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The study included two species of small cats, domesticated cats and leopard cats.

New Research

A New Study Finds That Domestic Cats Traveled the Silk Road to China About 1,400 Years Ago

The animals were likely gifted to some elites, then spread throughout the region

A new study suggests that the lemon shark, pictured here, is a better analogue for the megalodon's size than a great white.

Megalodon Might Have Been Longer and Skinnier Than Previously Thought, Growing Up to 80 Feet

A new paper suggests the enormous, extinct shark looked less like a bulky great white and more like an elongated lemon shark

The Florida white is among the butterflies experiencing the most drastic population loss, according to a new study.

U.S. Butterflies Are Disappearing at Drastic Rates, With One in Five Gone Since 2000

A new study finds the popular, fluttering insects have declined by 22 percent in the last 20 years

The portrait recently went on display at England's Wrest Park.

Does This Mysterious Portrait Depict Lady Jane Grey, the Doomed Queen Who Ruled England for Nine Days in 1553?

After conducting a new analysis, some researchers think it may be the only portrait of Grey created during her lifetime—a conclusion that has generated controversy

Scientists used fragments of the child's right forearm bone to date the skeletal remains.

Mysterious Skeleton of Child With Human and Neanderthal Traits Has Finally Been Dated by Archaeologists

Discovered in Portugal in 1998, the individual dubbed the “Lapedo Child” has long perplexed scientists, thanks to a curious mix of features

Researchers studied the impact of extreme heat on older adults' "epigenetic clocks," which measure aging-related changes to DNA.

Extreme Heat Could Make Older Adults Age Faster by Altering Their DNA, Study Finds

Researchers compared genetic markers of aging to daily temperature records in areas across the United States and found that elderly people exposed to more hot days showed more rapid biological aging

The poem was discovered by researcher Leah Veronese.

Cool Finds

‘Politically Repurposed’ Copy of Famous Shakespearean Love Sonnet Discovered Inside a 17th-Century Poetry Collection

The rare handwritten copy of “Sonnet 116” features several additional lines, which may have been an attempt to insert British royalist ideas into the romantic ode, according to researchers

The red represents the legal tape used to bind papers, while the gray represents victims' ashes.

See the New Tartan Pattern Created to Honor Women Accused of Witchcraft in Scotland Between 1563 and 1736

The black, red, gray and pink design honors the thousands of individuals—mostly women—who were persecuted under the Scottish Witchcraft Act

Surgeons operated on three patients in Canada.

Surgeons Are Conducting Rare ‘Tooth-in-Eye’ Surgeries to Restore Vision to Blind Patients in Canada

The complex procedure involves extracting a patient’s canine tooth, adding a plastic optical lens to it and surgically embedding it in the eye

Heliconias planted as ornamentals in a garden in Panama

Nearly Half of the Colorful and Charismatic Heliconia Tropical Plant Species Are Threatened With Extinction, New Study Reveals

Using data from over 10,000 herbarium specimens, Smithsonian scientists uncover the urgent conservation needs of the plants, which are critical to tropical ecosystems

Fumika Fujibuchi, an official adjudicator for Guinness World Records, certified the park in late February.

See the World’s Smallest Park, a Teeny-Tiny Enclave in Japan That’s About the Size of Four Sheets of Paper

The record-breaking park features some grass, a seat and a decorative stepping stone. It’s even smaller than Mill Ends Park in Portland, Oregon, which had held the title since 1971

In one nest, researchers found a McDonald's McChicken container from 1996.

These Bird Nests Are Full of Trash, Including Some That’s 30 Years Old

Scientists studying Eurasian coots in Amsterdam found layers of decades-old garbage in their urban nests

In this 1936 photo by Eddie Worth, an anti-fascist demonstrator is arrested during the Battle of Cable Street in London.

Nearly 200 Captivating Photographs Spotlight a Century of Protest in Britain

Titled “Resistance,” a new exhibition curated by filmmaker Steve McQueen examines 100 years of struggles against the status quo, from women’s suffrage to the war in Iraq

The three larger figurines measure about a foot tall.

Cool Finds

Archaeologists Unearth Ancient Clay Puppets With Open Mouths and Detachable Heads That ‘Resemble Modern Toy Dolls’

The figurines were discovered in a largely unexcavated site in El Salvador. Some 2,400 years ago, they were controlled by strings that passed through their necks

Researchers discovered the oldest meteorite impact crater known to science in Australia. 

Oldest Known Impact Crater Discovered in Australia

The discovery bolsters the theory that meteorite impacts played an important role in Earth’s early geological history

A bone tool shaped on a 1.5-million-year-old elephant humerus

Cool Finds

Human Ancestors Were Making Bone Tools One Million Years Earlier Than Previously Thought

Archaeologists have discovered a collection of prehistoric animal bones in Tanzania that suggests early humans figured out how to transfer tool-making techniques “from stone to bone” 1.5 million years ago

Stone tools suggest humans lived in a tropical rainforest in present-day Ivory Coast roughly 150,000 years ago.

New Research

Humans May Have Lived in Tropical Rainforests Much Earlier Than Scientists Previously Thought, Study Finds

New research suggests that humans inhabited the rainforests of West Africa roughly 150,000 years ago, providing new insights into our ancestors’ ability to adapt to challenging environments

Researchers used a miniaturized laser mass spectrometer to identify signs of fossils in a gypsum quarry in Algeria. They suggest the same tool could find early fossils on Mars.

Scientists Hope This Tool Could Identify Tiny Fossils on Mars, Revealing Hints to Potential Early Life on the Planet

If Mars ever hosted microorganisms in its bygone oceans, their fossils might still be preserved in minerals—and now, we have a new potential way to find them

Harper Lee on the porch of her parents' home in Monroeville, Alabama, in 1961

Eight Never-Before-Seen Short Stories by ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ Author Harper Lee Will Be Published This Year

After Lee’s death in 2016, typescripts of her early fiction were discovered in her New York apartment. The previously unseen drafts offer new insights into her creative development

Ice calves off the Breidamerkurjokull, a glacier in Iceland. Some scientists suggest prehistoric glaciers hold the answers to how life evolved on Earth.

How Enormous Glaciers on the Frozen ‘Snowball Earth’ Might Have Bulldozed the Path to Complex Life on Our Planet

A new study suggests glaciers carved metals out from the Earth’s surface 700 million years ago, leading to chemical reactions in the oceans that set the stage for early animal evolution

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