Researchers have trained African giant pouched rats to sniff out tuberculosis and explosives in the past. And they have now expanded the rodents’ scent repertoire to detect illegally trafficked animal parts — including pangolin scales, elephant ivory, and rhino horn, according to a report in Frontiers in Conservation Science.Interrupting this illegal trade is important in and of itself, of course. But the people who smuggle animal parts often also traffic drugs, humans, and weapons. But why ...read more

If you’ve ever experienced a scratchy tickle or tiny bump in the back of your throat that didn’t seem to go away, or maybe a mysterious case of bad breath despite regularly brushing your teeth, you might have had tonsil stones. These tiny, often unnoticed formations can pack a one-two punch of discomfort and embarrassment, yet many people don’t even realize they have them.Tonsil stones, or tonsilloliths, are actually relatively common. And while they’re not usually harmful, they can caus ...read more

Bats, spiders, cemeteries, unseen creatures living in our homes– even roadkill– have stories to tell and important lessons to teach us. Go a Little Batty!Big Brown Bat (Credit: Celley/USFWS, public domain via Flickr Creative Commons)You don’t need your own belfry to watch fascinating bats; you can join Bats Count! Bat Cam Emergence Count and watch them leave their Connecticut barn every evening through the project’s live Bat Emergence Cam! As you might have guessed from the project title ...read more

Whether you use free weights, machines, or resistance bands, weight training offers many health benefits. Using weights to exercise has been practiced since ancient times when people engaged in this activity for better health and sport. Egyptians lifted sandbags and heavy stones, while Greeks lifted U-shaped stone weights called “halteres”— the precursor to the modern-day dumbbell. Ancient societies understood the benefits of exercising with weights, and our modern-day society does, too. ...read more

The cellular components that turn DNA directions into a body’s building blocks are akin to pieces of a Swiss watch: tiny, delicate, specialized — and complicated. If any part is missing or broken, the watch stops working. The scientists who received the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine discovered and characterized a component of that “watch” that no one previously understood — microRNA. Prior to its discovery by the laureates Victor Ambros of the University of Massachusetts C ...read more

"It's the economy, stupid."That was the phrase coined by political strategist James Carville to help the 1992 presidential campaign of Bill Clinton — who went on to defeat President George H.W. Bush. And it encapsulates the idea that how voters are thinking about the economy often is the most important factor in deciding a presidential election.If recent polling can be trusted, that sure seems to be the case this time. In a recent Gallup survey, for example, the economy was ranked as the most ...read more

Some 13,000 years ago, just as the last Ice Age was receding, ancient humans were returning to a camp in the Great Lakes region to process hunted animals and sharpen up their hunting weapons.In present day, a local amateur archaeologist named Thomas Talbot discovered the ancient campsites when he kept finding Clovis tools and rock scrapings in a field near Mendon in southwestern Michigan. Brendan Nash, an archaeologist at the University of Michigan, and a team then started an excavation at what ...read more

One of the sadly neglected problems in modern science is the question of how best to keep beer cool once it has been poured into a glass. Now one scientist has come up with a novel solution by developing a mathematical model that determines the optimal shape of a beer glass that keeps beer cool.The problem is well known to generations of beer drinkers the world over. As soon as beer is poured into a glass, it starts to warm up. So an important goal is to minimize the heat entering the beer so th ...read more

Learning that a shiny rock is fool’s gold rather than the valuable mineral is generally cause for disappointment. But for scientists who discovered a new 450-million-year-old arthropod preserved in iron pyrite, the substance could be considered priceless.Fossils of ancient arthropods — a group of animals including spiders, centipedes, and insects — are especially rare, because they are made up primarily of soft tissue, which usually starts decaying days after death. Due to some rare geoche ...read more

Imagine holding a piece of the early solar system in your hands — a 4.5-billion-year-old artifact that predates our planet. Thanks to the Apollo missions of the 1960s and 70s, and China’s 2024 Chang’e-6 mission, researchers now have the opportunity to hold, and study, lunar samples that provide a unique glimpse into the distant past.Moon rocks, brought back to Earth by NASA's Apollo missions and China's Chang’e probes, are far more than ordinary space debris. These samples hold invaluabl ...read more