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New Research

A guanaco successfully retrieves food from a cup with a lid.

Outsider Animals May Be the Best at Solving Problems

Researchers tested whether hoofed mammals could retrieve food from a lidded cup, and those lower in the pecking order were the most successful

Researchers uncovered a cache of 12 right hands in the courtyard of an Egyptian palace in 2011.

Cache of Ancient Severed Hands May Have Been Part of a Ritual

Twelve right hands found in an Egyptian palace courtyard were likely battle trophies that warriors exchanged for gold

Zooplankton help clean Lake Tahoe by eating tiny particles that can make the water cloudy.

Why Lake Tahoe Is the Clearest It’s Been in 40 Years

Thanks to a “natural clean-up crew” of zooplankton, the large freshwater alpine lake is looking especially pristine

Melanoma cancer cells under a microscope

New mRNA Vaccine Shows Promise Against Skin Cancer

Research suggests the personalized vaccine, paired with an immunotherapy drug, can reduce melanoma recurrence in high-risk patients

An illustration of the Snowball Earth with some open water around the equator and a newly proposed patch of ocean at mid-latitudes

How Life Could Have Survived the Frozen ‘Snowball Earth’

During a prehistoric ice age when the planet was enveloped in glaciers, algae could have made a living in patchy, open oceans, study suggests

The new image of the black hole in the Messier 87 galaxy.

See the Sharp New Image of a Supermassive Black Hole

Astronomers used machine-learning technology to improve a 2019 visualization of the M87 black hole, located some 54 million light-years away from Earth

Despite making up roughly 14 percent of Cape Town's population, the wealthiest residents used 51 percent of the city's water—often for non-essential uses like swimming pools, gardens and car-washing.

Wealthy Residents’ Pools and Gardens Are Driving Water Crises

Urban elites use a disproportionate share of water compared to their lower-income peers, according to a new study

Records of lunar eclipses that appeared unusually dark are telling scientists when volcanic eruptions might have occurred in the past.

Medieval Eclipse Records Help Scientists Understand Volcanic Eruptions

Descriptions of lunar eclipses from monks and poets can shed light on how volcanoes affect Earth’s climate in a new study

An artist's rendition of the runaway black hole with the stream of stars trailing behind it. Its former host galaxy is in the upper right of the image.

Black Hole Hurtling Through Space Leaves a Trail of Stars in Its Wake

Researchers theorize a stream of stars 200,000 light-years long came from a black hole ejected from its galaxy

Yellow crazy ants (Anoplolepis gracilipes)

These Male Ants Have Two Separate Sets of DNA

A genetic condition called chimerism may have helped yellow crazy ants become a dominating invasive species, a new study suggests

A wild Asian elephant in Sri Lanka

Watch This Elephant Peel a Banana With Her Trunk

Pang Pha likely learned to de-skin the yellow fruits while observing her human caretaker in her youth

Now extinct, thylacines are carnivorous marsupials that once roamed freely around Australia, Tasmania and New Guinea.

Extinct Tasmanian Tigers May Have Survived Longer Than Previously Thought

Though the last documented thylacine died in 1936, a new study based on alleged sightings suggests the species lived for decades more

The bow of the Vasa displayed at the Vasa Museum in Stockholm

Who Was the Woman Aboard This Famed 17th-Century Swedish Warship?

DNA analysis has revealed that a woman was among the 30 who died when the ‘Vasa’ sank on its maiden voyage

The hair strands were found inside decorative tubes.

New Research

Ancient Europeans Took Hallucinogenic Drugs 3,000 Years Ago

Hair strands from the Bronze Age reveal the first direct evidence of drug use in Europe

Lab-raised cockroaches adapted to maintain their glucose-focused sex lives while still avoiding sugary baited traps set by humans.

Cockroach Sex Is Evolving in Response to Pesticides

A new study highlights the insects’ resiliency in spite of human attempts to kill them

An offshore drilling and production platform in the Gulf of Mexico, which is the largest offshore fossil fuel production basin in the United States.

Methane Emissions Are Higher Than Thought From Gulf of Mexico Drilling

The climate impact of oil and gas production in the Gulf is double what government agencies estimate, according to a new study

Seabirds catch fish swimming near the ocean's surface, but in the process, they also ingest microplastics.

Microplastics Linked to Changes in Seabirds’ Guts

Birds that ingested more microplastics had more microbes linked to diseases and antibiotic resistance in a new study

A group of snailfish swims between 7,500 and 8,200 meters below sea level. The deepest fish was filmed at 8,336 meters under the surface.

Behold the Deepest Fish Ever Filmed

A juvenile snailfish was caught on video more than five miles below sea level in waters south of Japan

The analysis focused on 67 manillas from five shipwrecks off the coasts of Spain, Ghana, the United States and England. The largest study of manillas to date, the project aimed to use lead isotope analysis to pinpoint where the bracelets were produced. 

New Research

What Shipwrecks Reveal About the Origins of the Benin Bronzes

A new study traces the metal used to craft the brass sculptures to manilla bracelets produced in Germany and used as currency in the slave trade

Large land snails are rich in nutrients and can weigh up to about two pounds.

Humans May Have Eaten Giant Snails 170,000 Years Ago

Shell fragments from a cave in southern Africa show signs of exposure to extreme heat, suggesting they were cooked

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