More from Laura Baisas

Plaster casts of the remains of Pompeii's victims. In the Nineteenth Century, archaeologist Giuseppe Fiorelli developed a technique using plaster to study the remains of the victims of Mount Vesuvius’ furious eruption.
Archaeology

Pompeii’s archaeological puzzles can be solved with a little help from chemistry

By Laura Baisas

A hogfish swims near the Florida Keys. It has spikes on top and a pointy snout.
Animals

Hogfish ‘see’ using their skin

By Laura Baisas

An illustration of a sabertooth tiger in a grassland. Sabertooth tigers went extinct between about 8,000 and 10,000 years ago.
Biology

Mighty sabertooth tigers may have purred like kittens

By Laura Baisas

A woman in a hospital, with a doctor touching her shoulder. Some of the health problems associated with long COVID include blood clots, diabetes, heart issues, blood clots, diabetes, neurologic complications, gastrointestinal disorders, fatigue, and difficulties with mental health.
COVID-19

The effects of Long COVID might rival heart disease and cancer

By Laura Baisas

A coral reef just off of an island in Palau. Coral reefs in Palau provide critical habitats for a number of species and provide a storm barrier.
Animals

Some Pacific coral reefs can keep pace with a warming ocean

By Laura Baisas

Multiple tubes of virus samples in green, green, and pink labels on a shelf. On August 17, the World Health Organization designated BA.2.86, or Pirola, a “variant under monitoring.”
COVID-19

New COVID variant under monitoring carries slew of novel mutations

By Laura Baisas

Colorful t-shirts hang on a clothing rack. According to Northwestern University’s Body and Media Lab, women’s clothing tends to be more painful, restrictive, and distracting, which can interrupt focus and make it more difficult to move around in the workplace.
Health

The unexpected benefits of making your clothes a source of joy

By Laura Baisas

A vehicle drives through a flooded street as Tropical Storm Hilary moves through the area on August 20, 2023 in Cathedral City, California. A wave of water pushes onto the street and palm trees shake in the wind.
Environment

Tropical Storm Hilary soaks the Southwest

By Laura Baisas

The remains of a Bronze Age cauldron and an artistic reconstruction of what it may have looked like thousands of years ago.
Archaeology

Bronze Age cauldrons show we’ve always loved meat, dairy, and fancy cookware

By Laura Baisas

Artist's interpretation of Venetoraptor gassenae in a Triassic landscape.
Biology

This flightless pterosaur ancestor had enviable claws and a raptor-like beak

By Laura Baisas

Members of the Dutch Tall Ship Oosterschelde wave goodbye from the quay in Rotterdam on August 4, 2023. The Rotterdam ship departs for a two-year world tour that scientist Charles Darwin made two centuries ago.
Animals

Mission to recreate Darwin’s scientific Beagle voyage sets sail

By Laura Baisas

Artist impression of the stem pinniped Potamotherium valletoni swimming in his natural, freshwater environment. Grasses and plants grow below the animal, that has whiskers, legs, and flippers.
Animals

Hungry seals may have begun following their whiskers 23 million years ago

By Laura Baisas

Wildfire smoke drifts over western Canada, as seen from a satellite. On August 8, 2023, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this image of dense plumes of smoke streaming from dozens of large fires in the Northwest Territories. Several of these fires raged around Yellowknife, the province’s capital and largest city. These fires follow major outbreaks of fire in Alberta, British Columbia, Nova Scotia, and Quebec, in May, June, and July.
Climate Change

Canadian territory capital ordered to evacuate due to approaching wildfire

By Laura Baisas

A new snake species named Tachymenoides harrisonfordi was discovered during an expedition in Peru in May 2022. The copper scaled snake is seen here coiled on some brown grass.
Animals

Harrison Ford’s latest namesake is an Andean snake species

By Laura Baisas

Three human skulls sitting on a shelf. Cranial modification has been used for millennia to reshape the human skull.
Archaeology

Japan’s Hirota people intentionally reshaped their skulls more than 1,000 years ago

