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New Research

Illustration of the La Brea Tar Pit's ancient habitat, with the newly discovered toad species (center and right) and the Mexican burrowing toad (bottom)

Paleontologists Discover a New Species of Ice Age Toad at the La Brea Tar Pits, Offering Clues About the Area’s Ancient Climate

The fossilized remains, recovered in 1929, were part of La Brea’s relatively understudied amphibian collection. Since toads are cold-blooded and sensitive to environmental changes, the discovery can help researchers piece together past climate conditions

CTE is believed to be caused by repeated head injuries.

At Least One in Four Former NFL Players Who Died Between 2016 and 2021 Had the Progressive Brain Disease CTE, Study Suggests

The true prevalence of the neurodegenerative disease—which is associated with repeated head injuries—among the deceased football players might be much higher. CTE affects other athletes too, including hockey players, soccer players and wrestlers

The Ilovik-Paržine 1 shipwreck, with logs and amphorae visible in the foreground

A Brittle Coating on a 2,200-Year-Old Roman Shipwreck Reveals How Ancient Sailors Kept Their Ships Afloat

Traces of pine tar and beeswax preserved on the vessel reveal the painstaking techniques shipbuilders millennia ago used to protect their ships from the briny deep

The Helix Nebula with bow shocks on the upper left

A New Telescope Still Under Construction Accidentally Reveals How a Dying Star Returns Matter to Space

Researchers captured an unprecedented image of the stellar recycling process while calibrating a Chile-based instrument called MOTHRA, which is expected to be complete by the end of 2026

The Huashan rock art is spread across more than 80 sites spanning roughly 160 miles.

This Rock Art in China Has Remained Bright Red for Nearly 2,000 Years. How? The Secret Ingredient Might Be Blood

A new study offers clues about how the Luoyue people created rock paintings in what’s now southern China. The murals have somehow been durable enough to withstand rain, heat, wind and humidity for centuries

A series of floods devastated medieval Europe.

Centuries Ago, Europeans Were Plagued by Constant Flooding, With 16 Major Events That Killed Thousands Over the Course of Just Three Years

When researchers went looking for information about the legendary Magdalena Flood, they were surprised to discover that it was just one of many extreme weather events that ravaged the region in the early 1340s

The trial only included people with melanoma, but experts say the same treatment approach could potentially be applied more broadly—to other types of cancer, as well as rare conditions caused by genetic mutations.

A New Personalized Cancer Vaccine Could Keep Skin Cancer From Coming Back, Drugmakers Say

The results, announced this week by Moderna and Merck, could pave the way for a new generation of treatments tailored to individual tumors

The researchers trained pet dogs to sit still during an MRI scan.

Scientists Gave Dogs MRIs and Learned That They’re Surprisingly Good at Distinguishing Between Human Emotions, Even Some Negative Ones

A recent study found that man’s best friend processes positive and negative human emotions differently and can distinguish between fearful faces and those showing sadness or anger

Narwhals live in the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans.

Narwhals Sport Iconic Straight, Spiraled Tusks. Scientists Just Uncovered Some of the Eye-Catching Feature’s Structural Secrets

The Arctic whales are the only known animals with straight tusks, and ones that consistently twist to the left. New research reveals that the inner layer twists to the right and that the opposing spirals provide strength and help the tusks grow straight

An aerial view of the mass grave, which was found beneath a soccer field in Vienna in October 2024

New Research

Construction in Austria Revealed a Roman-Era Mass Grave Beneath a Soccer Field. New Research Suggests That the Men’s Enemies Targeted Their ‘Sensitive Areas’

No written records mention a fight in this specific part of Vienna at the time of the men’s deaths. But the brutal nature of their injuries, particularly to the pelvis area, indicates that these individuals died on the battlefield

Scientists suspect the bones belonged to a brown bear or a polar bear.

