Susan Hough, a seismologist at the United States Geological Survey (USGS), was scouring archives for information about a 7.3-magnitude earthquake that struck Charleston, South Carolina, in 1886. Her search brought her to a bookstore where she encountered Haunted Summerville, a collection of eerie tales from a small town just north of Charleston.“It was the sort of thing you stash in the back of your mind,” Hough says. At first, she didn’t give it much thought. But near Halloween, when the ...read more

When it comes to animals with incredible memories, fish typically don’t come to mind, in fact, it's quite the opposite. Even the poor goldfish has been accused of only having a 10-second memory, though science has proved that false. However, a new study published in Biology Letters found that not only do certain fish have a great memory, but they’re also able to tell people apart. Could Fish Recognize Humans?While doing research for a different study, divers in a research station in the Me ...read more

The weather inside our Solar System is tough to track. But even tougher to track is the weather outside our Solar System. Implementing all four of the telescope units of the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), a team of researchers has observed the weather on WASP-121b, or Tylos, an exoplanet around 900 light-years away, identifying the layers of its atmosphere for the first time. Reporting their results in a study in Nature, the team identified three layers of churning ...read more

There’s a new king in town — if the town you’re talking about is the Egyptian jungle 30 million years ago.Paleontologists unearthed a nearly complete skull of an apex predator, which likely hunted early versions of primates, hippos, and elephants in what is now a desert. The skull included sharp teeth and signs of powerful jaw muscles. The scientists described it as having a hypercarniverous diet in recent study published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.The leopard-like animal sk ...read more

The demise of dinosaurs around 66 million years ago sent major ripples throughout ecosystems, and it may have even paved the way for fruit to evolve. New research has scoured through the evolutionary history of fruit and seeds to determine when and how they changed in size over time, confirming that dinosaur extinction led to the growth of large fruit that fueled our primate ancestors’ diets. A recent study published in the journal Palaeontology shows the ebbs and flows of seed size throughou ...read more

While bird flu has rendered eggs expensive, are they still safe to eat? In April 2024, when Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) began taking hold in U.S. poultry flocks, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a consumer guidance assuring the public that eggs remain safe for human consumption. “The likelihood that eggs from infected poultry are found in the retail market is low and proper storage and preparation further reduce the risk,” according to the FDA guidance.The risk ...read more

On August 10, 1628, Vasa, the would-be jewel of Sweden’s navy sank only minutes after departing Stockholm. This tragedy – that claimed the lives of 30 of those on board – launched an inquest probing how the hulking 64-cannon ship met such an shameful end. Since the ship still exists almost in its entirety – held at a dedicated museum near Stockholm – we know that investigation was largely correct in its findings. The Sinking of the Swedish WarshipOn the day itself, Vasa set sail on cal ...read more

Though hardly a household name like Velociraptor or Tyrannosaurus rex, Megalosaurus holds a key place in the history of paleontology. That’s not because it’s an exceptional dinosaur but as it was the first dinosaur discovered, even before the term dinosaur was ever coined. For that reason, it is “phenomenally important,” according to Emma Nicholls, Collections Manager of Vertebrate Palaeontology at Oxford University’s Museum of Natural History.What we Know About the MegalosaurusMegalos ...read more

Whether you’re talking about sharks, crocodiles, lions, or even velociraptors, some of the most fearsome traits of these predators involve their rows of sharp, crushing, or jagged teeth.Only vertebrate animals have real teeth, though some invertebrates have hard tooth-like plates they use to eat. One of the earliest creatures with teeth were conodonts, an eel-like creature that first appeared around 500 million years ago. These creatures also have the record for the sharpest teeth, according t ...read more

One of the many unseen forces to which you owe your existence is magnetism. If it weren’t for the magnetic field that surrounds our planet, blocking cosmic radiation and solar wind, Earth would likely have little atmosphere to speak of. Life (at least of the human variety) would be impossible.Changes in the field can also play havoc with satellite communication and electric infrastructure, disrupting the modern world in a big way. Given the importance of this gargantuan bar magnet in our day-t ...read more