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Smart News / Smart News Science

A narwhal being capture and tagged for the study

New Research

Researchers Record the Sounds of the Elusive Narwhal

Skreee—-click——whirrr.

The goal, Ruth Jarman says, is to “transcend the data so that it becomes something else"

Art Meets Science

‘HALO’ Makes Art Out of Subatomic Particle Collisions at Art Basel

The site-specific installation by British artist duo Semiconductor revisits the universe’s first moments

Apollo 15 Lunar Module Pilot James Irwin salutes the U.S. flag. This photograph was taken by Astronaut David R. Scott, Apollo 15 commander.

Astronauts’ Footprints May Have Warmed the Moon

“Lost” data from the 1970s helped scientists solve an enduring lunar mystery

Researchers examined 400 photographs and 100 paintings dating between 1500 and 2015

Art Meets Science

Why Artists Have so Much Trouble Painting Lightning

A new study compares painted versus photographed depictions of lightning bolts’ offshooting branches

Hangry like the wolf.

New Research

Being Hangry Is Real, But You Can Control It

Hunger elicits similar responses as emotions, but it only turns into “hanger” when people are already primed with negative feelings

New Research

Inca Skull Surgeons Had Better Success Rates Than American Civil War Doctors

Survival rates among later Inca cultures was significantly higher. However, the 19th-century soldiers were facing trauma caused by industrial-age warfare

Introducing a Hairy-Footed Shrimp Named After Bilbo Baggins

Like its hobbit namesake, Odontonia bagginsi is also quite small

New Research

Something Is Killing Off Africa’s Largest Baobab Trees

In the last dozen years, four of the 13 largest, and likely oldest, trees have died. Another five are ailing

Greaves and her team state that there is a one in 10,000 chance or less that the connection is due to chance

Space Nanodiamonds Found to Be Source of Some Cosmic Microwave Radiation

The diamond dust in protoplanetary discs may solve a decades-old astronomical mystery

An artist's impression of an adult and juvenile Lyrarapax unguispinus — awww, how adorable!

This Prehistoric Sea Creature Had Fanged, Killer Babies

The discovery of a juvenile Lyrarapax unguispinus fossil reveals that even the tiny terrors had a developed claw-like appendage and sharp teeth

New Research

Oldest Footprints Show When Life On Earth Got Legs

Tiny fossil tracks found in South China firmly date appendages back to the Ediacaran period

New Research

New Gadget Brings Fish Up From the Ocean’s “Twilight Zone”

The portable decompression chamber allows SCUBA-diving scientists to safely collect specimens without them, well, exploding

Cool Finds

World’s Largest Iceberg Is Melting Away After 18 Years Adrift

In the last two years, the Jamaica-sized berg began venturing north, melting and splintering into pieces along the way

The Next Flu Pandemic Might Come From Dogs

A new study found two strains of swine flu in sickly pups in China

Why Rattlesnakes Are Just as Dangerous Dead or Alive

After receiving bite from decapitated Western diamondback, Texas man required 26 doses of antivenom

An illustration of lightning on Jupiter's northern hemisphere, using an image from the JunoCam.

New Research

Jupiter’s Lightning Is More Earth-Like Than We Thought

Juno is providing scientists with new insights into the gas giant’s flashes of light

New Research

New Evidence Shows That Humans Could Have Migrated to the Americas Along the Coast

Dating of rocks and animal bones shows Alaska’s coast was glacier free around 17,000 years ago, allowing people to move south along the coast

"Laze" caused by lava interacting with ocean waters.

Watch Kīlauea’s Lava Flow Into the Ocean, Creating Billowing Clouds of ‘Laze’

The interaction between the lava and the water creates a hazardous mix of hydrochloric acid, steam and volcanic glass particles

New Research

Disgusting Things Fall Into Six Gross Categories

Open sores, body odors and other indicators of possible disease transmission top the list of things that gross us out

A seismic sensor installed in the ice of East Antarctica to monitor Earth's shivers and rumbles.

Earthquakes Rumble Under East Antarctica Much More Frequently Than Thought

A new study reveals that the region trembled with 27 minor earthquakes in 2009 alone

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