Smart News: Latest Discoveries & News

Black bears, like this one in Minnesota, which lick ants from leaves are providing an important benefit to the plant.

Bears Munching on Ants Indirectly Help Plants

A link uncovered by a graduate student shows that plants have bears to thank for trimming them of ants — and another pesky species

January 5, 2015

Two athletes are halfway through an impressive 32-pitch climb up El Capitan’s Dawn Wall

January 5, 2015

A monarch butterfly sits on a Buddleia Butterfly Bush.

Scientists fear that the butterfly’s population will continue to drop due to the loss of the its food source

January 5, 2015

The rim of white light emanating from the disco clam's lips in this image seems to be its best defense against a predator.

Cool Finds

Disco Clams Are Flashy

Their orange lips twinkle in a particularly funky display

January 5, 2015

Cool Finds

The Second Divorce in Colonial America Happened Today in 1643

The Massachusetts Bay Colony Puritans weren’t as conservative as you may have thought

January 5, 2015

This image, created by a telescope called NuSTAR, is the most detailed of the sun using high-energy rays to date, according to NASA.

New Research

NASA Uses X-Rays to Find Out Why the Sun Is So Hot

The image will help scientists decide whether mini-flares make the sun’s atmosphere hotter than the surface itself

January 5, 2015

Cool Finds

Create Your Very Own False Memories by Lying on Facebook

The brain is notoriously poor at recalling past events, and social media just makes it worse

January 2, 2015

Almonds on a tree, ready for harvest in California

Cool Finds

Watch How Farm Machines Shake Down Almond Trees

California grows 80 percent of the world’s almonds, for now

January 2, 2015

New Research

Pedophiles Seem to Make Up a Huge Chunk of Anonymized Web Traffic

The bulk of Dark Web traffic seems to flow to child pornography sites

January 2, 2015

This false-color composite image shows meteors streaking through the skies over NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., on the night of Jan. 3-4, 2012.

The annual Quadrantid meteor shower peaks this weekend

January 2, 2015

Spores on the conidiophores of the fungus Penicillium notatum.

Cool Finds

We Used to Recycle Drugs From Patients’ Urine

Penicillin extracted from a patient’s urine could be reused

January 2, 2015

L. larvaepartus (male, left, and female) from Indonesia is the only frog ever discovered to birth live tadpoles.

New Research

This Exotic Frog Skips the Eggs, Gives Birth to Live Tadpoles

The species is one of just a handful of frogs that use internal fertilization, and the only one found that births tadpoles

January 2, 2015

Cool Finds

This Art Studio Nurtures Talent in People on the Autism Spectrum

New York City’s Pure Visions Arts provides an art and exhibition space for around 40 creative people with autism

January 2, 2015

Cool Finds

Where the Buffalo Roam: Illinois

American bison are back in Illinois for the first time in 200 years

January 2, 2015

The original dish didn’t use black-eyed peas, plus the rice and bacon you have is probably wrong

December 31, 2014

New Research

Cloud Seeding Study Suggests We Could Boost Rain And Snow by 15 Percent

After comparing the effect of cloud seeding generators on snowfall in two nearby mountain ranges, researchers think a program might help

December 31, 2014

New Research

Lawyers With Less-Masculine Sounding Voices Are More Likely to Win in Court

Unfortunately, there’s probably little we can do to change this bias

December 31, 2014

Scientists crouch with mock-ups of three generations of Mars rovers. Curiosity is the big one. Opportunity and Spirit were based on the medium-sized one on the left. The small one is front was the Sojourner rover.

A problem with Opportunity’s hardware means it only has short-term memory

December 31, 2014

A happy solar system stays in orbit around the Sun

Cool Finds

If the Earth’s Orbit Stopped We Would Have About A Month To Contemplate Our Doom

Fortunately, this is just a thought experiment

December 31, 2014

The Guinean village of Meliandou, where the 2014 ebola epidemic first broke out.

New Research

The First 2014 Ebola Victim Likely Caught It by Playing Around a Bat Tree

Evidence builds that insect-eating bats are natural reservoirs for the disease

December 31, 2014