By Laura Baisas

Men pose outside of Michigan State University’s first observatory, circa 1888. The observatory is located behind where Willis House now stands on MSU’s campus, just south of Grand River and north of West Circle Drive in North Neighborhood.
Archaeology

Michigan State students help unearth a 19th-century space observatory on campus

By Laura Baisas

Four bivalve species found along the Maine coast, including the Northern Quahog, Eastern Oyster, a steamer clam, and a blue mussel presented together in a bed of seaweed at low tide.
Animals

Popular shellfish resist extinction in surprising ways

By Laura Baisas

Lead claimant Rikki Held, 22, confers with members of Our Children's Trust legal team before the start of the nation's first youth climate change trial at Montana's First Judicial District Court on June 12, 2023 in Helena, Montana.
Climate Change

Judge sides with youth activists in groundbreaking climate change lawsuit

By Laura Baisas

A gray wolf howling in the woods. The wolves come in many colors including white, tan, black, and brown.
Animals

A new pack of endangered gray wolves is roaming Northern California

By Laura Baisas

Closeup photo of water pipe segments fitted together in situ at Pingliangtai.
Archaeology

Ceramic pipes kept this town from flooding during monsoons 4,000 years ago

By Laura Baisas

Talpa hakkariensis, found in the Hakkari region of southeastern Turkey, was identified as a new species of mole, highly distinctive in terms of both its morphology and DNA. The mole is peeking out of an underground burrow.
Animals

These moles may have been hiding for 3 million years

By Laura Baisas

Archaeologists dig in the dirt with a brush and scraper.
Archaeology

Mysterious skull points to a possible new branch on human family tree

By Laura Baisas

The Grand Prismatic Spring at Yellowstone National Park, with steam rising and mountains in the distance. Temperatures at Yellowstone’s famous hot springs can reach 198 degrees Fahrenheit.
Animals

Don’t lick the toads and other things to avoid at national parks

By Laura Baisas

A male peacock displaying his signature blue and green plumage.
Animals

Miami suburb turns to vasectomies to solve its peacock problem

By Laura Baisas

An artist’s impression of the planet Beta Pictoris b orbiting its star.
Deep Space

Watch 17 years of an exoplanet’s journey in only 10 seconds

By Laura Baisas

Maxar satellite imagery on August 9, 2023 showing total destruction of the Lahaina square and outlets after the Lahaina Wildfire, with one building still actively burning.
Climate Change

Hurricane-powered wildfires sweep across Maui

By Laura Baisas

A man is looking in a glass case of coprolites collected in Nong Yakong village, Chaiyaphum Province, Thailand.
Animals

Rare parasites found in 200 million-year-old reptile poop

By Laura Baisas

Maya Tilousi, member of the Hopi Tribe, Havasupai Tribe of Grand Canyon, and the Cheyanne and Arapaho Tribes, shakes hands with President Joe Biden at Red Butte Airfield, 25 miles south of Tusayan, Arizona, on August 8, 2023. Biden announced he is putting the brakes on uranium mining around the Grand Canyon and willl give an area of nearly one million acres national monument status.
Conservation

Nearly 1 million acres of land near the Grand Canyon is now a national monument

By Laura Baisas

A hair whorl is a patch of hair growing in a circular pattern around a single point that is determined by the orientation of hair follicles.
Biology

The swirls and whorls of your hairline come from multiple genes

By Laura Baisas

Two penguins and a seal on the Antarctic Peninsula.
Climate Change

Antarctica is in the climate change crosshairs

By Laura Baisas

Reconstruction of Hupehsuchus about to engulf a shoal of shrimp. The ancient lizard widely opens its skinny snout and large mouth to swallow a large ball of shrimp.
Animals

The planet’s first filter feeder could be this extinct marine reptile

By Laura Baisas

A Heliconius butterfly with black, orange, and white on its wings.
Animals

Butterflies can remember specific flower foraging routes

By Laura Baisas

A long and skinny silver trumpetfish uses a colorful parrotfish as camouflage.
Animals