Ireland’s ‘Kerry Cow’ Bones Are Actually Wild Boar and Bear, Shaking Up the Story of Farming’s Arrival on the Island

The bones were discovered on the Dingle Peninsula more than 30 years ago, but scientists recently decided to take another look at them, this time using modern techniques

Scientists have discovered more than 4,400 ancient preserved human brains, some of which are 12,000 years old.

Archaeologists Have Found Thousands of Intact Ancient Human Brains. Scientists Say They’ve Figured Out Why the Organs Don’t Always Rot

Under the right conditions—wet and oxygen-deprived—the same chemical reactions that cause tissue to break down can instead have the opposite effect, according to a new study

Brazil experienced its first urban outbreak of yellow fever in decades from late 2016 through 2018. During that time, people flocked to health centers to get a vaccine, which can provide lifelong protection.

Brazil’s First Urban Yellow Fever Outbreak in Nearly a Century May Have Been Fueled by a Surprising Culprit

Extremely wet conditions are known to help spread mosquito-borne diseases like yellow fever. But based on computer simulations, researchers suspect that a severe drought may have contributed to the South American country’s recent deadly epidemic

A tufted gray langur strokes a grizzled giant squirrel in Yala National Park, Sri Lanka.

Do Monkeys Keep Pets? Study Finds Widespread Primate Interactions With Other Animal Species, From Mice to Deer

This social behavior might reveal the evolutionary roots of traits that underlie pet-keeping in humans, scientists say, from caregiving to tolerance and curiosity. But it’s not the same as a person keeping a cat or a dog

An image of the reef

These Coral Reefs Off West Africa Were Long Presumed Dead. Scientists Just Found Them Alive and Teeming With Life

Fish surveys in the 1960s detected what experts thought was a dead coral reef barrier off the country of Benin. Decades later, researchers set off in small fishing boats to investigate it using sonar mapping, underwater drone surveys and stationary video recorders

Past studies have suggested that what’s good for the heart may also help protect the brain. But researchers hoped to frame that connection in a different way—not just as reduced risk, but as time gained without dementia.

Avoiding These Three Vascular Health Risk Factors in Midlife Can Help You Delay Dementia for About 13 Years, Study Suggests

High blood pressure, diabetes and smoking are three major modifiable risk factors of dementia. New research tracked more than 12,000 participants to quantify how many years of healthy cognitive function you can gain by evading some or all of them during middle age

An illustration of Chiniquodon theotonicus, including a pregnant female and a nursing female

When Did Animals Start Giving Birth to Live Young? This 236-Million-Year-Old Fossil Might Rewrite Mammals’ Evolutionary History

A bone feature found in a mammal ancestor hints that the creature was relatively large as a newborn, more in line with the size of a creature birthed live than hatched from an egg. Still, it provides only indirect evidence

Running with a stroller is a safe way to get some exercise when your kids are young, new research suggests.

Listen Up, Parents: Running With a Stroller Might Make You Less Prone to Overuse Injuries

Runners often experience conditions like shin splints, runner’s knee and plantar fasciitis, which causes pain in the bottom of the heel. But pushing a stroller’s handlebar seems to make you distribute your weight differently

Nathan Hale was captured and executed by the British within days of his arrival on Long Island. David Maltbie evaded detection for a much longer time, although he, too, was eventually caught by the enemy.

America's 250th Anniversary

This Connecticut Teenager Spied on the British During the American Revolution, Succeeding Where Nathan Hale Failed

Newly uncovered documents reveal the story of David Maltbie, who relayed intelligence to the patriots in 1776, narrowly avoiding execution as a spy

A modern-day view of Stirling Castle, the Scottish stronghold where the skeleton was found in 1997

A Medieval Man’s Injuries Reminded One Archaeologist of Modern-Day Car Crash Victims. They Turned Out to Be the Work of an English Trebuchet

A skeleton unearthed in Scotland likely belongs to a soldier struck by a high-speed projectile during Edward I’s 1304 siege of Stirling Castle. The man suffered more than 160 fractures

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