Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Smart News / Smart News Science

An entomologist with the Washington State Department of Agriculture vacuums invasive Asian giant hornets out of a nest discovered last week in the city of Blaine on October 24, 2020.

Entomologists Destroy Asian Giant Hornet Nest Found in Washington

The crew sucked nearly 100 hornets from the tree-hollow hive—the first ever found in the U.S.—using a vacuum and captured escapees with nets

Satellite records show a 13 percent decrease in sea ice per decade since the 1980s.

Arctic Sea Ice Fails to Refreeze by Late October, Setting a New Record

At this rate, the Arctic will experience its first ice-free summer as early as 2035

Halloween features a full moon every 19 years, and it's always a blue moon.

This Halloween, Look for the Hunter’s Blue Moon

The second full moon of the month gives Halloween an extra spooky atmosphere

Two eight-year-old Twinkies that Pennsylvania man Colin Purrington found in his basement.

Scientists Study Twinkie Mummified by Mold

Tests on the eight-year-old snack food put the myth of the immortal Twinkie to rest

To get a glimpse of what's happening in the deep blue, scientists deployed instruments to measure changes on the sea floor. This hydrothermal vent exists at 3,300 meters deep.

The Deepest, Darkest, Most Frigid Depths of the Ocean Are Warming

Thermometers anchored to the seafloor revealed that even the deep sea is not impervious to rising global temperatures

The Gollum snakehead is unusual among subterranean critters because it has both eyes and a colorful complexion.

New Research

Subterranean Fish Named ‘Gollum’ Belongs to a New Family

The freshwater fish belongs to a never-before-described taxonomic family, making it one of the biggest finds of the last decade

Buried farm machinery in Dallas, South Dakota during the Dust Bowl in 1936.

New Research

Are the Great Plains Headed for Another Dust Bowl?

Researchers say atmospheric dust in the region has doubled in the last 20 years, suggesting the increasingly dry region is losing more soil skyward

A diabolical ironclad beetle can withstand the crushing force of 39,000 times its own body weight.

New Research

The Secrets of the Diabolical Ironclad Beetle’s Almost Unsquishable Strength

Researchers hopped in a Toyota Camry and drove over the beetle twice…for science—and it survived

Javan slow lorises are now one of only six mammal species known to use venom against individuals of their own species.

The Cute-but-Deadly Slow Loris Reserves Its Flesh-Rotting Venom for Its Peers

The world’s only venomous primates just got weirder

The moon seen from the International Space Station.

Future Moon Walkers Will Get 4G Cell Reception

NASA taps Nokia to install the first ever cellular network on the moon as part of a plan to establish long-term human presence on the lunar surface by 2030

“When you have sound, the dingoes will flinch. They’re a bit nervous but they don’t run away. But the wavy man, boy, they bolted," animal behavior researcher Bradley Smith tells Science magazine.

New Research

In Australia, Inflatable Tube Dancers Scare Dingoes Away From Livestock

At car dealerships, the 13-foot-tall flailing contraptions are meant to attract buyers. But on ranches, they scare off predators and protect the herd

In addition to the newly discovered pair of glands, the human body has three more large sets and about 1,000 glands scattered throughout the mouth and throat.

Scientists May Have Identified a Previously Unknown Spit-Producing Organ in Our Heads

Uncovering the existence of the glands will help oncologists protect them from radiation, improving the quality of life for cancer patients

Last month in Brooklyn, a man dumped two bags full of eels into Prospect Park Lake. They're thought to be Asian swamp eels, seen here.

Man Seen Dumping Bags of Eels Into Lake at New York City Park

Officials say the non-native eels are unlikely to survive the winter, but experts caution that the serpent-like fish could still disturb the ecosystem

Humans once lived alongside megafauna such as this elephant bird, giant lemurs, dwarf hippos and giant tortoises on Madagascar.

Droughts and Human Interference Wiped Out Madagascar’s Gigantic Wildlife 1,500 Years Ago

The species had survived droughts before, but human interference was the final nail in the mega-sized coffin

The meteor shower is named for the Orion constellation because that’s where the meteors seem to emerge from.

How to See the Orionids Meteor Shower Peak Tonight

The meteor shower reaches peak visibility just before dawn on Wednesday morning but will last until November 7

This illustration depicts a star (in the foreground) experiencing spaghettification as it's sucked in by a supermassive black hole (in the background) during a 'tidal disruption event'.

New Research

Astronomers Capture Best View Yet of a Black Hole Spaghettifying a Star

The star was compressed and stretched out like a long noodle and when the ends collided, half of its mass ejected into space

The barriers are designed to stay at the bottom of the lagoon until they are activated, fill with air and rise to the surface to seal off the lagoon's inlets.

Venice’s Controversial Inflatable Floodgates Save City for the Second Time

The barriers may not be permanent solutions, but they’ve now protected Venice from two floods this month

A Tyrannosaurus rex posed with a Triceratops at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.

Hypersensitive Profanity Filter Censors ‘Bone’ at Paleontology Conference

Moved online due to the pandemic, an automated content filter banned terms including “sexual,” “pubic” and “stream”

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's U.S. Drought Outlook map for November 2020 through January 2021. Brown represents the areas where drought is expected to continue or worsen.

NOAA Predicts Droughts Gripping Nearly Half of Continental U.S. Will Intensify This Winter

The agency expects the South and Southwest will be warmer and drier than usual in the coming months, offering no relief to the already parched regions

Bar-tailed godwits spend their summers in the Arctic, where they breed and build up their energy reserves before flying south for the winter.

Bird Flies 7,500 Miles, a New Record for Longest Nonstop Bird Migration

After summering in the Arctic, a bar-tailed godwit soared across the Pacific Ocean like a “jet fighter” to winter in New Zealand

Page 230 of 545