New Research
How a Team of Gophers Restored Mount St. Helens After Its Catastrophic Eruption With Less Than a Day of Digging
After the volcanic eruption of 1980, scientists released the burrowing rodents for only a brief time, but their activities left a remarkably enduring impact, according to a new study
Scientists Are Using CT Scanners to Reveal the Secrets of More Than Two Dozen Ancient Egyptian Mummies
For the first time, researchers were able to see inside the mummies in the Chicago Field Museum's collections. Their findings paint a more comprehensive picture of ancient Egyptian life
Voyager 2 Measured a Rare Anomaly When It Flew Past Uranus, Skewing Our Knowledge of the Planet for 40 Years, Study Suggests
The roughly six-hour flyby in 1986 revealed Uranus' protective magnetic field was strangely empty. Now, researchers say that the data could have been affected by a solar wind event
These Elephants Can Use Hoses to Shower—and Even 'Sabotage' Each Other, Study Suggests
Mary, a 54-year-old Asian elephant at the Berlin Zoo, is the “queen of showering,” but her companion Anchali seems to have figured out how to exploit that habit to play pranks
DNA Evidence Is Rewriting the Stories of Victims Who Perished in Pompeii Nearly 2,000 Years Ago
A new study has shattered historians' long-held assumptions about some of the people who died in Mount Vesuvius' eruption in 79 C.E.
Chimpanzees Could Never Randomly Type the Complete Works of Shakespeare, Study Finds
While testing the "infinite monkey theorem," mathematicians found that the odds of a chimpanzee typing even a short phrase like "I chimp, therefore I am" before the death of the universe are 1 in 10 million billion billion
Archaeologists Are Bewildered by a Skeleton Made From the Bones of at Least Eight People Who Died Thousands of Years Apart
Found in a cremation cemetery in Belgium, the skeleton includes bones dating to the Neolithic period and a Roman-era skull, according to a new study
Rare 'Terror Bird' Fossil Found in Colombia Reveals the Enormous Size of a Prehistoric Predator
The bone, described two decades after its discovery, suggests the species might have grown up to 20 percent bigger than other terror birds
Watch Vampire Bats Run on a Tiny Treadmill to Shed Light on Their Blood-Fueled Metabolism
In a rare technique among mammals, the bats burn proteins from blood, rather than carbs or fat, to power their pursuits of prey, according to a new study
The World's Earliest Writing System May Have Been Influenced by Older Symbols Found on Stone 'Cylinder Seals'
Thousands of years ago, our ancestors used symbols to track the sale of textile and agricultural products. New research suggests that these markings informed the development of writing
How Sugar Rationing During World War II Fended Off Diabetes and High Blood Pressure Later in Life
Babies who were conceived and born during the period of rationing in the United Kingdom were less likely to develop certain diseases as adults, a new study finds
A Rare Triassic Fossil Found in Brazil Could Shed Light on the Origin of Dinosaurs
The 237-million-year-old remains are among the oldest silesaurid fossils ever found, adding to paleontologists' understanding of this still-mysterious group of prehistoric reptiles
A Simple Chemical Shift Explains Why Parrots Are So Colorful, Study Suggests
Unlike other birds, which get pigments from their diets, parrots produce their own—but scientists never fully understood the underlying mechanisms, until now
Scientists Reveal Rare 450-Million-Year-Old Arthropod Fossil Preserved in Glittering Fool’s Gold
The critter found in New York represents a new, extinct species of arthropod that could shed light on the evolution of today's insects, crustaceans and spiders
Scientists Unearth the Oldest Tadpole Fossil Ever Found, and It's a 161-Million-Year-Old 'Giant'
Found in a rock in Argentina, the six-inch-long tadpole sheds light on the history of frog metamorphosis
Geologists Finally Explain New Jersey's Strange Earthquake That Rocked the Northeast in April
A new study suggests the seismic energy traveled outward from a previously unmapped fault, emanating from the hypocenter in bouncing waves that shook distant areas
Two High Schoolers Found an 'Impossible' Proof for a 2,000-Year-Old Math Rule—Then, They Discovered Nine More
Ne’Kiya Jackson and Calcea Johnson of Louisiana published a new study proving the Pythagorean theorem using trigonometry, a feat mathematicians long thought could not be done
More Than One in Three Tree Species Around the Globe Are at Risk of Disappearing, New Report Finds
An assessment from the International Union for Conservation of Nature paints a grim picture of the extinction risk of the world's trees
'Found' Dataset Reveals Lost Maya City Full of Pyramids and Plazas, Hiding in Plain Sight Beneath a Mexican Forest
By analyzing an old lidar survey, researchers found evidence of more than 6,500 ancient structures in a previously unexplored area of Campeche
New 'Paleo-Robots' Could Shed Light on Animal Evolution, Revealing How Some Fish Evolved to 'Walk' on Land
A team of roboticists, paleontologists and biologists are building robots to simulate crucial evolutionary developments that can’t be tested with static fossils
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