As a scientist, lab work can sometimes get monotonous. But in 2017, while a Ph.D. student of paleobiology at the University of Bristol in the U.K., I heard a gleeful exclamation from across the room. Kirsty Penkman, head of the North East Amino Acid Racemization lab at the University of York, had just read the data printed off the chromatograms and was practically jumping up and down.The instrument had detected telltale signatures of ancient amino acids in eggshell. Amino acids are the building ...read more

At this point, there’s little doubt Neanderthals ate each other, even if the practice doesn't appear to have been widespread. Bones found in Belgium, France, Spain, and Croatia bear the clear signature of cannibalism — riddled with butchery marks and cracked open for marrow extraction, these remains were found strewn about with apparent disregard for proper funerals. But a deeper and more controversial question remains: Why?As French archaeologists Alban Defleur and Emmanuel Desclaux wrote i ...read more

Anyone who’s had a biology class probably remembers how important proteins are. Often referred to as the workhorses of the body, proteins exist in every single cell. What do they do? It’s probably fairer to ask: What don’t they do? They function as a building material within cells; they copy DNA, and they carry messages and oxygen to various parts of the body. In short, protein makes us us: Without it, the structure and function of our tissues and organs simply wouldn’t exist — and nei ...read more

The James Webb Space Telescope, or JWST for short, is one of the most advanced telescopes ever built. Planning for JWST began over 25 years ago, and construction efforts spanned over a decade. It was launched into space on Dec. 25, 2021, and within a month arrived at its final destination: 930,000 miles away from Earth. Its location in space allows it a relatively unobstructed view of the universe.The telescope design was a global effort, led by NASA, and intended to push the boundaries of astro ...read more

Why does a creature that hunts at night need eyes that weigh about twenty times its head? The question sounds like the set-up to a bad joke or a riddle from a sphinx. But it hooked biologist Anders Garm from the University of Copenhagen’s Department of Biology after his colleague Michael Bok at Lund University showed him a video of the Vanadis bristle worm.The Vanadis Worm: A Marvel of Marine BiologyVanadis bristle worms, also known as polychaetes, live on the Italian island of Ponza, just wes ...read more

If you’ve spent any time scrolling through the health and wellness corners of social media, you’ve likely come across many products claiming to improve your metabolism. But what exactly is your metabolism?Everything you expose your body to – from lifestyle to an airborne virus – influences your physical characteristics, such as your blood pressure and energy levels. Together, these biological characteristics are referred to as your phenotype. And the biological system that most directly ...read more

As global air temperatures increase, the number of Antarctic meteorites shrinks. By 2050, about a quarter of the 3-800,000 meteorites there will melt away, according to a report from a team of researchers from Switzerland and Belgium. The team drew upon artificial intelligence, satellite observations, and climate model projections to determine that, for every tenth of a degree increase in global air temperature, an average of nearly 9,000 meteorites will disappear from Antarctica’s ice sheet.T ...read more

At the heart of humanity’s grand odyssey into the cosmos lies a problem that needs to be solved. The success of our final frontier journey — the reality of settling humans long-term on the moon, Mars, and beyond — hinges on our ability to cultivate our own sustainable sustenance.Transforming harsh, disagreeable lunar and Martian soil into a nurturing medium suitable for terrestrial plants is no easy task. Yet, it’s one that has fascinated graduate students Jessica Atkin of Texas A&M ...read more

The moon’s formation has been theoretically topsy-turvy for decades. Parts of the original molten magma surface sank below the crust. Over millennia, dense minerals mixed with the mantle, melted, and returned to the surface as titanium-rich lava flows. A paper in Nature Geoscience details and confirms this transformation."Our moon literally turned itself inside out," said Jeff Andrews-Hanna, a University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory scientist and co-author of the study, in a press ...read more

A case report published on March 24, 2024 in The Lancet is helping researchers gain new insights into a poorly understood neurological disorder. The case is that of Victor Sharrah, a 58-year-old man who complained about seeing “demonic” faces for nearly three years. Everything else he views appears normal.What makes Sharrah’s case special is that faces in photographs or on a computer screen remain normal — he only sees the demonic features when looking at a real face. In his own words, � ...read more