More from Laura Baisas (Page 14)

An octopus hatchling emerges from a group of eggs at a new octopus nursery. This nursery was first discovered in June 2023 at Tengosed Seamount off Costa Rica.

Four new octopus species discovered in the deep-sea vents off Costa Rica

By Laura Baisas

An aerial view taken on January 15, 2024 shows volcanic activity near Grindavík after an eruption. According to authorities, volcanic activity in southwest Iceland appears to have eased, one day after lava from an eruption flowed into the fishing town, engulfing several homes.

Volcanic activity easing in Iceland following eruption

By Laura Baisas

Green rhodopsin proteins inside the blue cell walls help these yeast grow faster when exposed to light.

This yeast loves light

By Laura Baisas

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx curation engineer, Neftali Hernandez, attaches one of the tools developed to help remove two final fasteners that prohibited complete disassembly of the Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism head that holds the remainder of material collected from asteroid Bennu. Engineers on the team, based at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, developed new tools that freed the fasteners on January 10.

NASA finally pries open stuck Bennu asteroid sampler

By Laura Baisas

A pink hummingbird sits on a perch inside of a tunnel. Green and black stripes are projected on the walls of the tunnel.

How hummingbirds switch gears at breakneck speeds

By Laura Baisas

An image taken by a camera aboard the Peregrine spacecraft, with Earth in the top right.

Private Space Flight

Peregrine sent back this image from its now abandoned lunar mission

By Laura Baisas

NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket with the Orion spacecraft atop launches the agency’s Artemis I flight test on November 16, 2022. The Artemis I mission was the first integrated test of the agency’s deep space exploration systems.

NASA delays two crewed Artemis moon missions

By Laura Baisas

An artist’s impression of a group of G. blacki within a forest in southern China. Four of these giant apes sit on the grass near a stream, while an orangutan hangs from a tree branch. They are brown with yellow-ish manes around their faces.

These extinct, nearly 10-foot-tall apes could not adapt to shifting seasons

By Laura Baisas

Fruit bats hanging on tree branches in daylight in Bangladesh on November 6, 2023.

Why fruit bats can eat tons of sugar without getting diabetes

By Laura Baisas

A white toilet bowl in a bathroom with yellow brick walls is surrounded by multiple shelves holding plants and towels.

Scientists finally discover the enzyme that makes pee yellow

By Laura Baisas

Smoke billows out of two engines as United Launch Alliance's Vulcan Centaur, lifts off from Space Launch Complex 41d at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on January 8, 2024. The new rocket is carrying Astrobotic's Peregrine Lunar Lander.

Peregrine lunar lander experiences ‘critical loss of propellant’ following successful launch

By Laura Baisas

Voyager 2/ISS images of Uranus and Neptune released shortly after the Voyager 2 flybys in 1986 and 1989, respectively, compared with a reprocessing of the individual filter images in this study to determine the best estimate of the true colors of these planets.

This is what Uranus and Neptune may really look like

By Laura Baisas

An illustration of the pelagic ecosystem and the organisms fossilized in Sirius Passet, revealing how Timorebestia was one of the largest predators in the water column more than 518 million years ago.

Extinct ‘terror beasts’ were some pretty formidable worms

By Laura Baisas

A Matabele ant tends to the wound of a fellow ant whose legs were bitten off in a fight with termites.

Matabele ants might be able to diagnose and treat infected wounds

By Laura Baisas

The packaging for an inhaler called Flovent HFA. Flovent is a popular inhaled corticosteroid that helps keep inflammation in the lungs low and the airways open for people with asthma.

Popular corticosteroid asthma inhaler Flovent was discontinued this month

By Laura Baisas

A reddish moon on a black background, dotted with several gray marks that are volcanoes. Jupiter's moon Io is one of Jupiter’s several moons. This image was taken on December 30, 2023 during the Juno spacecraft’s flyby of this volcanic Jupiterian moon.

See the most volcanic world in our solar system in new NASA images

By Laura Baisas

A full moon rises n a purple sky over snowy mountain peaks.

The Full Wolf Moon and Quadrantids meteor shower ring in 2024

By Laura Baisas

Check out some of National Geographic’s 2023 Pictures of the Year

Check out some of National Geographic’s 2023 Pictures of the Year

By Laura Baisas

A hand reaches for a present wrapped in red and gold wrapping paper underneath a Christmas tree.

