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Biology

Chins are a uniquely human feature.

Why Do Humans Have Chins? They Might Be an Evolutionary Accident, New Research Suggests

The bony facial protrusion might be an evolutionary byproduct that resulted from changes to other parts of the skull, according to a new study

Researchers developed a tiny fart-measuring device that snaps into underwear. 

How Often Do You Fart? This ‘Smart Underwear’ Can Keep Track, Because Figuring Out a Baseline Is Important for Science

Researchers have launched a study to find a typical range for flatulence, which has been harder to measure than you might expect

Once treated by humans as prey, horses became key to transportation, warfare, trade and companionship. Their history is intertwined with our own.

Gallop Into the Year of the Horse With These Five Amazing Equine Discoveries

Since their domestication, horses have changed the course of human history. It’s no wonder the Chinese zodiac associates them with prosperity and success

An artistic representation of T. heberti snacking on some greens.

Cool Finds

A Football-Size Creature That Lived 307 Million Years Ago May Have Been One of the First Land Vertebrates to Eat Plants

“Hebert’s tyrant digger” had teeth built for grinding tough veggies, a new study suggests

Rhesus macaques at the Oregon National Primate Research Center

A Massive Monkey Research Center Might Turn Into a Primate Sanctuary. Animal Activists Rejoice, While Scientists Worry

The Oregon National Primate Research Center will explore a potentially federally supported transition with the National Institutes of Health

The 244-pound fish was the 27th halibut caught this season.

Ice Fishermen Catch Record-Breaking 244-Pound Atlantic Halibut After Hours-Long Struggle

Six men spent more than two hours tugging the massive flatfish from a frozen fjord in Quebec as part of a research project studying halibut populations in the region

A gray wolf in California.

A Gray Wolf Visited Los Angeles County for the First Time in a Century, Marking a Major Milestone in the Species’ Recovery

The 3-year-old female wolf, called BEY03F, is probably looking for a mate

Scientists found that fringe-lipped bats have a roughly 50 percent success rate when trying to capture prey.

These Lazy Bats Are Super-Efficient Killers That Carefully Conserve Energy to Attack at a Moment’s Notice

Wild fringe-lipped bats spend just one-tenth of the night in flight, but they can precisely snatch a calling frog and nab prey that rivals their own size

Stoats, also often known as ermines, are carnivorous mammals in the weasel family. Two stoats are the mascots of the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy.

What Is a Stoat? Learn Five Fun Facts About the Adorable Weasels Chosen as the Olympic Mascots

Milo and Tina, a pair of sibling stoats, are representing this year’s winter games in Italy

New life may have evolved surprisingly fast after a famous mass extinction event about 66 million years ago.

After the Dinosaur-Killing Asteroid Wrecked the Planet, Life May Have Bounced Back Surprisingly Fast

The steady rate of falling space dust helped researchers recalibrate the timeline

After exposing an ant to the air pollutant ozone, its nestmates acted aggressively toward it.

Air Pollution Can Cause Some Ants to Turn on One Another—and Neglect Their Young, New Research Suggests

The findings further hint that air pollution, particularly ozone, is contributing to the “insect apocalypse”

Sceptobius beetles groom ants to steal the pheromones that they produce. The beetles cloak themselves in those pheromones to match the scent of the ant colony, gaining the ability to live among the ants undetected.

These Beetles Are Entirely Dependent on Ants for Survival. Here’s Why That’s Not an Evolutionary Death Sentence

Rove beetles cloak themselves in ant pheromones to sneak into the insects’ nests for protection. But in an odd catch-22, that makes them forever reliant on their hosts

The human genome is made up of about three billion pairs of DNA units called nucleotides.

Google Researchers Say Their New A.I. Tool AlphaGenome Can Help Decode the Human Genetic Instruction Book

The computer model might help scientists better understand the biological impacts of typos in DNA

The title page of the collection of Bartholomäus Vogtherr's medical recipes (left) and a page from another medical text called the Kreuterbu[o]ch (right)

New Research

Renaissance Readers Left Chemical Clues Inside These Medical Manuals. Were They Using Human Feces and Tortoise Shells to Treat Illnesses?

Researchers analyzed proteins extracted from “How to Cure and Expel All Afflictions and Illnesses of the Human Body” and “A Useful and Essential Little Book of Medicine for the Common Man,” both written by a 16th-century German eye doctor

An illustration of a four-eyed myllokunmingid, a jawless fish that lived more than 500 million years ago

Cool Finds

The Earliest Known Vertebrates Had Four Eyes—and They Worked a Lot Like Ours Do, New Research Suggests

Two of those eyes may have evolved into a part of the brain called the pineal gland

After capturing the 77-pound male, wildlife officials said they planned to re-collar and release the creature into the wild.

Rare Mountain Lion Standoff in San Francisco Ends Peacefully After a 30-Hour Search

Wildlife officials successfully captured the young male, known as 157M, after he wandered into the northern Pacific Heights neighborhood

A Brazilian keelback (Helicops infrataeniatus) cannibalizes another in 2015.

Cannibalism Among Snakes Is Far More Widespread Than Previously Thought

Scientists undertook the first comprehensive assessment of how often snakes eat their own, uncovering reports of the behavior in more than 200 species

Seven mummified cheetahs and the remains of dozens more were found in caves in northern Saudi Arabia.

Cool Finds

Mummified Cheetahs Discovered in Caves Could Help Saudi Arabia Bring the Wild Cat Back to Its Historical Range

Researchers thought that just one subspecies of cheetah lived in Saudi Arabia long ago. But an unexpected discovery seems to broaden the gene pool

An illustration of a member of the Prototaxites genus, which lived between 420 million and 375 million years ago

This Mysterious 407-Million-Year-Old Fossil May Represent a Previously Unknown Branch of Life

Earth’s first large land organisms—tree trunk-like beings that stood up to 26 feet tall—weren’t early fungi but, rather, something else entirely, a study suggests

Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo announced a rare birth of mountain gorilla twins.

Rare Twin Mountain Gorillas Born in the Congo, Giving Hope to Those Working to Conserve the Endangered Animals

While the birth is sparking joy, infant mountain gorillas are vulnerable, and twins can be twice as hard for a mother to take care of

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