Trumpetfish use other fish as camouflage

By Laura Baisas

A mother holds a hand of a tiny newborn baby. Postpartum depression is a leading cause of maternal mortality.
Health

FDA approves first postpartum depression pill

By Laura Baisas

JWST/NIRcam composite image of the Ring Nebula. The image clearly shows the main ring, surrounded by a faint halo and with many delicate structures. The interior of the ring is filled with hot gas. The star which ejected all this material is visible at the very center.
Deep Space

The Ring Nebula is a glowing gas-filled donut in the latest JWST snap

By Laura Baisas

A newborn baby's hand with a hospital bracelet around his or her wrist. RSV sends about 58,000 children under five to the hospital, and kills 100 to 300 infants every year in the United States.
Diseases

RSV antibody shot will be available for babies in the US this fall

By Laura Baisas

A woodpecker uses a bird feeder. Interest in bird feeding surged in 115 countries during early COVD-19 lockdowns.
Animals

People around the world got really into feeding birds during the pandemic

By Laura Baisas

The physical reconstruction of the necklace found in the Neolithic village of Ba’ja in Jordan. It has about 16 strands of beads that meet together in a circle with a gemstone in it and three other strands on top.
Archaeology

Ancient child’s grave holds intricate necklace with more than 2,000 stones

By Laura Baisas

A moth called a tobacco budworm on a green leaf. Moths like the tobacco budworm use pheromone signaling to find mates.
Animals

How male tobacco budworm moths found their perfect cologne

By Laura Baisas

Artistic reconstruction of a group of Burgessomedusa phasmiformis swimming in the Cambrian sea.
Animals

Jellyfish may have been roaming the seas for at least 500 million years

By Laura Baisas

The general atmosphere at HBO's The HeLa Project Exhibit For the film adaptation of "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" on April 6, 2017 in New York City. Two women stand by a portrait of Lacks wearing a red dress.
Diseases

Henrietta Lacks’ stolen cells changed medicine—and her family is finally getting compensated

By Laura Baisas

Colorful gemstones nearly arranged. Iron content correlates to the signature purple hue in amethysts and elements including chromium, vanadium, and copper also impact a gem’s color.
Archaeology

Gemstones carry the tale of their geographic origins

By Laura Baisas

A woman holds an alcoholic drink in a bar.
Diseases

Deaths related to excessive alcohol consumption rise in recent years—especially for women

By Laura Baisas

A bee on a peach rose. Understanding how flowering plants and bees evolved together can help inform conservation efforts for pollinators and how to keep their populations healthy.
Animals

The world’s earliest bees may have called Gondwana home

By Laura Baisas

A shower of Perseids meteors lights up the sky in 2009 in this NASA time-lapse image.
DIY

Two full moons, colorful meteors, and an asteroid will light up August’s sky

By Laura Baisas

Smoke rises as teams try to extinguish wildfires on Rhodes island, Greece on July 25, 2023. Some 19,000 people have been evacuated from the Greek island of Rhodes as wildfires continued burning for a sixth day, authorities said on Sunday. As many as 266 firefighters and 49 fire engines were on the ground battling the blazes, assisted by five helicopters and 10 airplanes.
Climate Change

July 2023 was likely the hottest month in 120,000 years

By Laura Baisas

A scanning electron picture of a female Panagrolaimus kolymaensis nematode.
Animals

Recently awoken 46,000-year-old nematodes already have 100 generations of babies

By Laura Baisas

An artist’s impression of Solnhofia parsonsi’s environment in an Upper Jurassic lagoon 150 million years ago in what is now Lower Bavaria. The turtle swims in a shallow body of water, with fish swimming near it and pterosaurs flying above.
Animals

150 million-year-old turtle ‘pancake’ found in Germany

By Laura Baisas

Two Minimocursors stand by a body of water as the sun rises. Minimocursor was an herbivore that was likely widespread across eastern Asia.
Dinosaurs

New dinosaur species is nicknamed Jurassic’s ‘smallest runner’

By Laura Baisas

A pink river dolphin, or boto, displaying aerial behavior in the Mamirauá Sustainable Development Reserve.
Animals

