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Stories from Margherita Bassi

Images and schematic line drawings of the recently discovered neck vertebra of Cryodrakon boreas that bears a puncture mark, presumably from a predator or scavenger.

Rare Neck Fossil With Puncture Mark Suggests a Prehistoric Crocodilian Snacked on a Young Pterosaur 76 Million Years Ago

The fossil sheds light on interactions within the Cretaceous food web and may represent the first record of this type of predation in North America

A humpback whale

Humpback Whale Song Shares a Key Pattern With Human Language That Might Make It Easier for the Animals to Learn

Despite humans and whales being separated by millions of years of evolution, our vocalizations follow the same principle outlined in Zipf’s law

An illustration of the Vegavis iaai diving for fish off the coast of the Antarctic peninsula.

Paleontologists Discover Fossil of the Oldest Known Modern Bird—but It Raises More Questions Than It Answers

The fossil suggests that modern birds evolved before the dinosaur-killing asteroid, perhaps in Antarctica

An artist's impression of a generic asteroid.

Astronomers Raise Odds of Asteroid Impact in 2032 to 2.3 Percent—Here’s Why You Shouldn’t Panic

The chance of a newly discovered space rock hitting Earth in about eight years was predicted at 1.6 percent last week. Though that number’s rising, experts say further research could bring it to zero

LEDA 1313424, nicknamed the Bullseye, appears next to the small blue dwarf galaxy on its immediate left.

Check Out NASA’s New Image of the Brilliant Bullseye Galaxy, the Aftermath of a Rare Cosmic Collision

After a blue dwarf galaxy shot through it like an arrow, the large Bullseye now has nine rings—six more than any other galaxy known to scientists

Nyota, a 25-year-old male bonobo at Ape Initiative in Iowa, participated in the study.

When Bonobos Know What You Don’t, They’ll Tell You. It’s a Sign of a Cognitive Ability Called ‘Theory of Mind’

A first-of-its-kind study suggests bonobos, like humans, can understand someone else’s lack of knowledge—and adjust their actions accordingly

The swell shark pup at Louisiana's Shreveport Aquarium

Shark Pup Mysteriously Hatches in Aquarium Tank With Only Females. How Could This Birth Happen?

Experts say the case is either a rare form of asexual reproduction or an instance of (very) delayed fertilization

The fossil find, dubbed Danekræ DK-1295, contains regurgitated fragments of sea lilies.

Fossil Hunter Discovers 66-Million-Year-Old Vomit in Denmark, Offering a Clue to the Cretaceous Food Chain

A marine animal snacked on some sea lilies that did not agree with its stomach—and we now know what happened next

The Tesla Roadster and the mannequin "Starman" on the SpaceX Falcon Heavy upper stage, with Earth in background.

An Amateur Astronomer Seemingly Spotted a New Asteroid. It Turned Out to Be a Tesla in Space

The car, launched in 2018 on a SpaceX rocket’s upper stage, is one of many human-made objects in deep space that could potentially be mistaken for natural celestial bodies

A self-portrait of NASA's Curiosity rover, taken on June 15, 2018

Curiosity Rover Spots Ancient Water Ripples on Mars, Hinting at a Past With Shallow, Ice-Free Lakes

The 3.7-billion-year-old formations in the planet’s Gale Crater suggest the presence of long-gone bodies of liquid water, with no ice covering the surface

The head of Bathynomus vaderi, a newly described species of giant isopod found in Southeast Asian waters

Researchers Identified a New ‘Supergiant’ Crustacean With 14 Legs—and They Named It After Darth Vader

In recent years, the deep-sea giant isopod has also become a seafood delicacy in Vietnam, where it was discovered

An artist’s visualization of WASP-127b

Astronomers Discover Supersonic Winds on a ‘Puffy’ Exoplanet, Forming a Record-Breaking Jet Stream

Moving at roughly 20,505 miles per hour along the distant world’s equator, it’s the fastest known jet stream that wraps around a planet

Hand-drawn illustration of two of the seven sampled molars from Australopithecus

Ape-Like Human Ancestors Were Largely Vegetarian 3.3 Million Years Ago in South Africa, Fossil Teeth Reveal

Scientists suggest meat consumption was pivotal to humans’ development of larger brains, but the transition probably didn’t start with Australopithecus, according to a new study

A section of the new photomosaic of the Andromeda Galaxy, which features 600 fields of view in total from the Hubble Space Telescope.

Check Out the Hubble Space Telescope’s Stunning New View of the Andromeda Galaxy

The full image includes some 2.5 billion pixels compiled from observations spanning more than 1,000 orbits around Earth

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

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