We’re in the dog days of summer, and National Dog Day is August 26. You and your dog can celebrate by doing a little science together (that’s right!)…and help researchers in the process. Cheers!The SciStarter Team Darwin's Ark Help researchers understand pet personalities by contributing a saliva sample and/or filling out a survey about your furry friend. Location: Global Get Started! C-BARQ and Fe-BARQ Give scientists a glimpse ...read more

https://youtu.be/R-VbJmngUSU We’ve got: Maya warfare, giant extinct parrots, ancient galaxies, space travel radiation, a pill for lucid dreams, and more. Maya Warfare The Maya Classic Period, from 300 to 900 A.D., is seen as a kind of golden age for the ancient Central American civilization. Populations boomed. Art and science flourished. It was a pretty peaceful time, or so we thought. Archaeologists have now discovered evidence of all-out warfare and near-complete destruct ...read more

Want to map extreme heat in your community? Anyone, anywhere can take action with ISeeChange. It’s not just in your head; Boston really is hotter in the summer. When urban areas are warmer than surrounding non-urban environments, we experience a phenomenon called the urban heat island (UHI) effect. Cities are filled with large amounts of artificial materials, such as concrete and asphalt, that absorb heat throughout the day and release heat at night. Living materials like trees, flo ...read more

InVADER will explore deep-sea vents on Earth to prepare future missions to do the same on watery worlds in the solar system like Europa or Enceladus. (Credit: D. Kelley, University of Washington/NSF-OOI/WHOI) Some of the most intriguing possibilities for finding life outside Earth are on water worlds like Europa or Enceladus — ocean moons orbiting Jupiter and Saturn. However, those worlds are encased in layers of ice, meaning any ocean exploration will take place far beneath the surface ...read more

The biofluorescent shark Scyliorhinus retifer. (Credit: David Gruber) (Inside Science) -- When we look at the seafloor, we might not see the bottom-dwelling sharks that blend in with the rocks and the sand. But to other sharks of the same species, they stand out like green glow sticks. Now scientists know how. In 2014, marine biologist David Gruber, from the City University of New York, and his team discovered that two species of bottom-dwelling sharks are biofluorescent. The swell shark ...read more

Ethiopia's Bale Mountains. (Credit: Michele Alfieri/Shutterstock) High-altitude environments are not exactly welcoming places to call home. It’s hard to breathe, there’s little shelter and being that much closer to the sun means more exposure to UV radiation. The inhospitable conditions are why high mountains and plateaus were some of the last places on Earth humans occupied.  Now researchers find prehistoric humans lived in a high-altitude rocky outcrop in Ethiopia’ ...read more

Hopefully that bag isn't made out of organic cotton. (Credit: Vasiliy Ptitsyn/Shutterstock) We all care about the environment at least a tiny bit. Some of us more than others. But there are things a few of us do with the best intentions that, it turns out, fall somewhere between not helpful and completely counterproductive. Here are some of the worst offenders and how to avoid them. Recycling something “just in case” Yeah, sadly, “aspirational recycling” is not h ...read more

via GIPHY Imagine trying to bend an inflated bicycle tire tube in half. It's a bit difficult, though not impossible. When you let go, the pressure inside snaps the tube back to its normal shape, as if spring-loaded. What you're doing when you bend the tube is essentially storing energy inside it, to be released all at once when you let go. The trick isn't very useful when it comes to bike tires, of course, but scientists have found that a species of midge has a unique way to put this tech ...read more

(Credit: Quality Stock Arts/Shutterstock) If you’re a doomsday prepper or were alive during the Cold War you may already be aware – and fearful – of an imminent electromagnetic pulse (EMP) event. It’s a disaster scenario that’s captured the imaginations of filmmakers and video game creators, as well as legitimate organizations, like the United States government. EMPs are brief but powerful jolts of high-frequency electromagnetic waves that can fry electronics ...read more

Galaxies with central black holes can take various forms depending on the angle at which astronomers see them. (Credit: NASA) Every large galaxy has a supermassive black hole at its center. And some of those black holes are actively ejecting huge amounts of high-energy light out into the cosmos. Astronomers divide some of these active galaxies, which otherwise look like normal spirals, into two types, so-called Seyfert 1 and Seyfert 2 galaxies. Seyfert 1 galaxies have distinctive light ...read more