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Stories from Margherita Bassi

A plume of ash and gas rises from Mount Etna on the Italian island of Sicily on Monday. The eruption also featured lava fountains and a pyroclastic flow.

Mount Etna’s Spectacular Monday Eruption Marks the Volcano’s Most Intense Activity in Years

The explosion was the strongest since 2021, expelling ash, dust, lava and a pyroclastic flow, but no injuries or deaths were reported

Noctilucent clouds over the Baltic Sea, as seen from Germany in 2019. Typically seen in polar regions, the clouds are increasingly appearing at mid- and low latitudes.

NASA Wants Your Help to Study These Rare, High-Altitude Clouds That Appear to Glow at Sunrise and Sunset

Noctilucent clouds usually form close to the poles, but in recent decades, they’re being spotted closer to the Equator

An artistic reconstruction of the extinct megalodon. Scientists' ideas about how the megalodon looked are based on its fossilized teeth.

The Fearsome Megalodon Ate Basically Whatever It Wanted to Reach Its Daily 100,000-Calorie Need, Study Suggests

Scientists previously assumed the giant, prehistoric sharks mostly feasted on whales, but it turns out they probably weren’t so picky

The five dwarf planets recognized by the International Astronomical Union are Pluto, Ceres, Eris, Haumea and Makemake—and these are pictured with 2017 OF201 in a telescope image.

Astronomers Discover a Possible Dwarf Planet Far Beyond Neptune, Where There Should Have Only Been Empty Space

As it orbits the sun once every 25,000 years, the celestial body 2017 OF201 travels beyond the Kuiper Belt into a region thought to be largely devoid of objects

Researchers revealed that differences in sloth habitats drove the wide variation in size seen in extinct species.

Giant Sloths the Size of Elephants Once Walked Along the Ground. Here’s How the Massive Animals Evolved and Declined

Researchers analyzed fossils and DNA to get a big-picture view of sloth evolution and determine what drove their immense size variation

A study participant puts in a contact lens. Researchers developed lenses with nanoparticles that convert infrared wavelengths into visible light that humans can perceive.

New Contact Lenses Give Users Super-Vision to See Infrared Light—Even With Their Eyes Closed

Researchers have developed experimental contact lenses that use nanoparticles to convert the invisible wavelengths of near-infrared light into visible colors

An artistic rendering of an early vertebrate being attacked by a sea-scorpion in dark waters

Our Teeth May Descend From Sensitive Bumps on Prehistoric Fish Armor, New Research Finds

Hundreds of millions of years ago, fish had sensory features on their exoskeletons that contained dentine, the material that makes our teeth sensitive today

Humpback whales have poorer eyesight than previously thought, according to a new study.

Humpback Whales Can’t See as Well as Scientists Thought, and It Might Explain Why They Keep Getting Tangled in Fishing Gear

Despite having big eyes, the whales can’t make out details of objects more than a few body lengths away, according to a new study

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) captured this image of extreme solar activity on May 10, 2024.

The U.S. Ran Its First Space Weather Preparedness Drill—Here’s How It Went

Ironically, the exercise last May was interrupted by a real scenario, when Earth was hit by the strongest solar storm in two decades

An artistic rendering of one of the Voyager probes.

NASA Engineers Revive Long-Dormant Thrusters on Voyager 1, the Farthest Spacecraft From Earth, in a ‘Miracle Save’

In the nick of time, NASA teams addressed clogging issues in the probe’s backup roll thrusters, before the only antenna capable of sending commands to it went offline

The sun launched a powerful solar flare on May 14, 2025, captured here by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory.

Sun Launches Its Strongest Solar Flare of the Year So Far, Causing Radio Blackouts Around the World

The new sunspot responsible for this powerful blast is rotating into view, which could bring more solar activity—and potential aurora-causing coronal mass ejections—to Earth in the coming days

The Chicago Archaeopteryx, seen under UV light, shows soft tissues alongside the skeleton.

The Famous, Feathered Dinosaur Archaeopteryx Could Fly, Suggests New Study of a ‘Beautifully Preserved’ Fossil

The Chicago Archaeopteryx features more soft tissue and delicate skeletal details than any known fossil of its kind, and paleontologists discovered it has a set of feathers key to flight in modern birds

These observations of Jupiter’s auroras (shown on the left of the above image) were captured with NASA's James Webb Space Telescope’s Near-Infrared Camera on December 25, 2023.

Check Out Jupiter’s Stunning Auroras, Which Are Hundreds of Times Brighter Than Earth’s, in the James Webb Telescope’s Latest Images

The infrared views, captured in 2023, shed light on the giant planet’s atmosphere and magnetosphere—but they also reveal something unexpected

Rangers witnessed a captive Powelliphanta augusta snail lay an egg from its neck, and they managed to catch it on video for the first time ever.

Watch a Giant Snail Lay an Egg From a Pore in Its Neck in First-Ever Footage Captured in New Zealand

Conservation rangers took a video of an endangered, captive snail laying a large egg, revealing insight into the creature’s reproductive process

A new study finds chimpanzees drum against tree roots with rhythm, suggesting they share an evolutionary trait with humans passed down by a last common ancestor.

Researchers Discover That Chimps Drum Rhythmically, Suggesting Human Musicality Originated in Our Last Common Ancestor

Not only do chimpanzees maintain a rhythm while drumming on tree roots, but two subspecies use distinct tempos and techniques, according to a new study

Dumbo octopuses, like the Opisthoteuthis agassizii seen here during a 2019 dive, are the deepest-living group of octopuses known.

Humans Have Seen Only 0.001 Percent of the World’s Deep Seas, Leaving Most of the Planet a Vast Mystery

Researchers argue that expanding deep-sea exploration is vital to understanding and managing these marine habitats

Researchers reveal that some superb starlings form long-term, friendship-like relationships.

These Colorful Birds Form Long-Term ‘Friendships’ by Helping Out With Babysitting, Study Suggests

While scientists have observed animals assisting their relatives, a new study reveals that many superb starlings also form supportive relationships with non-relatives that can last for years

An artistic rendering of a magnetar—or highly magnetized neutron star—losing material into space. The magnetic field lines, shown in green, direct the movement of charged material.

Astrophysicists Track Down the Mysterious Cosmic Origins of Gold and Other Heavy Metals in Our Galaxy

Researchers suggest powerful bursts from magnetars—collapsed stars with strong magnetic fields—may have contributed up to 10 percent of all elements heavier than iron in the Milky Way

Ronan the California sea lion sits in front of a pool at UC Santa Cruz’s Long Marine Laboratory.

This Sea Lion Can Headbang Better Than You—Watch Her Out-Perform Humans at Keeping a Beat

A new study of Ronan, a sea lion famous for her dancing skills, challenges the idea that only vocal learners can match a tempo

New research suggests that land-based echidnas descended from semi-aquatic mammals. 

A Single Prehistoric Bone Might Rewrite the History of the World’s Strangest Mammals

Analysis of the fossil suggests that the only two egg-laying mammals, platypuses and land-based echidnas, both descended from a semi-aquatic creature

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