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Eli Stark-Elster

Eli Stark-Elster

Eli Stark-Elster is the AAAS Mass Media Science & Engineering Fellow at Smithsonian magazine. He is a PhD student in evolutionary anthropology at the University of California, Davis. His research focuses on documenting the methods used to induce altered states of consciousness across cultures—he conducts fieldwork in southern Africa, where he studies the shamanic use of hallucinogenic plants and fungi. His writing and research has been featured on NPR, Psyche and the Conversation. He also writes on his Substack, Unpublishable Papers.

An A.I. model from Anthropic helped disprove a longstanding conjecture in mathematics.

A.I. Disproves a Decades-Old Mathematical Idea, the ‘Biggest Conjecture’ That the Tech Has Played a Role in Yet

A mathematician announced that he used one of Anthropic’s A.I. models to find a counterexample to a problem called the Jacobian conjecture. While experts consider it a milestone, the work raises questions about the future of mathematical research

Quest was purchased by explorer Ernest Shackleton for a Canadian Arctic expedition that was later aborted. He then set his sights on his fourth Antarctic expedition, but he died on the way. The ship was later used for seal hunting off Newfoundland and Labrador.

New Close-Up Images Reveal the Wreckage of Ernest Shackleton’s Last Ship, Now Draped in Discarded Fishing Gear and Teeming With Life

The vessel “Quest,” found in 2024 off the coast of northeastern Canada, has become a home for corals, anemones and fish. It also holds the leftovers from decades of commercial fishing that happened above it after it sank

A bumblebee sticking out its tongue, potentially a sign that it liked a flavor

Bumblebees Seem to ‘Lick Their Lips’ After Sweet Treats and Shake Their Heads at Bad Tastes, Hinting at the Insects’ Inner Lives

Slow-motion videos suggest that the insects display distinct behaviors when they like or dislike a snack. The findings might offer a new way to study their emotion-like states

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This Giant Planet May Have Survived the Death of Its Star. The James Webb Space Telescope Just Found Its Atmosphere

New observations of WD 1856 b, a gas giant closely orbiting a white dwarf, offer a preview of what could happen to Jupiter and Saturn after the sun dies in about five billion years.

The Crimson Vortex and Sapphire Blossoms of Andromeda

See Ten Spectacular Images From This Year’s Astronomy Photographer of the Year Contest That Capture the Wonders of the Universe

The pictures, on the competition’s shortlist, reveal the remarkable celestial objects that lie above our heads, both in deep space and closer to home

Illustration of what Praearcturus gigas may have looked like

After Decades of Debate, Scientists Say These Fossils Belong to the Largest Known Scorpion, Which Lived 415 Million Years Ago

Researchers have wondered whether Praearcturus gigas was a giant crustacean called an isopod or some other creature. A new analysis of museum specimens suggests that it was a scorpion that stretched more than three feet long

Modern humans and our relatives have occupied Wonderwork Cave in South Africa for around two million years.

Early Humans May Have Used Fire 1.8 Million Years Ago, Nearly Doubling the Age of the Oldest Known Evidence for the Feat

In Wonderwerk Cave in South Africa, burned bones were found in a dirt layer associated with Homo erectus. The inhabitants probably hadn’t mastered fire-making, but researchers say they may have moved and maintained flames from a natural fire

Two fossils of juvenile embolomeres—crocodile-like creatures, illustrated here—suggest that they did not undergo metamorphosis to become adults and that the ancestors of today’s birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians might not have had a tadpole life phase.

A Vietnam Veteran Collected Fossils for 66 Years. One, Mislabeled ‘Baby Lamprey,’ Made Paleontologists Reconsider How Vertebrates Moved From Water to Land

The fossil turned out to be a hatchling of a crocodile-like creature, and it suggests, according to a new study, that early animals did not use metamorphosis to evolve to dwell on land

Astronomers used galaxy cluster MACS J0416 (background), as a magnifying glass to view the extremely faint galaxy LAP1-B (inset), which is visualized here based on the James Webb Space Telescope's infrared data.

Astronomers Discovered a ‘Cosmic Fossil’ in the Making—the Most Chemically Primitive Galaxy Seen Yet—by Peering Back to the Edge of Time

The James Webb Space Telescope observed 13-billion-year-old light, using a closer galactic cluster like a magnifying glass. The work helps experts understand the universe’s earliest stars and mysterious ultra-faint dwarf galaxies

The convenience of working from home can come with hidden costs, according to new research.

Working From Home Is Making People Lonelier and Worsening Mental Health, a Study Suggests

The findings do not mean that in-office mandates are a fix, experts say. Instead, workplaces should have flexible policies that allow employees to choose where they’d like to work