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An image of the crater captured by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter on March 3, 2026.

The Moon Just Got a Massive New Crater That’s Wider Than Two End-to-End Football Fields. It’s a ‘Once-in-a-Lifetime Observation’

The impact crater was formed in 2024 when an object the size of a multistory building crashed into our lunar companion. The resulting divot is about 728 feet wide and 141 feet deep

Each bison is controlled by three puppeteers, who spent days learning choreographed movements and commands. 

A Herd of 40 Life-Size Bison Puppets Will Stampede Through New York This Weekend to Honor Indigenous History and Resilience

The massive bovines, each maneuvered by three puppeteers, will roam through Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn

The 2,500-year-old temple, photographed in 2009

New Research

Centuries Ago, an Architect Characterized the Parthenon’s Curves as a Clever Optical Illusion. Now, a Mathematician Begs to Differ

In the first century B.C.E., Vitruvius wrote that the Acropolis’ largest temple was horizontally bowed so that it didn’t seem to sag, and that explanation persisted for millennia. New research suggests a different reason

In the new study, researchers analyzed fossilized teeth, including two from Thomas the T. rex.

Tyrannosaurus Rex Was a Warm-Blooded Dinosaur, With a Body Temperature Similar to That of Humans, Study Suggests

A tooth analysis hints that the fearsome predator ran at a toasty 97 degrees Fahrenheit. Maintaining that internal temperature may have allowed it to inhabit a range stretching from modern-day Alaska to Mexico during the Cretaceous period

Scientists have traced the deadly sheep pox virus back 3,700 years.

The Ancient DNA of a Deadly Animal Virus Has Been Lurking in Medieval Manuscripts for Centuries, Researchers Find

A new analysis of teeth and parchment suggests that the devastating sheep pox virus has been infecting livestock for 3,700 years

How humpback whales respond to death is one of the least understood aspects of their behavior, according to researchers.

A Humpback Whale Mom Stayed With Her Stillborn Calf, Repeatedly Touching It and Staring Into Its Eyes. Was She Grieving?

Observed last year off the coast of Queensland, Australia, this event marks the first documentation of a stillbirth in the species, providing a rare glimpse at how the highly social animals respond to death

A side view of a "xenocortical" mouse brain, with the grafted human tissue seen in green and red.

Scientists Created Mice With Half-Human Brains. The Hybrid Animals Could Revolutionize Our Understanding of Neurological Disorders

Our brains and their associated diseases are notoriously hard to study. So researchers developed an animal model with a cortex—the brain’s outer layer—grown from human-derived cells

Dilivium, a sculpture by the French artist JR, spans roughly 230 feet across the Vatican Apostolic Library’s facade. 

Pope Leo XIV Makes a Splash for His 71st Birthday, Announcing a Water-Themed Art Exhibition at the Vatican Library

Contemporary sculptures, fish made from typographic elements, centuries-old treatises and historical global cookbooks will feature in the new ‘Catastrophe and Wonder’ art show

Gertrude Abercrombie gave Alderman Merriam’s Shells to a doctor in exchange for a medical procedure in 1952. 

Bought for $30 at an Estate Sale, This Long-Lost Gertrude Abercrombie Painting Could Now Fetch $250,000

The Chicago-based Surrealist created the piece in 1951, then gave it to a doctor in exchange for medical services

Venus is one of only two planets in our solar system that lack a moon. (Mercury is the other.)

Billions of Years Ago, Venus May Have Had a Moon—Which the Planet Promptly Gobbled Up, Study Suggests

Scientists have puzzled over why the planet dubbed “Earth’s twin” doesn’t have a moon. Computer simulations hint that if Venus ever did have one, it probably would’ve cannibalized its companion

Harriet Goodhue Hosmer, center, with her assistants and carvers in her studio in Rome in 1867

A Rare Marble Sculpture by America’s First Professional Female Sculptor Sat Hidden in Plain Sight for Decades in an English Garden

Until its discovery during a house appraisal, the debut bust by Harriet Goodhue Hosmer, a celebrated artist and feminist icon, had been mistaken for an ordinary garden ornament

Via Appia is considered the oldest great Roman road.

New Research

Researchers Have Analyzed the Roman Empire’s 190,000-Mile Network of Roads. Turns Out, Not All of Them Led to Rome

For a new study, archaeologists attempted to answer age-old questions about Rome’s roads, including how connected the capital was and whether current motorways trace Roman routes

Kakapo are critically endangered, but they're starting to make a comeback.

New Zealand Welcomes a Record 90 Kakapo Chicks, Helping the World’s Chunkiest Parrot Species Rebound From the Brink of Extinction

Annual chick counts aren’t confirmed until the youngest hatchling reaches 150 days old, a benchmark for independence. The population now stands at 325 birds, up from the 51 individuals that remained in 1995

Scientists think a Nanotyrannus or a young Tyrannosaurus rex might have eaten the bird.

A 66-Million-Year-Old Feather Trapped in Dinosaur Poop Might Help Explain Why Some Birds Survived Mass Extinction

Discovered in Montana in 2016, the cherry-size coprolite contains feathers, bones and evidence of the bird’s last meal before the creature was eaten by a theropod

Wiring diagram of an adult male fruit fly's central nervous system

This New Brain Map Shows Every Nerve Cell in an Adult Male Fruit Fly’s Central Nervous System. Here’s Why That Matters

The recently released “connectome” joins a previously completed map of an adult female fruit fly’s brain. The digital 3D diagrams allow scientists to trace precise neural paths in the bugs’ brains, which can unlock secrets about the organ in humans

A pack of wild dogs in South Africa

Three Wild Dogs Made a Record-Breaking Trek Across Zambia, Traveling More Than 2,500 Miles in Search of Mates

The canines achieved the longest recorded movement by any African mammal. Their journey highlights the importance of having protected corridors for wildlife

Alfred Lepère’s Faune Chasseur is back on display at the Musée de Picardie, in Amiens, France.

Mysteriously Stolen More Than 30 Years Ago, and Illicitly Transported to the U.S., This 300-Pound Sculpture Is Finally Back Home in France

Alfred Lepère’s hulking “Faune Chasseur” artwork is once again on display at the Musée de Picardie, in Amiens

Tasmanian devils used to live across mainland Australia, but wild populations now inhabit only the island state of Tasmania.

Cool Finds

Tasmanian Devils Lived Alongside Humans in Northwestern Australia as Far Back as 45,000 Years Ago, Researchers Find

Fossils and marked bones unearthed in a Juukan Gorge cave suggest that the marsupial species not only once lived in the region but may have been a “garbage compactor on four legs” for its human population

The survey uncovered surviving remnants of structures from the 13th-century convent.

Cool Finds

The Ruins of a Long-Lost Medieval Convent Have Been Discovered Just a Few Feet Beneath a Soccer Field

St. Clare’s Convent closed in the 16th century, and researchers assumed all traces of it had been lost. But a new ground-penetrating radar survey revealed surprisingly intact remains of pillars, rooms, cloisters, a courtyard and a church

Two yellow-bellied marmots ended up in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Two Chonky, Mountain-Dwelling Marmots Were Found in the Bay Area. What Were They Doing So Far Away From Their Home?

The two rodents of unusual size, rescued this month, might have hitched a ride in the engine compartment of a vehicle coming down from the mountains, wildlife officials say

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