Cereal Box-Sized Satellite Shares First Images of Stars While Searching for Life on Exoplanets

Learn about the first images of low-mass stars captured by SPARCS, a nanosatellite that could provide insight into exoplanets' habitability. 

How Our Brains Predict Eye Movements — and Why Afterimages Don’t Always Line Up

Learn what afterimages can teach us about how our brains predict our visual movements. 

How a High-Fat Diet Sent Living Gut Bacteria into the Brain — and Why This Mouse Study Raises Big Questions

Learn how feeding mice a high-fat diet can weaken their gut barrier, allowing bacteria to enter the brain, which suggests a connection to neurodegenerative disease.

Did the T. rex Actually Evolve in America? A 74-Million-Year-Old Shin Bone Suggests It May Have

Learn how a freakishly large shinbone found in New Mexico is rewriting the T. rex family tree.

Hand Gestures Aren’t Always Universal — but We All Use Them to Communicate

Learn more about hand gestures and how some of them can mean two vastly different things depending on the culture you're in. 

Seal Brains Hint at Strong Vocal Flexibility, Giving Us Clues to the Origins of Speech

Discover the neural similarities of seals to particularly vocal birds and even humans, suggesting the foundations of speech may not be uniquely human after all.

Ancient DNA Reveals Ice Age Forests Grew on the Lost Doggerland 16,000 Years Ago, Before It Was Swallowed by the North Sea

Learn how ancient DNA uncovered Ice Age forests on sunken Doggerland and revealed a landscape that once linked Britain to mainland Europe.

Intense Space Weather Forces NASA’s Van Allen Probe Back to Earth Nearly a Decade Early

Learn more about the Van Allen Probe A, a NASA spacecraft that returned to Earth this week after spending years in one of space’s harshest environments.

Wolf Reintroduction to Yellowstone National Park Helped Restore Aspen Trees — but There Is Still Much to Learn

Learn more about why the story of how wolves saved Yellowstone National Park’s aspens is more complicated — and more instructional — than it appears.

A 3D-Printed Rattlesnake Reveals How the Rattle Stirs Fear, Even in Animals Unfamiliar with the Sound

Learn more about the ways animals can react to rattlesnake rattles, even if they don't typically interact with them in the wild. 

Ravens Fly Up to 6 Hours Nonstop, Using Memory — Not Tracking — to Find Wolf Kills in Yellowstone National Park

Learn how ravens in Yellowstone National Park use spatial memory and navigation to locate wolf kills across the landscape without following wolves.

A Massive Pliocene Crocodile May Have Hunted Lucy and Other Early Hominins, 3 Million Years Ago

Learn how the newly identified crocodile Crocodylus lucivenator lived alongside Lucy’s species in ancient Ethiopia — and why researchers say it may have been the region’s most dangerous predator.

Bumblebee Queens Can Survive and Breathe Underwater For Over a Week By Cutting Energy Demands

Learn how bumble bee queens can stay alive underwater for over a week by minimizing their metabolism and saving energy.

Chimpanzees Have a Violent Reputation — But They Aren’t More Aggressive Than Bonobos

Learn how comparing aggression in chimpanzees and bonobos challenges the long-held belief that chimpanzees are the more violent of our closest ape relatives.

Meet the Newly Discovered Cousin of the World’s Most Popular Magic Mushroom

Learn how a newly identified mushroom species may reveal the evolutionary origins of Psilocybe cubensis, the world’s most widely cultivated magic mushroom.

Brown Tree Snakes Use Key Muscles to “Stand” Upright — Possibly Inspiring Future Soft Robotics

​Learn more about how some snakes can use physics to propel themselves upright and what this technique could inspire for the future. 

Severe COVID or Severe Flu May Raise Risk of Lung Cancer, But Vaccines Helped in Animal Tests

Learn how severe respiratory illness leaves the lungs vulnerable to cancer, and how vaccines could prevent these vulnerabilities.

Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS Is Packed With Alcohol — Indicating That It Formed Beyond Our Solar System 

Learn how ALMA observations revealed unusually high levels of methanol in interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS and what the molecule’s chemistry may reveal about how icy bodies form around other stars.

Ancient Plant Viruses Took Root in Eurasia Before the Last Ice Age

Learn how tymoviruses infect crop plants, where these ancient plant viruses originated, and how humans have increased their spread.

Ancient DNA Reveals a Pre-Inca Trade Network That Carried Parrots Alive Across the Andes to Coastal Peru

Learn how ancient DNA and isotope analysis revealed that Amazon parrots were transported alive across the Andes to coastal Peru in a pre-Inca trade network.