A debate rages over how to count brain cells in dinosaurs. At issue: figuring out how these extinct animals’ likely behaved ..read more

A never-before-seen type of eruption explosively blasted debris high into the sky from Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano in 2018. It wasn’t one big ka-pow! Kilauea had been erupting lava. Then a series of 12 strange blasts occurred over a span of 11 days. These blasts sent gas, ash and rock eight kilometers (five miles) into the air. Scientists now liken those blasts to the action of a stomp rocket. That’s a toy propelled from a launch pad as somebody stomps on a pocket of air, suddenly compressing it. It’s unlike the two well-known processes that trigger most volcanic explosions, notes Joshua Crozier ..read more

They say that going to space changes you. The idea is that people get a new perspective from seeing our world from above. It’s called the Overview Effect. But a new project offers clues to how spaceflight also changes our bodies. This Space Omics and Medical Atlas — or SOMA — has measured a broad range of effects. Researchers have studied spaceflight’s effects on health since the dawn of the Space Age. They’ve looked into the effects of weightlessness, space radiation and other out-of-this-world conditions as people have rocketed into low-Earth orbit — and sometimes spent months there. Well-kn ..read more

Beakiation (noun, “Beek-ee-AY-shun”) Beakiation is a technique that parrots use to move along thin branches. Scientists recently discovered beakiation in experiments with a parrot species called rosy-faced lovebirds (Agapornis roseicollis). These birds are native to dry woodlands in southwestern Africa. To beakiate, a parrot first hangs from a branch with both feet. Second, the bird stretches its neck to grab a spot on the branch to the side of its feet with its beak. Third, the parrot swings its feet toward the other side of its beak to grab the branch in a new spot. The parrot repeats this ..read more

For the first time, an orangutan has been seen doctoring a wound. Scientists describe it as the first evidence of a wild animal caring for a wound using a natural substance that’s known to aid healing. Researchers shared their discovery May 2 in Scientific Reports. The team had been studying great apes in Indonesia’s Gunung Leuser National Park. Some 150 orangs live in its Suaq Balimbing research area. Scientists have been studying these animals since 1994. In June 2022, Ulil Azhari was watching a male Sumatran orangutan (Pongo abelii) named Rakus. The ape was chewing on a thick woody vine, or ..read more

Ivory is so popular that poachers regularly kill elephants for their tusks. To stop the slaughter of these animals, most nations banned the international sale of elephant ivory in 1989. Those laws have not totally stopped poachers. But lasers might, scientists now report. Ivory is the hard material that makes up the tusks of several mammal species (both living and extinct). Selling ancient ivory, such as from a mastodon, is legal. So is the sale of elephant ivory that’s at least a century old (if you have the right documents to prove it’s that ancient). What’s illegal is newer elephant ivory ..read more

Superconductor (noun, “SOOP-er-con-DUCK-tor”) A superconductor is a material that conducts electricity without resistance. Many materials conduct electricity. That is, they allow electric currents to flow through them. Such materials are called conductors. For instance, metal wires conduct electricity that powers our electronics and home appliances. But in almost all conductors, electric currents meet some resistance. Why? As electrons move through a conductor, they can smash into other particles. This resistance causes some energy to be wasted. We can feel this wasted energy as heat. That’s ..read more

Kids like Tola Martins in Disney’s Iwájú don’t drive to school, they fly. Harry Potter and Ron Weasley pulled a similar stunt when they missed the train to Hogwarts. As did Flint Lockwood when he had to stop a giant spaghetti storm in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.   Flying cars have soared through sci-fi and fantasy stories since the early 1900s. But they’re not flying across our actual skies. At least, not yet. And if they do someday become commonplace, they might look a bit different than in the movies.  Prototypes for flying cars (such as this EH216-S) often rely on prop ..read more

Earth’s tundra is warming about four times faster than the rest of the planet. The rising fever in this Arctic ecosystem is boosting the production of carbon dioxide (CO2) by underground microbes, a new study suggests. If true, it could be setting up a feedback loop that leads to even more warming. Small shrubs, grasses and lichen typically cover the tundra. Soils in these frigid lands also tend to be rich in organic carbon. Normally, the tundra is “a sleepy biome,” says Sybryn Maes. She’s an environmental scientist who works at Umeå University. That’s in Sweden. But warming will likely wake t ..read more

Like most little kids, Anne Kort was fascinated by dinosaurs. But by high school, she had become interested in other kinds of prehistoric life. “I just wanted to learn about everything that wasn’t a dinosaur,” says Kort. “I like all the weird things.”   She found one weird thing while working on her master’s degree. She was studying fossils from an extinct mammal called Patriofelis ulta. This catlike carnivore stalked the U.S. West roughly 50 million years ago. CT scans revealed something special about the beast’s vertebrae.   The backbones of animals have special protrusio ..read more