Shaking presents for science

By Laura Baisas

A jellyfish Cladonema pacificum with multiple branched tentacles.

These fingernail-sized jellyfish can regenerate tentacles—but how?

By Laura Baisas

The Running Chicken Nebula comprises several clouds, all of which we can see in this vast image from the VLT Survey Telescope. The clouds shown in wispy pink plumes are full of gas and dust, illuminated by the young and hot stars within them.

The Running Chicken Nebula shimmers in new ESO image

By Laura Baisas

Five new species of soft-furred hedgehogs have been identified

Five new species of soft-furred hedgehogs have been identified

By Laura Baisas

A small brown frog standing on leaves at the water’s edge.

This tiny ‘leaf-nester’ is the smallest known fanged frog

By Laura Baisas

Gray and fuzzy mold growing on red strawberries.

Plants may fight mold with molecules and bubbles

By Laura Baisas

The vast lava flows on Elysium Planitia as seen by the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter.

Lava may have flowed over parts of Mars

By Laura Baisas

A volcano spews lava and smoke as it erupts near the town of Grindavik, Iceland.

Volcano erupts in Iceland near an airport, a power plant, and an evacuated town

By Laura Baisas

An aardvark with a long nose sits in grass.

Why scientists are studying aardvarks’ poop

By Laura Baisas

A reindeer stands on snowy ground with hills in the distance.

Reindeer can see UV light—and we may know why

By Laura Baisas

A 2010 image captured by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft shows water from the subsurface ocean of Saturn’s moon Enceladus spraying from huge fissures out into space. The spacecraft sampled icy particles and scientists are continuing to make new discoveries from the data.

More evidence for key ingredients to life detected on Saturn’s moon Enceladus

By Laura Baisas

The Wakayama Soryu was about the size of a great white shark and lived more than 72 million years ago.

This ‘blue dragon’ sliced through the ancient Pacific with paddle-like fins

By Laura Baisas

This image from the Near-Infrared Camera instrument on the James Webb Space Telescope shows the central portion of the star cluster IC 348. The wispy curtains filling the image are interstellar material reflecting the light from the cluster’s stars. The bright star closest to the center of the frame is actually a pair of type B stars in a binary system, which are the most massive stars in the cluster. Winds from these stars may help sculpt the large loop seen on the right side of the field of view.

Space Telescope

Record-breaking ‘failed star’ spotted by JWST

By Laura Baisas

A bearded seal swimming in Arctic waters in Svalbard, Norway. Their name comes from the long and sensitive facial whiskers that they use to find food.

Arctic seals have special noses

By Laura Baisas

Two people hold coffee cups while looking at a a sunrise.

Neanderthals may have been early risers

By Laura Baisas

The skull of a Swedish Viking dating back to the 10th through 12th Century CE undergoes a dental examination.

Vikings filed their teeth to cope with pain

By Laura Baisas

Stop using homeopathic eye drops

Stop using homeopathic eye drops

By Laura Baisas

A bird called a green honeycreeper stands on a tree branch. It has blue male plumage on its left side and green female plumage on its right.

Rare bird with half male and half female plumage photographed in Colombia

By Laura Baisas

A man holes a 14-inch goldfish removed from the Niagara River.

Releasing pet goldfish into the wild has serious consequences

By Laura Baisas

A new high-definition image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam unveils intricate details of supernova remnant Cassiopeia A and shows the expanding shell of material slamming into the gas shed by the star before it exploded.

Space Telescope

JWST releases new image of famous supernova remnant—with a twist

By Laura Baisas

An illustration of a tall two-legged dinosaur called Gorgosaurus libratus eating a small bird-like dinosaur called Citipes elegans. The smaller dinosaur's legs are still visible as the Gorgosaurus swallows the Citipes.

This teenage tyrannosaur had a stomach full of dino drumsticks

By Laura Baisas

Paleontologist Martin Lockley sits in front of a rock with dinosaur claw marks and shows how dinosaurs must have clawed into the rock during a mating ceremony where they made pseudo nests for potential mates.

Why dinosaur footprints inspired paleontologist Martin Lockley

By Laura Baisas

A researcher handles a petri dish while observing a CRISPR/Cas9 process through a stereomicroscope at the Max-Delbrueck-Centre for Molecular Medicine.

