While there are hundreds of adorable animals across the globe, Discover Magazine narrowed this list down to 20 of the cutest animals that exist today. From cuddly rodents to happy amphibians to waddling birds, enjoy these delightful animals. 1. Red Panda(Credit: seaonweb/Shutterstock) Native to the eastern Himalayas, red pandas are more closely related to raccoons than the giant panda. Although these forest dwellers have extremely cute faces, their colorful facial markings have a purpose — hel ...read more

For thousands of years, gazing upward was how astronomers studied the sky above. On a clear night, several planets in our solar system were visible without a telescope. However, as telescopes increased in sophistication, astronomers discovered more planets, confirming the eight in our solar system. As technology continues to progress, though, could we uncover a new one? Astrophysicists don’t know if there are undiscovered planets in our solar system, but new technologies are enabling researche ...read more

By some estimates, about 3,000 dead satellites are orbiting Earth, and around 34,000 pieces of space junk have been left behind by humans. Wherever humans go, we always leave a trace.  And it’s an even bigger problem in space because it takes much longer to decompose and does nothing but muck up the place, says Jack Gabit, an associate professor of physics at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. As humans go back to the moon and aim to travel to Mars, the more people that visit space, t ...read more

Some of the most famous and best-preserved dinosaur fossils were thought to have been suspended in time due to a massive volcanic event like the Mt. Vesuvius eruption that literally froze Pompeii in stone.But the cause of those dinos’ demise was likely much more mundane — collapsing animal burrows, according to a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.Incredibly Preserved FossilsTwo perfectly articulated skeletons of the sheep-size dinosaur Psittacosaurus, found in Chin ...read more

Nothing ages worse than the Facebook post you made 16 years ago. While those posts or photos may have been trendy or show how you were feeling at the time, more often than not, you’re likely going to cringe or even feel shame when revisiting the memory.As it turns out, the twinge of shame from regretting a social media post is common. According to a 2015 YouGov survey, 57 percent of Americans report regret over a post or text they’ve made on social media, with 16 percent regretting a post as ...read more

Chronic wasting disease (CWD), often referred to as "zombie deer disease," has been steadily spreading through deer populations across North America for decades. This fatal neurological disease, a prion-based affliction similar to mad cow disease, causes infected animals to waste away, lose coordination, and display eerie, zombie-like symptoms. But could this deadly disease one day make the jump to humans? While no human cases of CWD have been confirmed to date, growing concerns over its spread ...read more

The annual dog costume contest was beginning at my block party. I popped out of my house without my hearing aids and cheered on the winners, a husky dressed as a bumble bee and a labradoodle in a wizard’s robe.   Afterward, I chatted with a few friends until one admitted she could barely hear me. I live in a quiet world, and without my hearing aids in, I tend to be even more soft-spoken. It was a good reminder that I needed to wear my hearing aids.I’m not the only one who needs a reminder ...read more

It didn’t take long for Edward Chang to see the implications of what he was doing. The neuroscientist and brain surgeon at the University of California, San Francisco, was studying the brain activity behind speech, that precise and delicate neural choreography by which lips, jaw, tongue, and larynx produce meaningful sounds. By implanting an array of electrodes between the outer and inner membranes of the brain, directly over the area of the brain that controls speech, he and his team were abl ...read more

A massive meat-eating bird sat high atop the food chain about 12 million years ago. Researchers analyzed a bone of the creature found in northern South America nearly 20 years ago and determined that it was likely a “terror bird” related to Phorusrhacids, according to a report in Palaeontology. Terror birds were carnivorous, living off small to mid-sized mammals. Earlier examples of Phorusrhacid fossils grew up to 9 feet tall. But this one was likely 5 percent to 20 percent larger, based on ...read more

Long before humans figured out how to harness solar power, photosynthesizers beat us to it. Our first attempt came less than 3,000 years ago, when the ancient Greeks built magnifying glasses to concentrate light for starting fires. By then, other lifeforms had already been converting those same rays into chemical energy for upwards of 3.5 billion years. There is truly nothing new under the sun.This process, called photosynthesis, is fundamental to almost all life on Earth. Primary producers (pla ...read more