Learning that a shiny rock is fool’s gold rather than the valuable mineral is generally cause for disappointment. But for scientists who discovered a new 450-million-year-old arthropod preserved in iron pyrite, the substance could be considered priceless.Fossils of ancient arthropods — a group of animals including spiders, centipedes, and insects — are especially rare, because they are made up primarily of soft tissue, which usually starts decaying days after death. Due to some rare geoche ...read more

Imagine holding a piece of the early solar system in your hands — a 4.5-billion-year-old artifact that predates our planet. Thanks to the Apollo missions of the 1960s and 70s, and China’s 2024 Chang’e-6 mission, researchers now have the opportunity to hold, and study, lunar samples that provide a unique glimpse into the distant past.Moon rocks, brought back to Earth by NASA's Apollo missions and China's Chang’e probes, are far more than ordinary space debris. These samples hold invaluabl ...read more

In 1997, a team of scientists reared several chicken eggs in two different incubators: one was a normal, sterile incubator, while the other one was infused with the sweet, fruity aroma of strawberries. Sometimes, they even rubbed the experimental group with strawberry aromas straight on the shell.Once the chicks hatched, much to the scientist’s amusement, the few baby chickens that had been exposed to strawberries while still embryos loved the scent and the taste of it: they liked strawberry-f ...read more

One of the big ideas of modern science is that small things can sometimes have huge, irreversible consequences. These so-called tipping points crop up in all walks of life, from economics and finance to human health and the environment. Indeed, they are a fundamental feature of what scientists call complex systems.In an effort to better understand tipping points, scientists have invested much time and effort into simulating complex systems like the climate and the economy, and then gathering dat ...read more

We don’t know how language first began. The first writing didn’t occur until around 3200 B.C.E., and we know that spoken language came before that. Some experts contend that it started with hand gestures along with sounds and signals that, in short order, gave humans a leg up when it came to survival.Fast forward a few thousand years, and the ancients were steeped in it. The Ancient Greeks, for example, were known for their linguistic achievement. By this time, an abundance of languages woul ...read more

Zombies strike fear into our hearts – and if they’re persistent, eventually, they get inside our heads. Animals taken over by zombies no longer control their own bodies or behaviors. Instead, they serve the interests of a master, whether it’s a virus, fungus or some other harmful agent.The term “zombi” comes from Vodou, a religion that evolved in the Caribbean nation of Haiti. But the idea of armies of undead, brain-eating human zombies comes from movies, such as “Night of the Living ...read more

Bottlenose dolphins in Sarasota Bay in Florida and Barataria Bay in Louisiana are exhaling microplastic fibers, according to our new research published in the journal PLOS One.Tiny plastic pieces have spread all over the planet – on land, in the air, and even in clouds. An estimated 170 trillion bits of microplastic are estimated to be in the oceans alone. Across the globe, research has found people and wildlife are exposed to microplastics mainly through eating and drinking but also through b ...read more

Fusion energy has the potential to be an effective clean energy source, as its reactions generate incredibly large amounts of energy. Fusion reactors aim to reproduce on Earth what happens in the core of the Sun, where very light elements merge and release energy in the process. Engineers can harness this energy to heat water and generate electricity through a steam turbine, but the path to fusion isn’t completely straightforward.Controlled nuclear fusion has several advantages over other powe ...read more

It can be startling to look at a world population counter. There are eight billion (and counting — fast) humans on Earth. That’s a lot. And humans, of course, have an enormous impact. However, we are far from the most abundant animal on the planet. In fact, mammals are at the bottom of the list, with only about 5,500 or so named species. On the other hand, scientists have identified about a million species of insects, and there are many insects that haven’t yet been identified, explains S ...read more

Scientists corroborated an 800-year-old story about the literal poisoning of a well, according to a report in iScience.The Norse Sverris Saga, which recounts tales about King Sverre Sigurdsson, describes an 1197 raid in which a body was thrown into a well at Sverresborg Castle, ostensibly to poison the area’s main water source. Researchers analyzed the DNA of a skeleton found in a well outside Trondheim in central Norway. This study of “Well Man” matched the events the saga recounted. “T ...read more