At long last, the Eaton and Palisades wildfires in Los Angeles are almost fully contained.It has been more than three weeks since the blazes erupted on Jan. 7, 2025, and now, as I'm writing this on Friday, Jan. 31, they are finally just a percent or two from full containment, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Driven by hurricane force winds, the fires quickly roared through a desiccated landscape. Together they've scorched 37,469 acres — an area more than ...read more

Although we often associate dogs as man’s best friend, new information suggests that sheep may have been by our side all along.A team of geneticists and zooarchaeologists in Europe have analyzed 188 genomes from a selection of domestic and wild sheep bones from across the past 12,000 years. In these samples, they discovered that sheep have existed alongside humans during many important transitional phases in our history. “This research demonstrates how the relationship between humans and sh ...read more

One of the unsung foundations of modern civilization is the ability to detect oscillating fields, be they radio waves, visible light, x-rays, magnetic fields, gravitational waves among the countless varieties. It is no exaggeration to say that our 21st century lives depend on this ability. So it should come as no surprise that physicists would like to do this with ever increasing accuracy and sensitivity. In recent years, they have learned how to use the strange properties of quantum particles t ...read more

Researchers have discovered mysterious new microbes that colonize the microscopic world inside our mouths and digestive tracts.These obelisks, as they've been named, are minuscule bits of ribonucleic acid (RNA) that serve an unknown function, even though their presence could be widespread in the microbiome, according to a recent study published recently in Cell. Obelisks and ViroidsIt’s unclear exactly what obelisks are — even the researchers who discovered them still know very little. Ivan ...read more

Fish caught by methods that can also entangle whales, dolphins, and seals will be banned from U.S. import, starting Jan. 1, 2026, according to a recent agreement.Conservation groups earlier this month made a deal with the U.S. government to stop importing seafood that doesn’t meet marine mammal protection standards. U.S. fishers must also follow similar standards in domestic waters.The agreement is intended to minimize bycatch — the accidental entanglement of mammals fishers weren’t intend ...read more

There’s a lot in our lives today that traces back to ancient Greece and the other cultures of the Aegean: our politics and philosophy, our art and architecture, and, apparently, our lead pollution. That’s according to a study of sediment cores from in and around the Aegean Sea, which found the earliest-known evidence of human-caused contamination from lead, and tied it to the area’s inhabitants around 5,200 years ago. Published in Communications Earth & Environment, the study also iden ...read more

Romantic breakups really can go right to one’s head — more specifically, to one’s hippocampus.That part of the brain, which helps control memory and regulate emotion, tends to be smaller in people who’ve both experienced childhood trauma, then lived through the end of a long-term relationship once they are older, according to a study in the European Journal of Neuroscience.How Trauma Impacts the BrainA smaller hippocampus is a hallmark of many mental disorders. Although childhood mistrea ...read more

Researchers have identified a new form of zombie fungus that is infecting spiders in Irish caves. According to the study published in Fungal Systematics and Evolution, the spider species were found in different “ecological niches within the caves.”While filming a BBC nature program — Winterwatch — the crew came across a spider infected with a fungus. The white fungus looked like frost or coral had grown from the spider’s body. Now, after further study, researchers have identified it a ...read more

In southern Mexico, remote sensing technology has recently provided a snapshot of a 15th century archaeological site in its heyday, revealing a bustling city built by the pre-Columbian Zapotec culture. The site, known as Guiengola, was initially thought to be a fortress occupied by soldiers, but one researcher has found that it was actually an entire city complete with a network of internal roads and amenities like temples and ballcourts. The updated perspective of Guiengola, featured in a Nove ...read more

Centuries of votive offerings cast into a lake in Denmark and other archaeological discoveries have revealed that barbarian warriors may have indulged in psychotropic drugs to stimulate themselves during battle against the Romans and other enemies.These warriors may have used small spoons — dozens of which have been discovered attached to Barbarian belts — to ingest or measure magic mushrooms, an organic precursor for LSD or other substances.“The lack of fatigue or inhibition, and the mobi ...read more