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Smart News / Smart News Science

New Research

What Makes Some Screams Scarier Than Others?

Shrieks of fear share sound qualities with car alarms

Silly humans, Pluto is a dog, not a planet.

Of Course Some People Think NASA’s Pluto Pictures Are Fake

Or at least doctored to exclude evidence of alien life.

Scripps oceanographer Eric Terrill and BentProp founder Pat Scannon investigate the main fuselage of a TBM Avenger lost 70 years ago during a bombing mission near Palau.

Cool Finds

Divers Turn to Robots for Help Scouring the Pacific for Long-Lost WWII Soldiers

An ongoing effort to recover those missing in action teams military historians, volunteers and scientists

Visitors to a hot springs resort in Japan enjoy a wine bath.

Cool Finds

What’s the Deal With Wine Baths?

Chemists investigate the science behind the hype

An artist's rendering of what a pentaquark structure might look like.

New Research

What Is a Pentaquark and Why Are Physicists so Excited About It?

For fifty years scientists have thought they existed, and now they finally have proof

Fungus has been infecting snakes like this adorable baby garter snake

New Research

A Deadly Fungus is Eating the Scales off Snakes in the Eastern U.S.

Researchers are still not sure why the fungus, usually content to live on dead animals, is now infecting living snakes

New Research

In Some Ways, Human Hands Are More Primitive Than Chimp Hands

Study suggests our common ancestor had humanlike hands

New Research

These Worms Hitchhike in the Belly of Slugs To Get Around

New study shows that worm their way into slug guts and feces to travel long distances

A young black-footed ferret learns to hunt prairie dogs at the National Black-footed Ferret Conservation Center

New Research

How Feeding Prairie Dogs Peanut Butter Could Help Save Ferrets from the Plague

The recovery of black-footed ferrets is threatened by plague

What Makes Day Old Water Taste Funny?

It might be full of microbes and carbon dioxide, but a leftover glass of water is still (probably) safe to drink

Cool Finds

Here’s Why Some People Have More Bellybutton Lint Than Others

The secret is on your stomach

New Horizons snapped this image of Pluto on July 12, 2015.

Cool Finds

How Pluto Got Its Name

New Horizons carries an instrument named for Venetia Burney, the 11-year-old girl who named Pluto

A color image of Pluto and its moon Charon captured on July 11, 2015 by New Horizons

New Research

New Horizons Probe Reveals That Pluto is Bigger Than Expected

But so far it still won’t be considered a “planet”

Variegated squirrels, like the one pictured above in Costa Rica, may carry a virus that causes encephalitis in humans.

New Research

A Squirrel Virus May Have Killed Three Squirrel Breeders in Germany

A mysterious set of deaths seem to be linked to the rodents

The number of users injecting heroin has skyrocketed across the United States in the last few years, CDC report says.

Heroin Use in the United States Increased 150 Percent Between 2007 and 2013

Cheap sources and painkiller addiction are contributing factors

Some scientists think that humans have aided the spread of ticks that carry Lyme bacteria in a few different ways.

Lyme Disease is Spreading, and It’s People’s Fault

Thanks to climate change and human population growth, cases have been on the rise for decades

Trending Today

Why So Few Scientists Are Studying the Causes of Gun Violence

Congress has prohibited funds for research advocating gun control since 1996

Does she look like she would enjoy being jabbed with a needle? Conservationists have used assassin bugs to test the blood female Iberian lynx, like the mother picture above with her cubs, for pregnancy.

Cool Finds

How Do You Give an Iberian Lynx a Pregnancy Test? Use an Assassin Bug

Researchers used the insects to keep tabs on population growth in the threatened species

New Research

How Air Pollution Makes Floods Worse

A better understanding of how aerosols interact with weather could lead to better flood forecasts, fewer floods

An original Tetris arcade game

New Research

Playing Tetris Could Stop Traumatic Memories from Becoming Flashbacks

The visually stimulating game seems to lessen the blow of disturbing events when they are recalled

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