individuals hang out in the nest, not doin ...read more

Most dog owners are familiar with their pups' enthusiasm for food, whether it's begging for a bite, scavenging crumbs or munching on grass. It seems like dogs can eat almost anything — but should they? Research suggests that, with a few key exceptions, dogs have pretty flexible diets. In fact, their ability to eat a wide variety of foods likely played a major role in making dogs the human companions they are today. However, just because a food doesn’t hurt your pup, doesn’t necessarily m ...read more

Around a decade ago, an astonishing assortment of hominin bones was discovered in the depths of South Africa's Rising Star Cave. Within two years of the discovery, researchers had determined that the bones represented a new species, which they named Homo naledi. Short, stout and small-brained, the species trampled through South Africa between 335,000 and 241,000 years ago and behaved brutishly.Well, that's what most paleoarchaeologists and paleoanthropologists who read about the discovery assume ...read more

Popular among dinosaur lovers and Jurassic Park fans alike, Spinosaurus was once a mighty predator of the Late Cretaceous Period. The dinosaur's long, paddle-like tail likely helped propel it through the water and its crocodile-like snout made it apt at hunting fish. Most notably, it had a large sail on its back. The debate on whether or not this dino used its sail for swimming is still ongoing.  The story behind the first discovered Spinosaurus fossils is almost as interesting as an ...read more

When Jules Verne published Journey to the Center of the Earth in 1864, multiple unsubstantiated hollow Earth theories were alive and well, speculating about what might exist deep beneath our feet.That’s because, by many measures, we know less about Earth’s interior than we know about outer space. Still, we can confidently say it is dense and made up of multiple compact layers that humans have failed to reach, despite multiple attempts.Various operations have set out to drill the deepest hole ...read more

The brightest outpourings of energy in the universe are gamma ray bursts. They are typically born as stars or other objects collapse into black holes and send out blasts of high-energy photons billions of light years across the universe.Most commonly, the collapsing objects are massive stars that have burned through their nuclear fuel and imploded, causing gamma rays to shoot out in opposing directions.But the universe has other tricks up its sleeve, according to a new paper. For the first time, ...read more

Dogs are still the most popular pet in the U.S. (sorry, cats) and only getting more popular. Just last year, the percentage of homes with at least one dog rose to nearly 45 percent, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association.For many of these first-time pup parents, smaller breeds may seem the easier or safer option. But looks can be deceiving. According to numerous studies over the past two decades, certain pint-sized breeds are stubborn as mules and prone to barking, biting, sna ...read more

All the stars in our galaxy are moving relative to one another, usually at speeds no more than about 100 kilometers per second. Some stars move much faster, and a few have huge velocities, of the order of 1000 kilometers per second. These hypervelocity stars have an interesting history. Astronomers believe these stars probably started life as one half of a binary system with one star then being captured by the powerful gravitational field of the supermassive black hole at the center of our galax ...read more

Old Billy was a draft horse, probably a Shire, who lived and worked in England in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. He was 62 years old when he died. In those days, that was a pretty advanced age for a human; for a horse, it was remarkable. It's thought that Old Billy is the longest-lived horse on record.How Long Do Horses Live?On average, domesticated horses live 25 to 30 years. Ponies tend to live even longer. (Horses in the wild typically make it only to about 15 years old ...read more