You'd expect to see a raccoon snuffling around at midnight. A sun bear, not so much.

New Research

Fear of Humans Is Forcing Daytime Animals Into Night Mode

The stress is pushing some animals to adjust their schedules—but not all will be quick enough to adapt

Say hello to SMAP

This NASA Satellite Can Map the Planet’s Soil Moisture Content In Just Three Days

The speedy collection of this data will help with crop management and flood prediction

Don't judge a bat by its cover ... of Barry White.

New Research

Like Birds, Some Bats Warble to Woo Their Mates

They join an elite club of mammals—including mice, whales and humans—whose melodies convey complex information

Fully 73 percent of the patents studied in the paper pertained to microbial species, which account for about 20 percent of marine life.

New Research

Nearly Half the Patents on Marine Genes Belong to Just One Company

Who owns biodiversity? No one and everyone—or maybe, a German chemical company

Are the Sands of the Namib Desert Really Rusting?

The reddish hues of the vast dunes of the Namib Desert in southern Africa are a result of concentrations of iron in the sand

A large dust storm, or haboob, sweeps across downtown Phoenix on July 21, 2012.

New Research

How Climate Changed-Fueled “Mega Droughts” Could Harm Human Health

Researchers looked at the little-studied danger of dust and worsening air quality in the American Southwest

We now know that velociraptors were closer to dog-sized than horse-sized, meaning full-grown Blue should be closer to these dimensions. Also: FEATHERS.

Five Ways Real Science Would Make the New Jurassic World So Much Better

It appears that Fallen Kingdom has not evolved alongside 21st century research

Braving Shark-Infested Waters for a Look at This Big Fish

Fisherman Andy Coetzee is in the middle of a dangerous dive, in the shark-filled waters of the Indian Ocean

Christchurch Cathedral in New Zealand partially collapsed after a 2011 earthquake.

How Computer Scientists Model the Role of Religion in Society

Virtual simulations attempt to show how faith influences human behavior in the face of terror

Catching a Giant 30-lb. Perch With a Wooden Reel

Fisherman and adventurer Andy Coetzee is going traditional with his bid to snare a giant perch

Australian researchers have shown that bees can distinguish nothing from various positive numbers.

New Research

Bees May Understand Zero, a Concept That Took Humans Millennia to Grasp

If the finding is true, they’d be the first invertebrates to join an elite club that includes primates, dolphins and parrots

Fishing for Perch in Nile Crocodile-Filled Waters

South African fisherman Andy Coetzee has his eyes set on a giant perch—a massive freshwater predator fish indigenous to the waters of Uganda

These Portuguese Libraries Are Infested With Bats—and They Like It That Way

They actually serve a very specific purpose

In the early 20th century, pioneer paleontologist Annie Montague Alexander had to find socially acceptable fieldwork partners to avoid being accused of vague improprieties on her expeditions. She would go on to found the University of California Museum of Paleontology at Berkeley.

The Many Ways Women Get Left Out of Paleontology

The hurdles that prevent female fossil hunters from rising at the same rates as their male peers are myriad—but they are all interconnected

Painting of four species of rat, including the Polynesian rat (right).

New Research

Rat Bones Reveal How Humans Transformed Their Island Environments

Rodent remains prove an ideal tool for investigating changes on three Polynesian island chains

The imagined surface of Kepler-186f, an Earth-size planet orbiting a small red star.

NASA’s New Exoplanet Travel Bureau Lets You ‘Tour’ Far-Distant Planets In 360 Degrees

Eager space tourists can now visit sunny Kepler-186f, a moon of Kepler-16b or the Earth-like TRAPPIST-1e virtually

Bycatch is a major problem in fisheries, resulting in the deaths of countless endangered animals. New dynamic software helps fishermen avoid this harmful phenomenon.

New Research

Smart Software Helps Fishermen Catch the Fish They Want, Not Endangered Species

Like a dynamic weather app for the sea, the program allows fishermen to pinpoint areas of conservation and can be updated daily

No photos of Cole survive. Shown here is an anatomy lecture taught by pioneering female physician Elizabeth Blackwell at the Woman's Medical College of New York Infirmary, which she founded. Cole was the resident physician at the infirmary and later a sanitary visitor at Blackwell's Tenement House Service. Blackwell described Cole as “an intelligent young coloured physician [who] carried on this work with tact and care.”

Race in America

The Woman Who Challenged the Idea that Black Communities Were Destined for Disease

A physician and activist, Rebecca J. Cole became a leading voice in medical social services

Grape breeding PhD student Laise Moreira collects flower tissue for analyzing sex trait in grapevine as part of the VitisGen2 project at the University of Minnesota Horticultural Research Center in Excelsior, MN.

The Quest to Grow the First Great American Wine Grape

Genetics might be the key to creating vineyards that both resist disease and don’t taste like skunk

Left: A cooled pāhoehoe flow from the Kīlauea, showing its characteristic ropey texture, captured in 2012 (imageBROKER / Alamy). Right: An ‘a‘ā flow from Kīlauea moves down Makamae Street in Leilani Estates, Hawaii on May 6, 2018.

A Handy Guide to Volcano Vocab

Laze, vog, lava bomb—we help you decipher what geologists are actually talking about

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