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Science

Among the many threats facing honeybees in the United States, the Varroa destructor mite could be the most devastating.

Beekeepers Seek to Save Honeybees From a Colony-Invading Pest

Facing the scourge of a parasitic Asian mite, commercial beekeepers are trying to breed a resistant strain of honeybee, but other threats loom

One of the Dinizia excelsa or angelim vermelho trees, which can grow over 80 meters. The tallest, as measured by satellite, towered 88.5 meters above the forest floor.

Researchers Discover the Tallest Known Tree in the Amazon

Satellite images and a trek into the rainforest reveal a group of trees over 80 meters, or about 260 feet, and one as tall as 88.5 meters

How Zookeepers Built Karl, the Abyssinian Ground Hornbill, a New 3-D Beak

For this species, a beak is everything and Karl has had his old one re-tooled for hunting and communication

Modern-day baby feeding from reconstructed infant feeding vessel of the type investigated in the new study.

Bronze Age Baby Bottles Reveal How Some Ancient Infants Were Fed

Drinking vessels found in Bronze and Iron Age children’s graves contained proteins from animal milk

A fully formed dinosaur tooth found in Bismarck, North Dakota.

Want to Dig For Dinosaur Bones? Join the Pros at These Spots

These museums and companies around the country pair the public with paleontologists to uncover buried bones

Soldiers take a psychological test (the exact type of examination is unclear) in Camp Lee in Virginia in November 1917, the year the United States entered World War I and Woodworth first developed his test.

The Future of Mental Health

The First Personality Test Was Developed During World War I

Long before online quizzes and Myers-Briggs, Robert Woodworth’s “Psychoneurotic Inventory” tried to assess recruits’ susceptibility to shell shock

Charlotte Moore Sitterly made huge strides in our understanding of how atoms are structured and what stars, especially our sun, are made of.

Women Who Shaped History

How Charlotte Moore Sitterly Wrote The Encyclopedia of Starlight

The “world’s most honored woman astrophysicist” worked tirelessly for decades to measure the makeup of the sun and the stars

In Northern California, purple sea urchins are decimating kelp forests. Though the species of urchin causing problems may vary by region, the damage is the same.

Could Eating Sea Urchins Help Revive Kelp Forests?

A Norwegian ‘urchin ranching’ company wants to take the echinoderms from the wild, fatten them up and sell them to restaurants

Birds are considered an indicator species, representing the health of entire ecosystems.

North America Has Lost Nearly 3 Billion Birds Since 1970

The staggering population loss of 29 percent of North American birds could signal an ecological crisis

This image shows a preliminary portrait of a juvenile female Denisovan based on a skeletal profile reconstructed from ancient DNA.

Scientists Recreate the Face of a Denisovan Using DNA

By mapping gene expressions, researchers can determine some anatomical features of our distant hominin relatives

The word "teetotaler" dates back to the temperance movement that preceded Prohibition.

Where Does the Word ‘Teetotaler’ Come From? And More Questions From Our Readers

You’ve got questions, we’ve got experts

Scientists are starting to get a better idea of how many factors can influence a newborn's gut microbiome.

Babies Born by C-Section Have Different Gut Microbes Than Vaginally Delivered Infants

Method of delivery can influence the bacteria in infants’ guts, according to a new study, but differences were found to disappear within nine months

Sochan, a relative of the sunflower, can grow up to ten feet tall. Packed with vitamins and minerals, it rivals kale as a nutritional powerhouse.

Cherokee Indians Can Now Harvest Sochan Within a National Park

For the first time, the indigenous community is allowed to gather the cherished plant on protected land

Margaret Rossiter's research spotlights the women in science whose intellectual contributions have not been given their due.

Women in Science

Women Scientists Were Written Out of History. It’s Margaret Rossiter’s Lifelong Mission to Fix That

The historian has devoted her career to bringing to light the ingenious accomplishments of those who have been forgotten

Visualization of a diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) measurement of a human brain. Depicted are reconstructed fiber tracts that run through the mid-sagittal plane.

The Gut Microbiome Could Speed Up the Progression of Alzheimer’s Disease

The microbes in the gastrointestinal tract influence the immune system and the brain, possibly playing a role in the development of Alzheimer’s

An artist's illustration of the planet K2-18b and another planet, K2-18c, that orbits closer to the parent star. Both planets orbit a red dwarf about 110 light-years from Earth in the constellation Leo.

Water Vapor Detected in the Atmosphere of an Exoplanet in the Habitable Zone

The planet K2-18b, about 110 light-years away, could have swirling clouds and falling rains of liquid water droplets

At right is a left front foot followed by the hind foot of the mysterious Chirotherium, or "hand beast." The tracks were first found in the German town of Hildburghausen.

The Long, Strange Tale of the Hand Beast Footprints

A Triassic creature left curious tracks in the sandstone; it took decades to unravel the mystery

The National Zoo's female panda Mei Xiang (above in 2019) is exhibiting signs of a possible pregnancy. These same behaviors could also mean she is experiencing a pseudopregnancy.

Pandamonium

14 Fun Facts About Giant Pandas

Mother Mei Xiang’s annual ambiguous maternal behaviors always deliver heightened anticipation at the National Zoo

Electrophorus voltai, a newly discovered species of electric eel, pictured swimming in the Xingu River, a southern tributary of the Amazon.

Smithsonian Researchers Triple the Number of Electric Eel Species, Including One With Record-Setting Shock Ability

It’s literally shocking news

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How Scientists Are Learning to Tell a Bird’s Age by Its Song

Take a journey into this ornithologist’s world tracking a pair of antshrikes in Panama’s Soberania National Park

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