Smart News: Latest Discoveries & News

Scientists are using genetic sequencing to reconstruct how AIDS hit the United States in the 1970s and 1980s.

New Research

Genetic Sleuthing Clears ‘Patient Zero’ of Blame for U.S. AIDS Epidemic

Scientists debunk the myth of the man once thought to have brought the virus to the states

October 27, 2016

Harry and the Potters live in concert in 2007.

Cool Finds

A Brief History of Wizard Rock

This Halloween, check out a genre devoted to Harry Potter’s Wizarding World

October 27, 2016

Two natural color images from NASA's Cassini spacecraft show the changing appearance of Saturn's north polar region between 2012 and 2016.

New Research

The Swirling Storm Above Saturn’s North Pole Changed Colors

The years-long shift may be a sign of changing seasons

October 27, 2016

One of the subjects of a new study on how the human nervous system responds to tactile intensity cracks an egg with ease with the help of an experimental prosthetic device.

New Research

How Hacking Neural Networks Can Help Amputees Flawlessly Crack an Egg

By tapping into the body’s nervous system, researchers could create touch-sensitive prosthetics

October 26, 2016

Sometimes explaining complex scientific research requires a cow doing the worm, glittering e. coli and an immune cell with a killer plie

October 26, 2016

Cool Finds

Magnificent Millipede Has 414 Legs and Four Penises

Meet Illacme tobini, a newly described species of millipede discovered in a cave in Sequoia National Park

October 25, 2016

A Pearl Harbor Survivor Liaison scatters the ashes of Ed Chappell, who requested that his remains be scattered where his fallen shipmates died in 1941.

A new doctrinal rule requires Roman Catholics to store cremains at cemeteries

October 25, 2016

Dry conditions have dulled fall's gorgeous New England show.

Parched conditions in New England equal milder colors

October 25, 2016

Portrait thought to be Christopher Marlowe

Cool Finds

What to Know About Shakespeare’s Newly Credited Collaborator Christopher Marlowe

Textual analysis convinced the editors of The New Oxford Shakespeare to make Marlowe a co-author on the “Henry VI” plays, parts 1, 2 and 3

October 25, 2016

Striations on teeth of a Homo habilis fossil 1.8 million years old suggest the earliest evidence in the fossil record for right-handedness. Researchers believe the marks came from using a tool to try to cut food being pulled from the mouth with the left hand.

New Research

Two-Million-Year-Old Jaw Has a Lot to Say About the Origins of Human Handedness

Scientists have discovered one of the earliest examples of handedness in an ancient human

October 25, 2016

A collapsed building in Amatrice, Italy.

The “Blue Helmets” spent months scouring rubble for priceless pieces

October 25, 2016

New Research

Pediatricians Switch Up Screen Time Rules for Tots

Doctors say there’s no “one size fits all” approach to introducing kids to technology

October 24, 2016

70 years ago, researchers at White Sands Missile Base strapped a movie camera to a V2 rocket to get a bird’s-eye view of our planet

October 24, 2016

Girls are saying "let it go" to princess costumes in favor of superheroes.

For the first time in over a decade, princesses falter on the charts

October 24, 2016

Why some adoption centers wait till after the spooky season to give some kitties a home

October 24, 2016

Tombac, a form of tobacco, grows on a farm in Darfur. The plant could one day be used to create cheaper, better anti-malarial drugs.

New Research

Scientists Hijacked Tobacco Plants to Make Malaria Drugs

A promising new advance could make the world’s best anti-malarial drug more widely available

October 24, 2016

New Research

Scientists Just Discovered a Missing Link Between San Francisco’s Faults

Two of California’s most active fault lines appear to be a 118-mile-long fault instead

October 21, 2016

Eviction attempt. Winner, birds. Ganesh H. Shankar, India. Indian rose parakeets try to remove a monitor lizard from their nesting hole in India’s Keoladeo National Park

Cool Finds

London’s Natural History Museum Selects Best Wildlife Photos of the Year

From crows in the local park, to fish in the Pacific and lions in Africa, this year’s images show the variety and beauty of life on earth

October 21, 2016

Christopher Isherwood and poet W.H. Auden (right) were romantic partners, but their sexual relationship in the 1930s was punishable by criminal prosecution in England.

The private member’s bill will not go ahead

Updated: October 21, 2016 | Originally Published: October 21, 2016

Iggy Pop Bares More Than Abs in New Art Exhibition About Masculinity

Punk meets pencil in an art show that examines the portrayal of masculinity throughout the centuries

October 21, 2016