New Research

Gears turn inside an antique watch.

World's First Ultra-Precise Nuclear Clock Is Within Reach After Major Breakthrough, Researchers Say

The technology, enabled by thorium atoms, could keep time more accurately than atomic clocks and enable new discoveries about gravity, gravitational waves and dark matter

A buff-tailed bumblebee (Bombus terrestris), one of the species found in a recent study to have a diminished sense of smell after exposure to heat.

Heat Waves Can Make Bumblebees Lose Their Sense of Smell, Study Finds. Here's Why That's a Problem

Female worker bees, which forage for the whole colony, struggle more to detect scents in the heat than males do, per the recent research

The Starry Night, Vincent van Gogh, 1889

'The Starry Night' Accurately Depicts a Scientific Theory That Wasn't Described Until Years After van Gogh's Death

Researchers say that the iconic painting's swirling sky lines up with Kolmogorov's theory of turbulence, suggesting that the artist was a careful observer of the world around him

The Horned Serpent Panel, painted by the San people in southern Africa, shows a mysterious creature's tusks in blue at the upper right.

Remarkable 200-Year-Old Rock Painting May Depict a Strange Animal That Went Extinct 250 Million Years Ago

The Horned Serpent Panel from southern Africa predates the first Western scientific description of the dicynodont, a large mammal ancestor with tusks, by at least a decade

An artist’s illustration of the Porphyrion jet pair escaping a black hole and passing through voids in the cosmic web.

Astronomers Discover Record-Breaking Jets Escaping a Black Hole, the Longest Ever Seen

The energetic streams are together 23 million light-years in length—roughly as long as 140 Milky Way galaxies lined end to end

This fossil palm leaf (Sabalites sp.) found in Alaska can be seen in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. Sixty million years ago, dense, wet forests covered North America, and many plants, including palms, grew in places such as Alaska where temperatures are too frigid for them today. A new study published in Science gives scientists a picture of when the Earth was warm and when it was cool over the past 485 million years.

In a Landmark Study, Scientists Discover Just How Much Earth's Temperature Has Changed Over Nearly 500 Million Years

Researchers show the average surface temperature on our planet has shifted between 51.8 to 96.8 degrees Fahrenheit

An illustration of Earth with a ring.

Did Earth Once Have a Ring Like Saturn? Geologists Find Evidence for a Halo of Orbiting Space Rocks 466 Million Years Ago

A ring could explain a mysterious arrangement of impact craters near the equator and might even have caused an ice age, according to a new study

A researcher holds a juvenile queen conch. Adults can reach up to 12 inches in length.

Scientists Play Matchmaker for Beloved Sea Snails in the Florida Keys

To boost the iconic queen conch's population, researchers are relocating the heat-stressed creatures to cooler, deeper waters to help them find mates

Microplastics are tiny pieces of plastic that have been found all over the world and in the human body.

Scientists Find Microplastics in Human Brain Tissue Above the Nose

A new study identified the tiny pollutants in the olfactory bulbs of eight cadavers, suggesting microplastics can travel through the nose to the brain

In 2022, researchers nicknamed the occupant of the lead sarcophagus "the horseman." Now, they say he's actually a 16th-century poet.

Archaeologists Say They've Solved the Mystery of a Lead Coffin Discovered Beneath Notre-Dame

New research suggests the sarcophagus' occupant, previously known only as "the horseman," is Joachim du Bellay, a French Renaissance poet who died in 1560

Researchers excavated a crypt in Milan and found human remains containing evidence of cocaine use.

Europeans Were Using Cocaine in the 17th Century—Hundreds of Years Earlier Than Historians Thought

Scientists identified traces of the drug in the brain tissue of two individuals buried in the crypt of a hospital in Milan

One eagle fights another for a midshipman fish in a behavior called kleptoparasitism.

'Pirate Seabirds' Could Become a Pathway for Deadly Avian Flu to Spread to Australia, Study Finds

Kleptoparasitism, in which a bird harasses another to steal its food, might introduce avian flu to the continent, currently the only one without the severe H5N1 strain

A view from the webcast of the 34th First Annual Ig Nobel Ceremony.

Anus-Breathing Animals and Pigeon-Guided Missiles: Ig Nobel Prizes Reward Unusual but Valuable Science

The annual award ceremony featured costumes, songs and paper airplanes as scientists recognized comedic research across ten disciplines

Deaths attributable to antimicrobial resistance could reach 39 million between 2025 and 2050.

Deaths From Antibiotic-Resistant Infections Could Reach 39 Million by 2050, Study Suggests

A new paper analyzes three decades of fatalities around the world and predicts how "superbugs" will affect human health in the future

A mountain in the Dickson Fjord after 33 million cubic yards of its rock and ice collapsed in a landslide.

A Mysterious Seismic Signal Lasted Nine Days Last Year. It Was a Mega-Tsunami Caused by Climate Change, Researchers Say

A melting glacier caused a mountain in Greenland to collapse into a narrow fjord, setting off an oscillating wave that rattled seismic detectors around the world

Construction of the famous stone statues of Rapa Nui, called moai, was previously thought to have contributed to the island's population collapse.

Easter Island's Ancient Population Never Faced Ecological Collapse, Suggests Another Study

New DNA analysis adds to growing research indicating the famous Pacific island did not collapse from overuse of resources before the arrival of Europeans

American redstarts and magnolia warblers were thought to fly together merely by coincidence, but new research suggests they might be forming a social relationship.

Birds Form Surprising Relationships With Other Avian Species During Migration, Study Suggests

New research indicates that birds are not alone while migrating—and sharing space with other species may even help them on the journey

Researchers discovered Thorin's fossilized remains in 2015 in a cave in southern France.

Ancient DNA Reveals Neanderthal Group Was Isolated for 50,000 Years

A new study, based on the remains of a Neanderthal nicknamed Thorin, is shaking up what archaeologists long thought about these early humans in Europe

Bluestreak cleaner wrasse eat parasites off other fish at coral reefs.

These Tiny Fish Will Assess Themselves in a Mirror Before Taking on a Foe

New findings suggest bluestreak cleaner wrasse understand how their body size stacks up against a rival

Japanese eels use burrowing and swimming motions to move around the seafloor—and to escape from inside the stomach of a predator.

Watch Eels Make a Great Escape From a Fish's Stomach After Being Swallowed Alive

For the first time, scientists witnessed Japanese eels free themselves from the stomach of a predatory fish in X-ray video footage

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