Seen here through the glass wall of the Southland Museum’s tuatarium on New Zealand’s South Island, Henry the tuatara has been around since the late 19th century. His lineage is much older — the species predates dinosaurs. Credit: G. Tarlach. New Zealand’s tuataras prove the old adage “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” like few other animals on the planet (coelacanth, I’m looking at you). While paleontologists have long differe ...read more

Vijayan’s Night Frog, Nyctibatrachus pulivijayani,, a 13.6-millimeter, miniature-sized frog discovered from Agasthyamala hills in the Western Ghats. (Credit: SD Biju) Four frogs tinier than an average adult thumbnail are among seven new species identified in India’s Western Ghat mountain range. The new frog species all belong to the genus Nyctibatrachus, commonly known as night frogs. As the name suggests, they usually come out after dark and prefer to hide out under ...read more

(Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech) TRAPPIST-1 has a solar system like no other. The tiny, tiny red dwarf is just barely big enough to be considered a star, and is, radius-wise, a hair bigger than Jupiter. When it was announced last May, there was some excitement: the system had three Earth-sized planets, and they might all be habitable. We’re going to have to revise that, though. It has seven planets. The results of an intensive study were published today in Nature. TRAPPIST-1 is so small that ...read more

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A video screenshot shows a robot boat packed with explosives just moments before it strikes a Saudi missile frigate and explodes on Jan. 30, 2017. Credit: USNI News A suicide boat attack that killed two sailors aboard a Saudi warship was apparently carried out by an unmanned, remotely-controlled boat. The U.S. Navy says the incident likely represents the first ever use of a suicide robot boat as a weapon on the high seas. Suicide boat bombings carried out by human crews willing ...read more

(Credit: Cylonphoto/Shutterstock) When a meteor screams through our upper atmosphere, it’s a silent show for us here on the ground. Most meteors burn up dozens of miles above the surface, and even if a sonic boom reaches us it comes minutes after the visual spectacle. However, reports of meteors have for years been accompanied by reports of strange sizzling sounds filling the air, as if someone was frying bacon. Sound travels too slowly for the meteor to be directly responsible for the p ...read more

(Credit: Brittney Tatchell/Smithsonian Institution) Unearthed in 1996 after part of his skull was found along the shores of the Columbia River in Washington, Kennewick Man, a 9,000-year-old Paleoamerican, would soon be regarded as the most important human skeletal discovery in American history. A Crisis of Ancient Identity When two college students reported that they had found a skull fragment in the river, scientists responded quickly. After searching for and collecting nearly 300 other ...read more

The supermassive black holes found at the centers of galaxies are known for their extreme X-ray emission. This emission is associated with the massive hot disks of gas and debris that circle these monstrous black holes before it is consumed. However, X-ray observations of distant galaxies have also uncovered additional luminous X-ray sources that aren’t associated with the galactic centers (where supermassive black holes are found). These are ULXs, or ultraluminous X-ray sources. ULXs hav ...read more

By Kaitlin Vortherms When smog is so thick that it clouds our vision, we can see and acknowledge that air pollution is a problem. In December of last year, China issued its second ever red alert, their highest rating for air pollution, and last month, London broke modern air pollution records. But on days when the haze has lifted, we tend to forget air pollution is still there. More to the point, we forget about how air pollution affects our health and the environment. It’s out of sight, a ...read more

Pueblo Bonito taken from the northern rim of Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. (Credit: Douglas Kennett, Penn State University) Before they disappeared in 1130, the Chacoans of New Mexico were a society on par with the Mayans. Without a writing system to speak of, they maintained complex trade partnerships with nearby populations. They lived in sprawling, complex stone mini-cities called “great houses”—the largest of which, Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Canyon, boasted 650 rooms. They ...read more