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Smart News / Smart News Science

Researchers are using an instrument at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory to uncover the original text of reused parchments.

Medieval Monks Wrote Over a Copy of an Ancient Star Catalog. Now, a Particle Accelerator Is Revealing the Long-Lost Original Text

The parchments initially contained references to a star catalog and maps created during the second century B.C.E.

The female calf was born on February 2 at 1:15 A.M. Eastern Standard Time.

An Asian Elephant Was Born at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo for the First Time in Almost 25 Years. Now, You Can Help Pick Her Name

The calf was born to 12-year-old Nhi Linh, a first-time mother, and 44-year-old Spike. The pair bred as part of a program working to conserve the endangered species

For the time being, the bears are adapting to warming temperatures and a changing habitat

Some Polar Bears Have Been Getting Chunkier—Despite Losing Their Main Hunting Grounds to Climate Change

The fuzzy white predators of Svalbard, Norway, have been getting fatter over the past two decades, possibly by changing their diets and hunting strategies, a new study suggests

A combination of warm weather, torrential rain and a recent dry spell probably contributed to the low snowpack.

Snow Drought Hits the Western United States, Worrying Experts About the Region’s Water Supply

Snow melt from the mountains provides up to 75 percent of the West’s yearly water

DinoTracker was trained on almost 2,000 dinosaur fossils to classify new tracks. It is especially helpful for three-toed dinosaurs, as so many tracks fall under this umbrella, co-author Paige dePolo writes in The Conversation.

A New App Can Match Footprints to the Dinosaurs That Made Them

Using artificial intelligence, DinoTracker can accurately classify dinosaur tracks around 90 percent of the time

Megalodons were massive predators that ruled the world's oceans.

Megalodons Went Extinct Millions of Years Ago. The Prehistoric Predator Could Become Maryland’s Official State Shark

Teeth belonging to the fearsome creatures have been discovered throughout the state. Now, they’re up for consideration by the state legislature

Surgeons removed the patient's failing lungs and temporarily replaced them with an artificial version, saving his life.

Artificial Lungs Kept a Dying Man Alive For 48 Hours—Until He Was Well Enough to Receive an Organ Transplant

The patient is faring well nearly three years later, thanks to the life-saving device

Researchers have collected more than 50,000 fossil specimens from a quarry in southern China.

A Fossil Trove in China Provides a Rare Window Into a Mass Extinction Event That Happened More Than 500 Million Years Ago

Paleontologists have identified thousands of animal species that lived soon after the Cambrian explosion ended

Wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park from 1995 to 1997.

‘Rising Star’ of a Prominent Yellowstone Wolf Pack Was Illegally Killed, Sparking a Poaching Investigation

Wildlife advocates are mourning the death of a female gray wolf known as 1478F

The Prince of Arene Candide is displayed wearing a reconstructed headdress in the Ligurian Archaeological Museum in Genoa, Italy.

New Research

Researchers Say This Paleolithic Teenage Boy Died a Slow Death After a Bear Mauled Him

A new analysis of “il Principe,” an ancient, decorated skeleton found in northwest Italy, confirms that the child died up to three days after being brutally attacked

Camera traps in Brazil’s Iguaçu National Park captured the sounds made by wild jaguars.

Wild Jaguars Sometimes Meow Just Like House Cats, New Recordings Suggest. The Sounds May Help Mothers and Cubs Find One Another

Two female jaguars were recorded making meow-like vocalizations in Brazil—the first documented audio of the sounds in the wild

The human genome is made up of about three billion pairs of DNA units called nucleotides.

Google Researchers Say Their New A.I. Tool AlphaGenome Can Help Decode the Human Genetic Instruction Book

The computer model might help scientists better understand the biological impacts of typos in DNA

The title page of the collection of Bartholomäus Vogtherr's medical recipes (left) and a page from another medical text called the Kreuterbu[o]ch (right)

New Research

Renaissance Readers Left Chemical Clues Inside These Medical Manuals. Were They Using Human Feces and Tortoise Shells to Treat Illnesses?

Researchers analyzed proteins extracted from “How to Cure and Expel All Afflictions and Illnesses of the Human Body” and “A Useful and Essential Little Book of Medicine for the Common Man,” both written by a 16th-century German eye doctor

Paleontologists removed roughly 3,000 pounds of rocks and fossils from the site between mid-September and mid-October 2025.

Dinosaur National Monument Construction Work Turns Up New Fossils, Leading to the First Excavation at One Site in More Than a Century

Recent digs revealed roughly 20 feet of a long-necked dinosaur’s skeleton, and paleontologists suspect even more bones are lurking underground

An illustration of a four-eyed myllokunmingid, a jawless fish that lived more than 500 million years ago

Cool Finds

The Earliest Known Vertebrates Had Four Eyes—and They Worked a Lot Like Ours Do, New Research Suggests

Two of those eyes may have evolved into a part of the brain called the pineal gland

Researchers traced a pathway between the heart and the brain.

After a Heart Attack, the Brain’s Response Might Make Recovery Harder. Cutting Some Communication Between the Organs Could Help

The new study in mice could lead to innovative treatments for heart attacks

After capturing the 77-pound male, wildlife officials said they planned to re-collar and release the creature into the wild.

Rare Mountain Lion Standoff in San Francisco Ends Peacefully After a 30-Hour Search

Wildlife officials successfully captured the young male, known as 157M, after he wandered into the northern Pacific Heights neighborhood

Researchers studied data from nearly 125,000 pre- and post-menopausal women.

How Do Menopause and a Treatment to Manage Its Symptoms Affect the Brain and Mental Health?

New research suggests an association between menopause and anxiety, depression and shrinkage in certain brain regions—which hormone replacement therapy might not mitigate

An image containing nearly 800,000 galaxies from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, overlaid with dark-matter clumps shown in blue

See the Most Detailed Map of Dark Matter Ever Made, Bringing Astronomers a Step Closer to Unraveling Its Mysterious Nature

The invisible stuff makes up about 85 percent of all matter in the universe, but researchers know little about it

Seven mummified cheetahs and the remains of dozens more were found in caves in northern Saudi Arabia.

Cool Finds

Mummified Cheetahs Discovered in Caves Could Help Saudi Arabia Bring the Wild Cat Back to Its Historical Range

Researchers thought that just one subspecies of cheetah lived in Saudi Arabia long ago. But an unexpected discovery seems to broaden the gene pool

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