Eavesdropping on pink river dolphins could help save them

By Laura Baisas

Hospital equipment monitors a patient's vital signs. The Midwestern region of the United States is the only part of the country that did not record more hospitalizations last week than the one before.
COVID-19

COVID-19 hospitalizations and cases rise in possible summer wave

By Laura Baisas

A mountain rises above the buildings of Machu Picchu. The former Inca royal estate stands at the meeting point between the Peruvian Andes and the Amazon Basin and is made up of close to 200 structures.
Archaeology

Machu Picchu was home to ancient people from all over South America

By Laura Baisas

An aerial view of Mont Saint-Michel in northern France. The Paris Basin region is known for prehistoric funerary sites archaeologists use to study early neolithic settlements.
Archaeology

Scientists build intricate Neolithic family tree from 7,000-year-old DNA

By Laura Baisas

Dead elkhorn coral at Sombrero Reef in the Florida Keys. The white areas are bleached coral, the brownish orange patches are "tissue slough", coral tissue that has died before it has a chance to bleach.
Biology

Mass coral reef bleaching in Florida as ocean temperatures hit 100 degrees

By Laura Baisas

A flower of a Nasa humboldtiana subspecies called humboldtiana that was rediscovered by a team of botanists and citizen scientists for the first time in 162 years. The flower has four white petals, leading down to a center of pink petals.
Conservation

These unusual plants had disappeared—until citizen scientists helped hunt them down

By Laura Baisas

A billboard displays a temperature of 118 degrees Fahrenheit during a record heat wave in Phoenix, Arizona on July 18, 2023. Swaths of the United States home to more than 80 million people were under heat warnings or advisories, as relentless, record-breaking temperatures continued to bake western and southern states.
Climate Change

July’s extreme heat waves ‘virtually impossible’ without climate change

By Laura Baisas

A young star named V960 Mon is at the center, with dusty material with the potential to form planets surrounding it. V960 Mon is located over 5000 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Monoceros.
Deep Space

Dust clumps around a young star could one day form planets

By Laura Baisas

A baby lionhead rabbit sits in the grass. These domesticated rabbits are named after the lion-like mane around their faces.
Animals

Florida suburb is overrun by fluffy rabbits after breeder goes rogue

By Laura Baisas

A kākāpō chick. The birds are are large flightless parrots from New Zealand who are masters of camouflage and known for a booming call.
Animals

A flightless parrot is returning to mainland New Zealand after a 40-year absence

By Laura Baisas

A group of colorful spices on a wooden table with a mortar and pestle.
Agriculture

Leftovers of a 2,000-year-old curry discovered on stone cooking tools

By Laura Baisas

American actor Richard Dreyfuss (left) (as marine biologist Hooper) and British author and actor Robert Shaw (as shark fisherman Quint) look off the stern of Quint's fishing boat the 'Orca' at the terrifying approach of the mechanical giant shark dubbed 'Bruce' in a scene from the film 'Jaws' directed by Steven Spielberg, 1975.
Animals

Why the creators of ‘Jaws’ regretted making sharks the monsters

By Laura Baisas

This Hubble Space Telescope image of the asteroid Dimorphos was taken on December 19, 2022, about four months after the asteroid was impacted by NASA's DART mission (Double Asteroid Redirection Test). Hubble’s sensitivity reveals a few dozen boulders knocked off the asteroid by the force of the collision. These are among the faintest objects Hubble has ever photographed inside the solar system.
Deep Space

Smashed asteroid surrounded by a ‘cloud’ of boulders

By Laura Baisas

The sun sets over a large ice berg in Greenland, with a large chunk of fallen ice floating in the ocean. Greenland’s continental glacier covers about 80 percent of the 836,3000-square-mile land mass.
Climate Change

Greenland’s ice sheets aren’t as old—or as resilient—as scientists expected

By Laura Baisas

A saber tooth cat fossil is displayed during a press preview of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History on June 4, 2019.
Animals

Paleontologists discover two new sabertooth cat species

By Laura Baisas