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Smart News / Smart News Science

Elusive “Unicorn” Plant Spotted in Maine for the First Time in 131 Years

The state’s Department of Agriculture has documented around 300 flowering unicorn root stems

Satellite Image of Hurricane Lane

Trending Today

Why Hawaiian Hurricanes Are So Rare

The islands are usually protected by their remoteness and a stable high pressure system, which has gone wonky in the last year

Blue-and-yellow macaws are capable of blushing (left).

Like Humans, Some Birds Blush to Communicate

Blue-and-yellow macaws are capable of the feathered equivalents of facial expressions, new research shows

The tiny arm or leg fragment belonged to Denisova 11, a 13-year-old hybrid hominin

Cool Finds

Meet Denisova 11: First Known Hybrid Hominin

The 13-year-old girl’s mother was a Neanderthal while her father was a Denisovan

A photograph of the fossil turtle Eorhynchochelys sinensis, which lived about 228 million years ago and sported a beak but no shell.

Newly Discovered Turtle Ancestors Chomped With Beaks But Bore No Shells

A 228-million-year-old fossil fills gaps in the tale of turtle evolution—and raises a few questions

Haze in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

New Research

Air Pollution Is Stealing a Year of Life From People Around the Globe

Tiny particles that contribute to lung disease, strokes and heart attacks are robbing Americans of 4 months and over 1.8 years of life elsewhere

A STEVE lights up the night over British Columbia.

New Research

STEVE the Purple Beam of Light Is Not An Aurora After All

In a second study of mysterious phenomena, researchers discovered that solar particles hitting the ionosphere do not power the violet, vertical streaks

113 Sea Turtles Have Been Found Dead on a Mexico Beach

Officials are still investigating the cause of the die-off

Upturned under mysterious circumstances, the flagship vessel sank to its undersea grave with roughly 500 innocents—and one ship dog, a mutt dubbed Hatch—trapped within

New Nanotech Returns Henry VIII’s Favorite Warship to Its Former Glory

Researchers used tiny magnetic particles to remove the iron ions responsible for the wooden vessel’s decay

New Research

Ancient Mayan Clearcutting Still Impacts Carbon in Soil Today

Even 1,000 years after a forest regrows, the soil beneath still won’t hold as much carbon as it once could, a new study suggests

Obvious' "Portrait of Edmond Belamy" exceeded expectations at Thursday's sale

Art Meets Science

Christie’s Will Be the First Auction House to Sell Art Made by Artificial Intelligence

Christie’s will sell the work from Paris-based art collective Obvious, which created ‘Portrait of Edmond Belamy’ with the machine-learning algorithm GAN

If you stick to a diet of kale, brussels sprouts and similarly leafy greens, your salivary proteins will eventually adapt to their bitter taste

There’s a Scientific Explanation for Why Adults Are More Likely to Tolerate Leafy Greens

Just eat your veggies: Salivary proteins adapt to bitter tastes, making them more palatable over time

The restored horse head is on view for the first time since its discovery in 2009

A 2,000-Year-Old Golden Horse Head Suggests Romans Actually Got Along Wth German ‘Barbarians’

The sculpture fragment suggests Romans lived peacefully alongside Germans until a decisive defeat at the Battle of Teutoburg Forest

Trending Today

This Fish Outlived Dinosaurs But Oil and Gas Drilling May Threaten Its Survival

Oil exploration is set to begin near the habitat of the critically endangered coelacanth, a type of fish that has survived over 400 million years

In August 2016, a lightning strike killed more than 300 reindeers. Now, their decaying carcasses are spurring the landscape's revitalization

What the Deaths of More Than 300 Reindeer Teach Us About the Circle of Life

In an isolated corner of Norwegian plateau, carcasses of reindeer felled by lightning are spawning new plant life

The FDA Has Approved the First Generic EpiPen Alternative

The new product will offer a more affordable alternative to a life-saving drug

Emmer wheat

New Research

Sequencing of Wheat Genome Could Lead to a Breadier Future

It took 200 scientists 13 years to finally figure out the complex genome of the important grain

Slow-moving clumps of bacteria form the darker regions of the portrait, while fast-moving, spaced-out bacteria form the lighter regions

Art Meets Science

Light-Reactive Bacteria Create Miniature ‘Mona Lisa’ Replica

Researchers transformed swimming bacteria into replica of the da Vinci masterpiece, morphing likenesses of Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin

How Hungry Baby Urchins Are Saving Hawaii’s Reefs

They helped eat through invasive algae that was suffocating corals in Kāne’ohe Bay

New Research

Egyptians Cracked Recipe for Embalming Resin Well Before Time of the Pharaohs

A new analysis shows that the Egyptian mummies were being made long before 2600 B.C.

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