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Smart News / Smart News Science

Artist's depiction of a pulsar.

Cool Finds

World’s Largest Radio Telescope Spies Its First Pulsars

Still in its trial run, the China’s FAST radio telescope has already identified two new pulsars and perhaps a dozen more

Eight hundred pounds of dynamite exploding.

The Man Who Invented Nitroglycerin Was Horrified By Dynamite

Alfred Nobel–yes, that Nobel–commercialized it, but inventor Asciano Sobrero thought nitroglycerin was too destructive to be useful

A 2014 eruption of Old Faithful, one of its many consistent outbursts

Geologists Map the Plumbing Beneath Yellowstone’s Old Faithful Geyser

Without turning over a stone, geologists imaged the subsurface supply for this iconic geyser

New Research

Researchers Sniff Out the Genes Behind the Smell of the World’s Stinkiest Fruit

The DNA of the durian, it turns out, is very complex and optimized for producing a wretched stench

Anthrax Outbreak May Have Caused Mass Die-off of Hippos in Namibia

More than 100 hippos have been found dead over the past week

The only specimen ever collected of the erstwhile species Phyllastrephus leucolepis, or the Liberian Greenbul

The Elusive Songbird Species That Likely Never Existed

After fruitless hunts for a Liberian songbird, DNA analysis suggests that the species is not new

Older, soot-covered horned larks on the left and cleaner specimens on the right

New Research

Sooty Bird Feathers Reveal a Century of Coal Emissions History

A story of pollution hides in the grime of museums’ birds specimens

The British Navy was a big deal in the 1700s.

Jane Squire and the Longitude Wars

The sixteenth-century debate over how to determine longitude had a lot of participants—and one woman

An African Elephant in Tanzania

The UK May Implement a Near-Total Ban on Its Ivory Trade

Though the ivory trade was banned internationally in 1990, the UK permits the sale of items crafted before 1947

Cool Finds

Stunning Video Captures Humpback Whales Catching Fish With Nets of Bubbles

It’s a complicated but ingenious way to catch a meal

The remnant's of Kepler's supernova imaged with modern instruments.

How a 1604 Supernova Presented a Challenge to Astronomers

The supernova provided proof to Galileo, Kepler and others that the heavens were not fixed–although they were wrong about what caused the bright star

Themira lohmanus

Cool Finds

New Species of Fly Found Breeding on Central Park Duck Droppings

The creatures are likely drawn to the area by the high concentrations of duck poop

Mad cow disease, like other prion diseases, is still not fully understood.

More Than 30 Years Since Their Discovery, Prions Still Fascinate, Terrify and Mystify Us

Figuring out what they were was just the beginning of a field of research into prions and prion diseases that’s still growing

A painting of an aurora seen in Japan on September 17, 1770, in the book "Seikai"

Using 18th-Century Writings and Illustrations, Scientists Model an Ancient Magnetic Storm

The vibrant aurora lit up the night sky over the city of Kyoto, Japan, some 250 years ago

Trending Today

An October Harvest Moon Rises Tonight

The full moon closest to the equinox rises soon after sunset, casting a glow early evening that helps farmers bring in their crops

Orbis et Globus in place - for now

This Wandering Concrete Sphere Will Track the Movements of the Arctic Circle

On a small Icelandic island, a massive piece of art will track Earth’s wobble in space

A graphic showing the high image resolutions achieved with cryo-electron microscopy

Method for Capturing the Smallest Details of Life Nabs Chemistry Nobel

With cryo-electron microscopy, tiny living molecules can be seen in their natural states

The glowing end of a tapeworm took fourth place in the competition. 200x magnification

Art Meets Science

Revel in the Big Details of Tiny Things With These Prize-Winning Images

Skin cells, tape worms and fuzzy mold are among this years top photos

The brown rat is among the few hundred animal genomes that have been sequenced. Only 8.7 billion more to go...

How Scientists Decide Which Animal Genomes to Sequence

There are an estimated 8.7 million species on Earth–it’s unlikely scientists will ever sequence them all

A triple solar flare recorded in April, 2017

New Research

Could a Magnetic Shield Protect Earth From Space Weather?

A bad geomagnetic storm would fry the electric grid and cripple civilization for years—a space shield is cheap by comparison

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