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Smart News / Smart News Science

The scythe is a less invasive tool for cutting grass than a lawnmower.

A Cutting-Edge English Initiative Replaces Lawnmowers With Scythes to Restore Wildflowers and Save the Bees

English Heritage has recruited volunteers to mow meadows the old-fashioned way at some of its historic sites

Men ages 55 and older were disproportionately affected, the researchers found.

Alcohol-Related Cancer Deaths Have More Than Doubled in the United States Over the Past 30 Years, Study Suggests

While scientists say their findings don’t necessarily mean you need to cut alcohol from your life entirely, knowing the potential risks—especially if you’re already at an elevated risk of developing cancer—can help guide your decisions

Paola Nogales-Ascarrunz, a biologist and National Geographic Explorer, first encountered the new species at the Senda Verde Wildlife Sanctuary in Bolivia.

Meet the Adorable and Tiny Tilcayo, the First Brand-New Cat Species Identified in More Than a Century

Discovered in a cloud forest in Bolivia, the diminutive felines are smaller than a house cat and covered in large, irregularly shaped rosettes

An image of the crater captured by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter on March 3, 2026.

The Moon Just Got a Massive New Crater That’s Wider Than Two End-to-End Football Fields. It’s a ‘Once-in-a-Lifetime Observation’

The impact crater was formed in 2024 when an object the size of a multistory building crashed into our lunar companion. The resulting divot is about 728 feet wide and 141 feet deep

The 2,500-year-old temple, photographed in 2009

New Research

Centuries Ago, an Architect Characterized the Parthenon’s Curves as a Clever Optical Illusion. Now, a Mathematician Begs to Differ

In the first century B.C.E., Vitruvius wrote that the Acropolis’ largest temple was horizontally bowed so that it didn’t seem to sag, and that explanation persisted for millennia. New research suggests a different reason

In the new study, researchers analyzed fossilized teeth, including two from Thomas the T. rex.

Tyrannosaurus Rex Was a Warm-Blooded Dinosaur, With a Body Temperature Similar to That of Humans, Study Suggests

A tooth analysis hints that the fearsome predator ran at a toasty 97 degrees Fahrenheit. Maintaining that internal temperature may have allowed it to inhabit a range stretching from modern-day Alaska to Mexico during the Cretaceous period

Scientists have traced the deadly sheep pox virus back 3,700 years.

The Ancient DNA of a Deadly Animal Virus Has Been Lurking in Medieval Manuscripts for Centuries, Researchers Find

A new analysis of teeth and parchment suggests that the devastating sheep pox virus has been infecting livestock for 3,700 years

How humpback whales respond to death is one of the least understood aspects of their behavior, according to researchers.

A Humpback Whale Mom Stayed With Her Stillborn Calf, Repeatedly Touching It and Staring Into Its Eyes. Was She Grieving?

Observed last year off the coast of Queensland, Australia, this event marks the first documentation of a stillbirth in the species, providing a rare glimpse at how the highly social animals respond to death

A side view of a "xenocortical" mouse brain, with the grafted human tissue seen in green and red.

Scientists Created Mice With Half-Human Brains. The Hybrid Animals Could Revolutionize Our Understanding of Neurological Disorders

Our brains and their associated diseases are notoriously hard to study. So researchers developed an animal model with a cortex—the brain’s outer layer—grown from human-derived cells

Venus is one of only two planets in our solar system that lack a moon. (Mercury is the other.)

Billions of Years Ago, Venus May Have Had a Moon—Which the Planet Promptly Gobbled Up, Study Suggests

Scientists have puzzled over why the planet dubbed “Earth’s twin” doesn’t have a moon. Computer simulations hint that if Venus ever did have one, it probably would’ve cannibalized its companion

Kakapo are critically endangered, but they're starting to make a comeback.

New Zealand Welcomes a Record 90 Kakapo Chicks, Helping the World’s Chunkiest Parrot Species Rebound From the Brink of Extinction

Annual chick counts aren’t confirmed until the youngest hatchling reaches 150 days old, a benchmark for independence. The population now stands at 325 birds, up from the 51 individuals that remained in 1995

Scientists think a Nanotyrannus or a young Tyrannosaurus rex might have eaten the bird.

A 66-Million-Year-Old Feather Trapped in Dinosaur Poop Might Help Explain Why Some Birds Survived Mass Extinction

Discovered in Montana in 2016, the cherry-size coprolite contains feathers, bones and evidence of the bird’s last meal before the creature was eaten by a theropod

Wiring diagram of an adult male fruit fly's central nervous system

This New Brain Map Shows Every Nerve Cell in an Adult Male Fruit Fly’s Central Nervous System. Here’s Why That Matters

The recently released “connectome” joins a previously completed map of an adult female fruit fly’s brain. The digital 3D diagrams allow scientists to trace precise neural paths in the bugs’ brains, which can unlock secrets about the organ in humans

A pack of wild dogs in South Africa

Three Wild Dogs Made a Record-Breaking Trek Across Zambia, Traveling More Than 2,500 Miles in Search of Mates

The canines achieved the longest recorded movement by any African mammal. Their journey highlights the importance of having protected corridors for wildlife

Tasmanian devils used to live across mainland Australia, but wild populations now inhabit only the island state of Tasmania.

Cool Finds

Tasmanian Devils Lived Alongside Humans in Northwestern Australia as Far Back as 45,000 Years Ago, Researchers Find

Fossils and marked bones unearthed in a Juukan Gorge cave suggest that the marsupial species not only once lived in the region but may have been a “garbage compactor on four legs” for its human population

Two yellow-bellied marmots ended up in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Two Chonky, Mountain-Dwelling Marmots Were Found in the Bay Area. What Were They Doing So Far Away From Their Home?

The two rodents of unusual size, rescued this month, might have hitched a ride in the engine compartment of a vehicle coming down from the mountains, wildlife officials say

A geologist first spotted the tooth while conducting a survey for conservation purposes. 

Cool Finds

A Geologist in California Found Something Strange Sticking Out of a Creek. A Reverse Image Search Told Her It Was an Ancient Mastodon Tooth

Pacific mastodons roamed parts of North America before disappearing along with other Ice Age megafauna around 11,700 years ago

Researchers estimate the T. rex was walking at a speed of roughly 3.4 to 4.5 miles per hour.

These Four Giant Dinosaur Footprints Discovered in North Dakota Might Represent the First Trackway Made by an Adult T. Rex Ever Found

A high school teacher first spotted the remarkable trail while volunteering on a paleontological dig. Researchers suspect a hulking, full-grown dinosaur marched through the then-swampy landscape roughly 66.5 million years ago

The Equal Earth projection, developed in 2018, portrays the landmasses' areas more accurately than the widely used Mercator projection.

World Maps Might Soon Get an Upgrade. The United Nations Votes to Endorse Global Charts That Better Represent Africa’s True Size

The most widely used global map is almost 500 years old and was designed for navigation. But landmasses near the poles look larger than their actual relative sizes, and those near the equator look much smaller

This photo of an adult male seahorse with two juveniles earned Julien Anton the overall Ocean Photographer of the Year award and first place in the wildlife category.

See Nine Stunning Images from This Year’s Ocean Photographer of the Year Contest That Show the Majesty of Marine Life

From seahorse farewells to saving a stranded whale, the photos capture the diversity and beauty of sea creatures—but also the perils they face

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