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An illustration of a member of the Prototaxites genus, which lived between 420 million and 375 million years ago

This Mysterious 407-Million-Year-Old Fossil May Represent a Previously Unknown Branch of Life

Earth’s first large land organisms—tree trunk-like beings that stood up to 26 feet tall—weren’t early fungi but, rather, something else entirely, a study suggests

Traces of the hand stencil are still visible among younger works of art.

New Research

Can You See the Faded Outline of a Hand? Archaeologists Say This 67,800-Year-Old Stencil May Be the World’s Oldest Known Rock Art

The prehistoric artist likely created the image by spraying ochre mixed with water over a hand flattened on the wall of a cave in Indonesia

More than 1.8 billion people lived under drought conditions in 2022 and 2023, according to a report from the United Nations.

United Nations Declares That the World Has Entered an Era of ‘Global Water Bankruptcy’

We’re living beyond our hydrological means and need to focus on long-term recovery, according to a new report

Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo announced a rare birth of mountain gorilla twins.

Rare Twin Mountain Gorillas Born in the Congo, Giving Hope to Those Working to Conserve the Endangered Animals

While the birth is sparking joy, infant mountain gorillas are vulnerable, and twins can be twice as hard for a mother to take care of

The four watches, which borrow from 20th-century paintings, are the latest art-inspired products from the Swiss company Swatch.

See How These Wristwatches Reimagine Famous Masterpieces by Claude Monet, Jackson Pollock, Edgar Degas and Paul Klee

The Swiss watchmaker Swatch has partnered with the Guggenheim to create a collection inspired by 20th-century artworks from the Impressionist and Abstract Expressionist movements

Italian officials gather at the site of the basilica in the town of Fano.

Cool Finds

Archaeologists Say They’ve Finally Found a Long-Lost Basilica That Matches the Description the Architect Wrote 2,000 Years Ago

The structure is the first known evidence of a building attributed to Vitruvius, the author of an architectural treatise that influenced thinkers like Leonardo da Vinci

A six-fingered version of the robotic hand

This Detachable Robotic Hand Can Scurry Around and Grasp Objects Just Like Thing From the Addams Family

With up to six fingers that can bend in multiple directions, the innovative tool could one day be used to carry out tasks in tight spaces

The bones of the horse and riders have mostly eroded away in the region's acidic, sandy soils, leaving only "sand silhouettes" behind.

These High-Status Individuals Were Given a ‘Princely’ Burial Alongside a Fully Harnessed Horse in an Early Medieval Cemetery

Archaeologists in England recently discovered the sixth- and seventh-century graves, which also contained numerous weapons and personal items

Humpback whales blow curtains of bubbles beneath fish and krill to trick them into thinking they're trapped.

Humpback Whales Are Probably Learning How to Catch Prey With Bubble Nets by Watching One Another

The foraging strategy may help make humpbacks more resilient to food scarcity, emphasizing the importance of preserving their cultural knowledge, a study suggests

The preserve includes roughly five miles of hiking trails, including a mellow route that leads to the beach.

A Stunning Stretch of California’s Rugged Coastline Is Now Open to the Public for the First Time in a Century

Privately owned until 2015, the 547-acre Estero Americano Coast Preserve is welcoming hikers, bird-watchers, wildflower lovers and other outdoor adventurers

A "bar" of iron atoms, colored red in this image, has been hiding inside the Ring Nebula.

Cool Finds

Astronomers Discover a Mysterious Bar-Shaped Cloud of Iron Within the Iconic Ring Nebula

Humans have been eyeing the colorful Ring Nebula for nearly 250 years, but testing out a new telescope tool led to the perplexing finding

The foundations of the buried villa captured by ground-penetrating radar

Cool Finds

Archaeologists Say They’ve Detected the Largest Stand-Alone Ancient Roman Villa Ever Unearthed in Wales

The mansion’s foundations and floors are likely well-preserved, according to geophysical surveys. The discovery provides new insights into the Roman occupation in the region

Common big-eared bats eat relatively large insects, such as katydids.

A Robot Is Unraveling the Secrets of How Some Bats Bounce Sound Waves Off Leaves to Find Insect Prey

A new study from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute used a robot to mimic common big-eared bats’ echolocation skills

The bulbils of the black-bulb yam look like berries.

This Plant Produces Plump, Fake Berries to Trick Birds Into Spreading Its Offspring Far and Wide

The black-bulb yam excels at mimicry, producing small clones of itself that look like the dark, shiny berries of seed-growing plants

A rendering of the planned Rijksmuseum sculpture garden

A Sprawling Sculpture Garden Featuring Modern Masterpieces Is Coming to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam

The new space will feature artworks by the likes of Alberto Giacometti, Louise Bourgeois and Alexander Calder. Officials say it will be free for anyone to visit

Portraits of Oscar Wilde taken in New York in 1882

Oscar Wilde’s Portraits, Poems, Letters and Manuscripts Head to Auction 125 Years After His Death

Other rare items, available for purchase in February, include illustrations, theater programs, telegrams and newspapers

Just a few of the hundreds of bar-shaped whetstones found on the north shore

Cool Finds

Hundreds of Ancient Roman Blade Sharpeners Emerge From a Riverbank in England, Revealing the Ruins of a 2,000-Year-Old Whetstone Factory

Archaeologists think the newly discovered artifacts remained at the production site because they were deemed unusable. Large numbers of completed whetstones may have supplied other parts of the Roman Empire

Veronika scratches her back. 

A Cow Named Veronika Can Scratch Her Back With a Broom. Watch the Video That Scientists Are Calling the First Documented Evidence of Cattle Using Tools

The pet cow’s tool use challenges long-held assumptions about bovine intelligence

A reconstruction of what Manipulonyx reshetovi may have looked like

This Dinosaur May Have Used Its Strange Clawed Hands to Pilfer and Pierce Eggs

A fresh analysis of a fossil found almost 50 years ago reveals a newly described genus named for its “manipulating claw”

An illustration of humans hunting cetaceans 5,000 years ago

New Research

These Baffling Bone Artifacts Discovered by an Amateur Archaeologist May Be the World’s Oldest Whale Harpoons

After revisiting items from a Brazilian museum, researchers think humans may have been hunting whales 5,000 years ago, a millennium earlier than previously thought

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