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Smart News / Smart News Science

Unearthed at the Cova Negra site in Spain, skull fragments from a Neanderthal child have telltale punctures in the right parietal region.

New Research

Ancient Carnivores Had a Taste for Neanderthal Meat

Researchers link bite marks on a Neanderthal skull to the fangs of an ancient big cat

Researchers collected this mixture of plankton – small zooplanktonic animals, larvae and single cell protists – in the Pacific Ocean with a 0.1 mm mesh net.

New Research

How Will Climate Change Impact Plankton?

A global plankton survey aims to help us understand how the tiny organisms that live at the ocean surface will fare in a warming world

Mountains don't all look like this.

New Research

Most Mountains Don’t Come With Pointy Peaks

Some mountains actually get wider as you go up

An artist's rendering of WISE J224607.57-052635.0, which was recently spotted by an infrared space telescope.

Cool Finds

Found: A Galaxy That Shines With the Light of Over 300 Trillion Suns

A very hungry black hole at the center of WISE J224607.57-052635.0 emits an incredible amount of light

The dark gray object lurking above the Herschel crater on Mars is the Martian moon Phobos, as seen by the Viking Orbiter 1 in 1977

New Research

Did Mars Steal its Moons From the Asteroid Belt?

Scientists still aren’t sure where the odd little moons came from, but they have ideas

Trending Today

A Beginner’s Guide to the Santa Barbara Oil Spill

Cleanup efforts are underway at Refugio State Beach after more than 100,000 gallons of crude oil spilled

The Habronattus sunglow (male pictured above) is a species of jumping spider that has trichromatic or "true" color vision.

New Research

How Jumping Spiders See in Color

The agile arachnids see in three color channels, and they can actually see more colors than humans can

New Research

Atheists Remind People of Death

New research shows that atheists trigger death-related thoughts

Shortly after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill, dolphins were observed swimming through an oil slick. Their exposure to petroleum fumes may have wrought serious consequences.

New Research

Research Confirms Fears that Deepwater Horizon Spill Contributed to Dolphin Deaths

Dead bottlenose dolphins stranded in the Gulf of Mexico had lesions linked to petroleum exposure

The "South Pacific Ocean Uninhabited Area" or spacecraft cemetery, as it's affectionately dubbed, is located in the middle of nowhere, thousands of miles off the coast of New Zealand.

There’s a Spacecraft Cemetery in the Pacific

The middle of the Pacfic Ocean is one of the two places spacecrafts are laid to rest

Murray's bagels in New York City.

How Chemistry Gives New York City Bagels an Edge

Is it really all in the water?

A map highlights the most common unique cause of death in each state

Cool Finds

Texans Die of Tuberculosis and Other Insights From the CDC’s Distinctive Death Map

The Centers of Disease Control and Prevention compiled a list of the most common unusual deaths in every state

New Research

When People Want an Upgrade They Tend to Break and Lose Their Old Gadgets

Researchers call it the “Must-Have Effect”

Trending Today

21,000 Gallons of Oil Just Spilled Near Santa Barbara

An underwater pipeline was the culprit for a crude oil spill in the Pacific

Saurornitholestes sullivani attacks a subadult hadrosaur Parasaurolophus tubicen

New Research

Meet Your New Favorite Dinosaur: The Velociraptor’s Cousin

A keen sense of smell gave this dino an edge

Baker's or brewer's yeast, like the sample pictured above, could one day be used for more efficient opiate production.

Engineered Yeast Could Open up a DIY Painkiller Market

The modified microbes could also make cheaper and better opiates

A spider prepares to "balloon" by shooting a threat of silk out of its butt. By catching the wind with their silk, baby spiders can explore or colonize new habitats. When millions of spiders do this at the same time, it resembles rain or snow.

No, It’s Not Really Raining Spiders in Australia

The arachnids are simply catching a ride on the wind

New Research

Asteroid Impacts Once Made the Earth’s Oceans Boil for A Whole Year

Life had it rough back then

New Research

Satellite Data Underestimated how Fast Sea Levels Were Rising

The oceans are rising faster than scientists thought.

New Research

Researchers are Trying to Harness the Power of Music for Unconscious Patients

Plumbing the depths of the unconscious brain has thus far uncovered more mysteries than answers

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