A baobab tree amid the Makgadikgadi Pan, a region researchers say is the ancestral homeland of all living humans. (Credit: Diego Delso/Wikimedia Commons) A provocative study claims every living human has an ancestral homeland in what’s now Botswana, and that our early ancestors dispersed from that area due to climate change. Dig into the details, however, and there are a few hefty caveats about the researchers’ methods. There’s a reason Ancestry.com and other genealog ...read more

Hurricane Pablo, as seen in the eastern Atlantic by NASA's Terra satellite on Oct. 27, 2019 A late October tropical storm spinning in the North Atlantic entered the record books today when it strengthened into a strange little hurricane. Say hello to Hurricane Pablo, seen in the image above acquired by NASA's Terra satellite. As of about 5 p.m. EST in the U.S., the tiny storm had attained maximum sustained winds of 80 miles per hour, qualifying it for Category 1 status. That makes ma ...read more

California's Kincade Fire, as seen by the GOES-17 weather satellite on Oct. 27, 2019. Also visible is a blaze more than 50 miles away in Vallejo, CA — believed to have started from embers from the Kincade Fire. (Note: The animation may take a little while to load. Source: RAMMB/CIRA/SLIDER) Early this morning, winds gusted to 93 miles per hour near California's Kincade Fire. A Category 1 hurricane is characterized by sustained winds of 74 to 95 miles per hour. The animation of s ...read more

Albert Lin with one of his drones, preparing to explore the Nan Madol site in Micronesia, in a scene from Lost Cities. (Credit: National Geographic) One of the happy surprises of the space age is that the same technologies propelling our civilization into the future have also proven hugely valuable for recovering lost details of civilizations past. Over the past three decades, satellite imagery and space-based radar have been used to locate more than 1,000 unknown ancient tombs in Egypt, to ...read more

The GOES-16 weather satellite captured this view of smoke streaming out over the Pacific Ocean from California's Kincade Fire on Oct. 24, 2019. (Source: RAMMB/CIRA/SLIDER) Northern California is bracing for winds forecast to gust as high as 80 miles per hour on Sunday morning — posing extreme wildfire risks in an area primed to burn. "A potentially historic, long duration, extremely critical offshore wind event is forecast to occur beginning around 8pm tonight and persist through ea ...read more

(Credit: AbElena/shutterstock) If you spend too much time in the sun, everyone can see it in your red, burnt skin. But if you get just enough sun exposure, scientists can see it in your poop — at least, according to a new study in the journal Frontiers in Microbiology. Specifically, the researchers studied people with low Vitamin D to see how they reacted to UV light. This kind of sunlight is one of the main ways our bodies get enough Vitamin D, and the scientists saw that UV exposur ...read more

(Credit: Kirasolly/Shutterstock) Since ancient times, the health benefits of green tea have been the stuff of legend. Now, researchers are turning to the antioxidant-rich leaves for a decidedly modern purpose — triggering cell-based therapies. In a study published Wednesday in Science Translational Medicine, a team of researchers with East China Normal University and First Affiliated Hospital of Shenzhen University found that green tea can work to activate lab-made cells for disease ...read more

An artist illustration of NASA’s Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, or VIPER. (Credit: NASA Ames/Daniel Rutter) Before sending the first woman and next man to the moon, NASA will send a golf cart-sized rover to the lunar south pole to search for sources of ice water. The space agency hopes to have the rover exploring the moon’s surface by December 2022. The new spacecraft was announced Friday at the International Astronautical Congress, a yearly conference where ...read more

(Credit: wonderYusya/Shutterstock) Flame retardants are everywhere. They’re embedded in your TV, your couch — even your child’s car seat. For years, a group of flame retardants was added to a host of consumer products in the U.S. before scientists realized their potentially toxic effects. And now, the old class has been mostly swapped out for a new group that may be just as toxic — and even more widespread — as the chemicals they were created to replace In a n ...read more

An artist's rendering shows an early galaxy surrounded by gas and forming new stars at a tremendous rate. (Credit: James Josephides/Christina Williams/Ivo Labbe) Our universe’s history began about 13.8 billion years ago with the Big Bang. When astronomers probe deep into space, they see parts of the universe as they were early in this history. That's because it takes light a long time to travel vast distances. To find out how galaxies formed and evolved over time, astronomers look for t ...read more