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Smart News / Smart News Science

Minoan single-use cup alongside a paper cup from Air India

Cool Finds

For Easy Clean-Up After Parties, Minoans Used Disposable Cups

A 3,500-year-old single-use vessel is part of a new display at the British Museum that explores our long-standing relationship with trash

How many sheep?

Dogs’ Brains Naturally Process Numbers, Just Like Ours

Scientists stuck 11 dogs in fMRI scanners to see if their brains had a knack for quantity

A rancher tends to several small feral hogs in a pen in Texas. But in the wild, these hogs are considered invasive—and they're headed north.

Feral Pigs Are Invasive, Voracious and Resilient. They’re Also Spreading

The destructive swine are expanding their range in the United States and appear to be encroaching from Canada

CT scan of a newborn panda cub.

Pandamonium

Panda Bears Have Teeny Tiny Babies, and We Don’t Know Why

Panda moms are 900 times bigger than their cubs and a new study disputes the theory it’s related to hibernation

An artist impression of Cheops, the CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite, with an exoplanet system in the background

Three Things to Know About Europe’s New Exoplanet Space Telescope

CHEOPS is the first exoplanet satellite devoted specifically to learning more about the thousands of planets we have already found

The shores of Mount Athos, a monastic sanctuary where women have been banned for more than 1,000 years

Cool Finds

Possible Female Remains Discovered on Greece’s All-Male Monastic Peninsula

The identity and sex of the individual have yet to be confirmed, but could mark a first for the sacred Mount Athos

Recent excavations in the ancient Greek city of Pylos revealed a gold pendant featuring the likeness of Hathor, an Egyptian goddess who was a protector of the dead.

Cool Finds

Artifacts in Gold-Lined Tombs Hint at Ancient Greek Trade Relationships

The gilded graves, built some 3,500 years ago, likely housed high-status individuals who displayed their wealth with objects from abroad

An infant mountain gorilla from the Katwe group in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, Uganda.

Endangered Mountain Gorilla Populations Are Growing

But the animals remain threatened with extinction

Dead mussels along the Clinch River.

Trending Today

Scientists Don’t Know Why Freshwater Mussels Are Dying Across North America

Mussel species are dying en mass in rivers across the Pacific Northwest, Midwest and South—likely from unidentified pathogens

No need to flee for this nasty little critter.

Some Moths Taste So Bad That They Don’t Bother Fleeing From Bats

A new study offers an explanation as to why some moth species fly erratically in the face of danger, while others do not

An endangered White's seahorse.

Trending Today

Undersea ‘Hotels’ Deployed to Help Sydney’s Endangered Seahorses

Captive breeding and microhabitats may help restore White’s seahorse whose population plummeted 90 percent in the last decade

The bitty ant on top of the big one is a newly-described species of "rodeo ant," a queen that rides atop her perch by biting its waist.

Texan ‘Rodeo Ants’ Ride on the Backs of Bigger Ants

The strategy helps the parasitic riders steal food and childcare from their hosts

The blue monkey fresco at Akrotiri, an ancient settlement on the Aegean island of Thera, or modern-day Santorini

Cool Finds

Painted Bronze Age Monkeys Hint at the Interconnectedness of the Ancient World

The fascinating “tail” of how Indian monkeys might have ended up in a Minoan painting

A Carolina parakeet (Conuropsis carolinensis) specimen.

The Extinction of This U.S. Parrot Was Quick and Driven by Humans

A new study sequenced the genome of the Carolina parakeet, once the only parrot native to the eastern part of the country

The new attraction is the Dominican Republic's Living Museum of the Sea.

Trending Today

New ‘Living Museum of the Sea’ Established in Dominican Republic Waters

Based around an existing shipwreck, the museum will allow divers to explore cannons, anchors and coral reefs

Trending Today

See a Bald Eagle and Octopus Tangled in Epic Battle

The big cephalopod was winning until the humans intervened

Humpback whales being tagged by researchers off the coast of Antarctica in 2018. The data gathered revealed that diet largely dictates a whales' maximum size.

Whales Are the Biggest Animals to Ever Exist—Why Aren’t They Bigger?

New research highlights the role diet plays in dictating a cetacean’s size

Despite similarities, doctors do not advise consuming fish antibiotics, which are unregulated.

Why Are Americans Taking Fish Antibiotics?

A new study investigated the online fish antibiotic market—and found that some humans seem to be ingesting them

The Wedding Dance by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1566

Art Meets Science

Detroit Exhibit Celebrates Bruegel’s ‘The Wedding Dance’ and Its Controversial Codpieces

The painting’s frank depiction of drunk frivolity—and male anatomy—didn’t sit well with some viewers

An artist's impression of the upcoming ClearSpace-1 robot using its four arms to capture a piece of space debris that was left behind in 2013.

The European Space Agency Is Sending a Robot to Hug Junk Out of Space

The mission, set to launch in 2025, will be the first to remove a piece of debris from Earth’s lower orbit

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