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New Research

The recently opened Apollo moon sample.

Trending Today

NASA Opens Pristine Tube of Moon Dust From the Apollo Missions

Studying the lunar material will help scientists understand the best way to analyze new samples from future missions to the moon

A brain with a normal olfactory bulb on the left and a brain lacking the bulb on the right.

New Research

Some Women Without the Brain’s Olfactory Bulbs Can Still Smell. Scientists Say It Makes No Sense

Left-handed women missing the brain structures were still able to smell as well–or better—than average

New Research

These Beautiful Blue Turkey-Like Birds Have Tiny Brains and Huge Social Networks

A new study finds that vulturine guineafowl live in complex societies previously found in primates, elephants and dolphins

This is a European shore crab in the wild. Crabs like this were used in the study to complete mazes.

Crabs Can Learn to Navigate Mazes, Too

A new study highlights the cognitive abilities of an understudied animal

Spoiler alert: No, it wasn't from beer burps.

Hold On to Your Lederhosen: Oktoberfest Produces a Whole Lot of Methane Gas

Incomplete combustion from gas appliances is likely the major culprit

Babies May Understand Counting Before They Fully Understand Numbers

By tempting an adorable pool of subjects with toys, a new study found that infants associate counting with quantities

Sandro Botticelli's "Birth of Venus" finds its subject striking a contrapposto pose

New Research

Why Viewers Are Drawn to Renaissance Artists’ Go-To Pose

A new study finds that the contrapposto stance reduces the waist-to-hip ratio, an attribute popularly associated with attractiveness

The sea urchins are causing havoc.

Voracious Purple Sea Urchins Are Ravaging Kelp Forests on the West Coast

The trouble started in 2013, when sea stars, an urchin predator, began to die off

Cool Finds

Canine Archaeologists Sniff Out 3,000-Year-Old Graves in Croatia

A new study shows how canines trained to find human remains could help archaeologists locate new sites

Talk about a rat race.

Scientists Taught Rats to Drive Tiny Cars to Earn Froot Loops

What’s more, driving seemed to relax the rodents

A male white bellbird screaming its mating call.

Listen to the Shattering Call of the World’s Loudest Known Bird

The song of the white bellbird can reach 125 decibels, which rivals ‘the amplitude of a pile driver,’ says the author of a new study

Plants growing in lunar and Martian soil simulants.

New Research

Space Farmers Could Grow Crops in Lunar and Martian Soil, Study Suggests

With a little added organic matter, dusty lunar and Martian soil simulants produced tomatoes, rye, radishes and other crops in the lab

New Research

Trilobite Fossil Shows Animals Have Stood in Line for Hundreds of Millions of Years

A line of 480-million-year-old trilobites found in Morocco may be the earliest evidence of collective animal behavior

The team discovered a whale fall while exploring Davidson Seamount off central California’s coast.

Cool Finds

Watch Marine Life Feast on a Complete Whale Skeleton on the Ocean Floor

It’s spooky season on the seafloor, too

A humpback whale, not involved in the study, shows off its pecs.

Watch Humpback Whales Scoop Fish Into Their Mouths Using Their Fins

With the help of a drone and other new technologies, researchers were able to study the whales from a bird’s-eye view

New Research

North Atlantic Right Whale Mamas Whisper to Their Babies to Keep Them Safe

By using soft grunts instead of their normal loud call, it’s believed they avoid the attention of orcas, sharks and other predators

Deer bone marrow after six weeks of storage.

Prehistoric Deer Bones May Offer the Earliest Evidence of Ancient Food Storage

The inhabitants of Qesem Cave in Israel seem to have been saving bone marrow for a later date

Fur seal pups on Bogoslof Island.

On an Active Volcano, a Northern Fur Seal Population Is Booming

Scientists estimate that there were 36,000 pups on Bogoslof Island this year—up from around 28,000 in 2015

Cool Finds

Tiny Stone Tools Show Humans Hunted in the Rainforest 45,000 Years Ago

A ‘toolkit’ found in Sri Lanka adds to growing evidence that early humans inhabited many ecosystems, not just open grasslands

Cool Finds

New Organic Compounds Found in Plumes From Saturn’s Icy Moon Enceladus

Analysis of data from the late, great Cassini spacecraft reveals the moon is spurting oxygen and nitrogen-bearing organic compounds into space

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