FDA approves the first gene-editing treatment in the US

By Laura Baisas

Apollo 16 lunar landing mission commander John W. Young leaps from the lunar surface as he salutes the United States flag. The flag is located at the Descartes landing site during the first Apollo 16 extravehicular activity.

Why scientists think it’s time to declare a new lunar epoch

By Laura Baisas

Finely ground bits of coffee come out of a red coffee grinder.

Chemists and volcanologists want you to make a better espresso

By Laura Baisas

A circular grey fossil with long linear grooves on it.

Fossil first identified as plant is actually a baby turtle

By Laura Baisas

Waves on the ocean.

Warming oceans could thaw trapped ‘fire-ice’

By Laura Baisas

A sample of baboon skulls dating back 2,500 to 2,800 years in southern Egypt.

Ancient Egyptians likely kept baboons in captivity—and mummified them

By Laura Baisas

A dark-furred mouse looks into a mirror.

Mice may be able to recognize their own reflections

By Laura Baisas

Glowing blue lights of the tiny ostracods move in sync with one another.

Watch the mucus-filled, synchronized mating dance of bioluminescent ‘sea fireflies’

By Laura Baisas

A dinosaur called poposaurus walks near some trees. The dinosaur comes from a group of extinct relatives of the crocodile known as Poposauroidea.

Tracing the crocodiles’ curious evolutionary family tree

By Laura Baisas

A mosquito encased in yellow-hued amber.

Millions of years ago, male mosquitoes may have been blood suckers too

By Laura Baisas

A woman in pain puts her hands up to her nosed with her eyes closed.

It’s stuffy nose season. Here’s how to cope

By Laura Baisas

A white axolotl in a tank. Axolotls are sometimes called the ‘Peter Pan of amphibians’ since they do not go through a traditional metamorphosis and keep larval traits like their signature gills.

Endangered Species

Go (virtually) adopt an axolotl, the ‘Peter Pan’ of amphibians

By Laura Baisas

The last full moon of 2022 rises through a clear sky, past a string of festive lights. The moon is positioned at the center of a star made up of white Christmas lights.

Two meteor showers and a bright Mercury to light up December’s sky

By Laura Baisas

A woman laying down in an fMRI machine. Patients in the study were examined using an fMRI machine such as this one. fMRI is a noninvasive way to measure and map activity in the brain.

PTSD patients’ brains work differently when recalling traumatic experiences

By Laura Baisas

A cicada sitting on a green leaf. The insect has bright orange eyes and large wings. Cicadas live underground for 13 or 17 years, before emerging to mate.

Fiber optic cables can pick up cicadas’ droning din

By Laura Baisas

A French bulldog standing in a pile of leaves.

An unknown respiratory illness is sickening dogs in the US, but ‘don’t panic’

By Laura Baisas

A large rat stands on a tree trunk at night. The Vangunu giant rat is the first new species of rodent described from Solomon Islands in over 80 years.

A legendary Vangunu giant rat was finally caught on camera

By Laura Baisas

An artist’s impression showing the HH 1177 system. The young and massive stellar object glowing in the center is collecting matter from a dusty disc while also expelling matter in powerful jets. This is the first time a disc around a young star has been discovered in another galaxy.

Astronomers spot an extragalactic star with a disc around it for the first time

By Laura Baisas

A photomicrograph of Chlamydia trachomatis taken from a urethral scrape. If left untreated, chlamydia can cause severe and costly reproductive and other health problems.

FDA authorizes at-home chlamydia and gonorrhea test for the first time

By Laura Baisas

An orange California newt sits on a rock. The amphibians are endemic to California.

Female Taricha newts are more poisonous than males

By Laura Baisas

A newborn rhino calf stands under his mother. He is black and does not have his signature horns in yet.

Endangered Species

A critically endangered Sumatran rhino named Delilah welcomes first calf

By Laura Baisas

Six African penguins standing on a rock. They have white plumage with black dots arranged in individual patterns on their chests.

African penguins may tell each other apart by the spots in their plumage

By Laura Baisas

A woman scratches her forearm.

How an unbalanced skin microbiome can make you itch

By Laura Baisas

An artist's rendering of a trilobite based on preserved soft body parts. The animal has two antennae protruding from its head and is oval-shaped.

10 new species of trilobite fossil rise from volcanic ash

By Laura Baisas

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