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

In 1912, Polish biochemist Kazimierz Funk isolated a chemical compound he thought gave brown rice its protective properties. He coined the phrase "vitamin,” to describe it. Funk realized there were probably other compounds that had potential to fight certain health deficiencies. Between the time of his discovery, until 1948, all essential vitamins were identified. By the 1950s, mass production of vitamin supplements had begun, including the concept of a multivitamin. This marked the beginning ...read more

Dinosaurs have had an enormous cultural impact, and although they didn’t achieve their fame until the modern age, their footprints may have still captivated curious groups of ancient humans. Recent research at a site in northeast Brazil containing primitive rock art adjacent to dinosaur footprints has revealed how humans interacted with the fossil record in prehistory.The research, recently published in Scientific Reports, focused on three rock outcrops at the Serrote do Letreiro site in Brazi ...read more

When people think of ancient structures, they often think of the Egyptian pyramids or the standing stones of Stonehenge. They might think of the Olmec colossal heads in Mexico or the hundreds of statues on Easter Island.The Neolithic temples of Malta, however, are older than all of these famed sites and were constructed between 5,600 and 4,500 B.C.E. Despite their ancient age, many have survived.Although the buildings have endured, an understanding of how the structures were once used has been l ...read more

It’s heartbreaking to lose a beloved dog. And that heartbreak is almost inevitable. While lifespans vary from breed to breed, dogs live about 10 to 15 years, with small breeds living longer than large breeds. Meanwhile, humans can live 80 years or more. So, yes, the odds are good that if you love a dog, one day, you’re going to have to say goodbye.But what if you cloned your dog? It can be done. In fact, dogs are one of the most successfully cloned animals. Would that mean you could bring ba ...read more