A young lionfish photographed during a dive in Palm Beach, Florida. (Credit: Steven Kovacs) Descending into pitch-black open ocean under the cover of inky skies can unnerve even experienced divers, but for underwater photographer Steven Kovacs, it’s a surprisingly addictive activity. “It’s like a treasure hunt. You never know what amazing creature will drift by or come up from the depths.” While Kovacs has documented the strange and beautiful larval forms of many s ...read more

(Credit: Alex Brylov/Shutterstock) Ageing is inevitable and is influenced by many things – but keeping active can slow aging and increase life expectancy. Evidence shows that ageing alone is not a cause of major problems until you are in your mid-90s. And strength, power and muscle mass can be increased, even at this advanced age. So here are my top exercise tips for people in their 60s and older, at different levels of fitness. For Lifetime Fitness Fanatics If you fall in ...read more

Crystals of a lysozyme. Similar compounds could be used to kill antibiotic-resistant bacteria like MRSA. (Credit: Zanecrc/Wikimedia Commons) A new way to destroy MRSA, an antibiotic-resistant pathogen, might offer clue to alleviating the antibiotic crisis. In a new study, researchers have found how a bacterial toxin capable of destroying the pathogen does its job. The compound can punch holes in the cell walls of pathogens like MRSA, killing the cells without the need for traditional anti ...read more

Voyager 2 passes into interstellar space in this artist's illustration. (Credit: NASA) NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft crossed into interstellar space last November. Now, one year later, scientists have published the first results from the data Voyager 2 gathered as it passed from the sun’s sphere of influence and into interstellar space. In some ways, what Voyager 2 experienced was surprisingly different from what Voyager 1 found when it passed into interstellar space in 2012. These la ...read more

Please click on this animation of satellite images to see an overview of California wildfires from Oct. 23 to Nov. 1, 2019. Look for bluish smoke plumes as well as red dots marking areas where the satellites detected fire. The Kincade fire erupts in the north on Oct. 24th, as does the Tick Fire near Los Angeles, at lower right. Later in the sequence, five other blazes ignite in the L.A. area. (Images: NASA Worldview. Animation: Tom Yulsman) The Kincade Fire has been the most destructive of C ...read more

The site of Monte Verde in Chile today. Credit: (Geología Valdivia/Wikimedia Commons) As the Ice Age began to wane, people from northeastern Asia spread to the Americas, some of the last uninhabited continents on Earth. The pioneers traveled south of mile-high ice sheets covering Canada and found vast lands, abounding with mammoth, giant sloth and other now-extinct megafauna. This much has been known for decades. But when it comes to the details, debates have raged over precisely wh ...read more

A desalination plant in Hamburg, Germany. (Credit: Andrea Izzotti/Shutterstock) In places like San Diego and Dubai where freshwater is scarce, humans turn to machines that pull the salt out of seawater, transforming it into clean drinking water. This process, called desalination, has been turning sea and brackish groundwater into potable water since the mid-20th century. The technology could become increasingly important in the near future, as the rising temperatures and erratic rain pat ...read more

Narcissists display lower levels of stress and depression, an indication that the trait might sometimes be helpful. (Credit: G-Stock Studio/Shutterstock) Kostas Papageorgiou wants you to embrace your inner narcissist. Fittingly, it’s for your own benefit: The Queen’s University Belfast psychology researcher’s latest study shows narcissism might be linked to lower stress levels and reduced risk of depression. Still, he can do without the manipulation, lack of empathy, and ...read more

There is only one Sean Carroll at Caltech in the world we know. But he could exist in of a multitude of worlds incrementally different from this one. (Credit: Bill Youngblood/Corey S. Powell) Let’s begin at the beginning. What is the Many Worlds Interpretation? It begins with quantum mechanics, which is our best theory of elementary particles and the microscopic world. There’s this thing in quantum mechanics that says, before you look at an object it's not in any definite loca ...read more

Formosan subterranean termites, which are in the same genus as Asian subterranean termites. (Credit: Scott Bauer/USDA) (Inside Science) -- The appetites of social termites extend to cannibalizing their co-workers after death. It's done for the greater good of the community. “Termites have a lot of strategies to keep the nest and the members of the colony clean,” said Luiza Helena Bueno da Silva, a zoology graduate student at São Paulo State University in Brazil and the l ...read more