Margherita Bassi

Margherita Bassi

Margherita Bassi is a freelance journalist and trilingual storyteller. Her work has appeared in publications including BBC Travel, Discover magazine, Live Science, Atlas Obscura and Hidden Compass.

Starship lifts off on January 16, before undergoing a "rapid unscheduled disassembly" roughly eight and a half minutes into the flight.

SpaceX's Starship Explodes in Its Seventh Test Flight, With Falling Debris Putting on a Fiery Show

The Super Heavy booster, meanwhile, was successfully caught in the launch tower's mechanical arms for only the second time

Homeowners found star-shaped debris outside their home on Prince Edward Island, Canada, after a meteorite strike in July.

Meteorite Crash in Canada Is Caught by Home Security Camera in Likely World-First Video Footage

The space rock—recorded with visuals and sound—landed where the homeowner had been standing just minutes earlier

A baby rusty-spotted cat, born at a French zoo in 2010. The newly discovered fossil is thought to belong to the same genus as modern rusty-spotted cats, which are among the smallest felines in the world.

Rare Jaw Fossil Found in China Might Belong to the World's Smallest Cat

Scientists placed the extinct species, which may date back more than 300,000 years, in the same genus as modern leopard cats in Asia

A new crayfish species called Cherax pulverulentus has a bright blue color.

A New Crayfish Species Was Hiding in Plain Sight Among Common Aquarium Pets, Researchers Find

Native to Indonesian New Guinea, the crustacean comes in two color forms and is a popular pet choice in Europe, Japan, the United States and Indonesia

Craters at Mercury's poles contain permanently shadowed areas that are some of the coldest sites in the solar system, despite their proximity to the sun.

New, Stunning Images of Mercury's North Pole Will Help Scientists Study the Planet's Mysterious Permanent Shadows

The BepiColombo spacecraft captured the photographs during its last flyby of Mercury, a maneuver necessary to propel the mission into orbit around the planet

Two newly discovered, spiky creatures from the Silurian period—nicknamed Punk and Emo—are helping scientists reveal the early history of mollusks.

Meet Punk and Emo, Two Angsty-Looking Fossils From 430 Million Years Ago That Shed Light on Early Mollusk Evolution

The prehistoric creatures look to be sporting a punk hairstyle and emo bangs, and one of them seemingly moved like an inchworm

The glymphatic system moves a clear liquid called cerebrospinal fluid around the brain to flush out toxic proteins accumulated during waking hours.

In a Study on Mice, Scientists Show How the Brain Washes Itself During Sleep

The brain's waste-removal process is "like turning on the dishwasher," a neurologist says, but common sleep medications may harm it

A composite of enhanced color images of Pluto (lower right) and Charon (upper left), taken by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft on July 14, 2015.

A Novel 'Kiss and Capture' Event Gave Pluto Its Largest Moon, Charon, New Study Suggests

Researchers accounted for the previously overlooked structures of the dwarf planet and moon in computer simulations of a celestial collision

A cast of a Neanderthal skull at the Chemnitz State Museum of Archaeology in Germany. New research delves into when humans and Neanderthals interbred.

Researchers Track Down When Neanderthals and Early Modern Humans Interbred Using Ancient Genomes

Two studies came to a similar conclusion, highlighting a single, sustained event of mixing DNA. The findings could impact our understanding of when modern humans reached regions like East Asia and Australia

From these upper hip bones, researchers extracted an ancient genome of the bacteria that causes syphilis.

Ancient DNA Offers Crucial Hints to the Origin of Syphilis, a Decades-Long Mystery That Has Divided Scientists

Researchers found evidence that early versions of syphilis-causing bacteria existed in the Americas long before the arrival of Columbus

A recently excavated mastodon tooth found in a backyard, still embedded in the jaw

A Homeowner Found Huge, Fossil Teeth While Mowing the Lawn. Then, Excavations Revealed a Complete Mastodon Jaw

The new discovery is the first of its kind in New York state for at least 11 years and appeared in a county rich with mastodon remains

Happiness "lights up" similar areas on both modern and ancient body maps, with the exception of the liver, which was more significant for the ancient Mesopotamians.

Ancient Texts Reveal How Mesopotamians Felt Emotions—From Happiness in the Liver to Anger in the Feet

Researchers found that ancient Mesopotamians associated body parts with emotions, just as we do—but they discovered some hilarious differences

Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams inspect safety hardware aboard the ISS in August 2024.

NASA's Starliner Astronauts Face Another Delay in Their Return Home, Drawing Out Their Unexpectedly Long Mission

Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore were supposed to stay at the ISS for a little over a week. It's now been more than six months, and the end date has been pushed again

A red-bellied woodpecker peers into a hole in a tree and spots a very alarmed-looking young screech owl. The photograph, which was highly commended in the contest, is titled "You're not my mother."

Check Out 14 Hilarious Winners From the Nikon Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards Contest

From an "awkward" smiling frog to embarrassing owl parents, this year's winners of the entertaining annual competition won't let you down

A representation of the evolution of the universe over 13.77 billion years.

James Webb Telescope Confirms the Universe Is Expanding Faster Than We Thought—and Scientists Still Don’t Know Why

The findings suggest that astronomers’ widely accepted cosmology models might be missing something—meaning the longstanding mystery known as the “Hubble tension” continues

A Nile crocodile.

Scientists Unlock the Secrets of Crocodile Skin and Its Irregular, Mystifying Patterns

The scales on crocodiles’ heads are very different from the skin appendages of other animals and even distinct from the scales on the rest of their bodies

Lightning strikes over the countryside near Potsdam, Germany, on July 10, 2024, following a period of high temperatures.

Google Reveals New A.I. Model That Predicts Weather Better Than the Best Traditional Forecasts

Instead of crunching mathematical calculations, GenCast was trained on four decades of historical weather data to produce an array of 15-day forecasts

The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds were recently captured by NASA astronaut Don Pettit aboard the ISS.

NASA Astronaut Shares Breathtaking Photos From the ISS, Featuring Galaxies and Glowing 'Star Trails'

On his fourth flight, Don Pettit is once again sharing the art of astrophotography, capturing and posting pictures of Earth, satellites and space

Researchers found that in 2023, a decrease in low-altitude clouds, specifically over the Atlantic Ocean, drove an increase in the planet's temperature.

Scientists Find Another Reason Why 2023 Was So Hot: a Decline in Low-Lying Clouds

According to new research, Earth might have reflected less solar radiation last year than in any other year since 1940, a trend that adds to the planet's warming

This image of the Geminid meteor shower, as seen from China, earned first place in the 2021 astrophotography contest by the International Astronomical Union Office of Astronomy Education.

How to Watch the Geminid Meteor Shower This Weekend

The peak of this popular annual meteor shower risks being washed out by an almost full moon this year—but stargazers can still spot shooting stars if they follow the right tips

Page 1 of 7