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New Research

Dingoes Aren’t Just Wild Dogs

Rather than being the descendants of feral mutts, dingoes are actually in their own unique taxonomical corner

New Research

Computers Are Learning How To Teach Each Other New Skills

Why would you teach a computer how to teach other computers how to murder more efficiently?

Pyongyang Marathon

Cool Finds

Want to Run a Marathon in North Korea? Here’s Your Chance

For the first time, the Mangyongdae Prize Marathon in Pyongyang, North Korea, is open to amateurs

Tourists Outside King Tut's Tomb

Cool Finds

Egypt Building a Fake Version of King Tut’s Tomb for Tourists

The original tomb is being damaged by constant visitors, so authorities are building another

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Cool Finds

Watch How Tuesday’s Tsunami Waves Moved From Chile All the Way to Australia

A computer model shows how the tsunami crossed the Pacific

A replica of Sputnik 1 at the National Air and Space Museum.

Trending Today

Even During the Cold War, Russian and U.S. Rocket Scientists Were Friends, But Now They’re No Longer Talking

U.S. and Soviet scientists worked together throughout the Cold War, but now, because of Crimea, those ties are being cut

New Research

Oxytocin Encourages People to Think More About the Group, Less About Themselves

It’s not that oxytocin makes people act in a good or bad way, just in a way that best serves the interests of their people

New Research

Crummy Weather Can Lead to Harsher Online Restaurant Reviews

Are you sure you didn’t like the food? Maybe it was just the weather…

Carcinogenic material was used as a finish coating in this painting.

New Research

Byzantine Monks Built Walls With Asbestos, Too

In millennia past, asbestos has also been used to make stronger pottery and flame-proof napkins

Coral

Cool Finds

Watch This Hypnotic Time Lapse Video of Coral

Corals are animals, rooted to the ocean floor but capable of some hypnotically beautiful movement, as this time lapse video shows

New Research

How the Zebra Got Its Stripes, According to Science

Rather than acting as camouflage or social signals, zebra stripes seem to deter biting flies

Caviar

New Research

No-Kill Caviar Could Make Luxury Less Expensive

Given a particular protein and a nice massage, sturgeon give up their eggs without giving up their lives

Problem solved?

New Research

There Are Too Many Pink Salmon in the Pacific

Pink salmon populations are booming, at the expense of other species

Snow in the Sierra Nevadas, January 18, 2014.

Trending Today

California’s Snowpack is 68 Percent Below Normal, Threatening Another Dry Summer

California’s snowpack is running low, a bad sign for a state plagued by drought

Tibetan protesters in Nepal.

Cool Finds

Once 2,000 Tibetan Refugees Came to Nepal Each Year; Now It’s Fewer Than 200. Why?

Nepal is caving to pressure from China to ostracize and persecute Tibetans

Cool Finds

Sometimes Scientists Just Need to Be Left Alone

Proponents for alone time—Isaac Newton, included—think silence can be a precondition for a great breakthrough

The projected tsunami propagation for last night's Chile earthquake.

New Research

It Is Now Technically Possible to Stop an Earthquake

Scientists have devised a way to reflect seismic waves

Some of the expressions the researchers identified, from top left to bottom right: happy, sad, fearful, angry, surprised, disgusted, happily surprised, happily disgusted, sadly fearful, sadly angry.

New Research

“Happy Disgust” Is a Newly Recognized Human Facial Expression

Basic emotions like happy, sad or angry blend in interesting ways on the landscape of the human face

New Research

Heat Increases the Risk of Early-Term Delivery

As temperatures rise, delivery rooms see a peak in early-term babies

Ring around the Social Security number.

Cool Finds

Children Have to Worry About Identity Theft, Too

The rate of identity theft is five times higher among children than among adults

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