More from Laura Baisas (Page 5)

two bodies from pompeii preserved in white plaster
Archaeology

DNA reveals new stories about Pompeii’s victims

By Laura Baisas

brain scans of people watching clips from movies
Biology

MIT maps how the brain experiences movies

By Laura Baisas

a small hippo in straw
Animals

5 things to know about pygmy hippos–like Scotland’s own Haggis

By Laura Baisas

a metal cylinder with various markings on it and what those markings look like on a clay tablet
Archaeology

6,000-year-old Mesopotamian artifacts linked to the dawn of writing

By Laura Baisas

two baseballs held in two hands. one is bright white and the other is coated with a brown mud
Environment

Baseball’s legendary ‘magic mud’ finally analyzed by scientists

By Laura Baisas

two sperm whales singing
Animals

New method for finding sperm whales kind of works like a rideshare app

By Laura Baisas

a small bat glides over water
Animals

How these tiny bats use a sound map to navigate

By Laura Baisas

a white fungus with large red droplets that look like blood
Biology

That’s not blood, it’s a fungus oozing excess juice

By Laura Baisas

A Leonids meteor streaks across the sky over Ankara, Turkey on November 17, 2020.
Science

November’s sky lights up with three meteor showers and the last supermoon of 2024

By Laura Baisas

a tadpole swimming
Animals

A rock in Argentina turns out to be the oldest tadpole fossil ever found

By Laura Baisas

a large rat wearing a red vest holds a dark, round, ball
Animals

Giant three-pound rats trained to sniff out illegal poaching

By Laura Baisas

a brown and black spider money sits in a green and leafy tree with a large, round, yellow fruit in its mouth
Animals

‘Drunk’ animals might be more common

By Laura Baisas

An illustration of Lomankus edgecombei. This arthropod lived about 538 to 485 million years ago in dark and low-oxygen environments.
Animals

450-million-year-old arthropod found preserved in fool’s gold

By Laura Baisas

a rare dime in a protective case. it is missing the “S” that indicates it was struck at the San Francisco mint.
Science

Ultra-rare dime sells for $506,250

By Laura Baisas

a bat with brown, black, and white fur and open eyes
Animals

Robert Battinson, Batlor Swift, and more face off in Bat Beauty Contest

By Laura Baisas

a 900 year old skeleton
Archaeology

Tooth powder unlocks clues to an 800-year-old mystery of man thrown into well

By Laura Baisas

a rider in a headless horseman costume rides by yellow fall leaves
Animals

The Headless Horseman shares her secrets

By Laura Baisas

a man wearing a NASA hat aboard the International Space Station squirts ketchup into his mouth. the ketchup comes out in one long stream
Internet

See (and never unsee) a NASA astronaut eating ketchup in space

By Laura Baisas

two pink flamingoes. both are standing on one leg
Health

How long can you stand on one leg? What it says about your health.

By Laura Baisas

dark woods with fog
Health

Corrupt government officials, illness among the biggest fears of 2024

By Laura Baisas

a black hole with orange and blue light swirling around it. two other objects, a large orange circle and a smaller bright orange star orbit around it
Black Holes

First ‘black hole triple’ may have formed in a surprisingly gentle way

By Laura Baisas

cut oranges, grapefruits, limes, and lemon together in a group
Diseases

Yes, you can still get scurvy

By Laura Baisas

orange and yellow leaves on the ground of a forest
Environment

Why 60 degrees in fall feels different than in the spring

By Laura Baisas

yellow pollen shooting out of a red flower
Animals

Plants could be manipulating sperm in completely new ways

By Laura Baisas

two stalk-eyed flies fight on a stick. these flies have long antennae with eyeballs on the tips
Animals

Flies with shorter eye-stalks act aggressively because females are less attracted to them

By Laura Baisas

several orange and black monarch butterflies dot large green leaves
Animals

Scientists build rest stops for monarch butterflies on a volcano

By Laura Baisas

a close up of four pieces of sliced bread
Agriculture

Our love of delicious carbs may go back 800,000 years

By Laura Baisas

A photograph showing two big and two little Pyrocystis noctiluca.
Animals

Why these plankton puff up to 6x bigger than normal

By Laura Baisas

a blue whale skeleton on display at a museum
Animals

Blue whale skeleton still leaking oil, 26 years after death

By Laura Baisas

a musuem exhibit with a dinosaur skeleton. a picture of actor jeff goldblum saying "that is a one big pile of poop" is in the lower left.
Animals

The Poozeum: Fossilized bug farts, T. rex poop, and more ancient coprolites

By Laura Baisas

An illustration showing an imposing fully-grown male Palaeoloxodon turkmenicus wandering India’a Kashmir Valley, 400,000 years ago, towering over a herd of Central Asian red deer. In the distance, a small band of prehistoric humans set up a campfire to cook their meal.
Animals

Mysterious elephant species uncovered with 87 prehistoric stone tools

By Laura Baisas

a small frog with light green coloring and dark spots sits on a green leaf
Animals

Seven new frog species named for their ‘Star Trek’-esque calls

By Laura Baisas

man stands behind large pumpkin with scarecrow
Agriculture

Gargantuan pumpkin could flavor 74,794 pumpkin spice lattes

By Laura Baisas

a lion skull with a close up on its teeth. one of the bottom teeth has a large black cavity.
Animals

These lions devoured 28 humans, wildebeest, and more in 1898

By Laura Baisas

a finch with a sharp beak and dark plumage holds a round seed in its beak
Animals

Scientists simulate calls of ‘future finches’

By Laura Baisas

a close-up of the planet jupiter's great red spot. it is a swirling red storm on the planet's more white and orange surface
NASA

Jupiter’s Great Red Spot jiggles like JELL-O

By Laura Baisas

an illustration of one woman yelling and another holding her hands up in shock
Health

Why people insist they’re correct without all the facts

By Laura Baisas

an illustration of a large hawk-like bird carrying a long tailed rodent in its claws
Animals

With fearsome feet, hawk-sized Cretaceous birds could scoop up baby dinos

By Laura Baisas

five toothbrushes in a cup on a bathroom sink
Animals

The next lifesaving antibiotic might be a virus on your toothbrush

By Laura Baisas

two oval comb jellyfish fusing together as one
Animals

Two comb jellies can fuse together into one–and keep both butts

By Laura Baisas

the profile view of a gecko with white scales, bright orange spots, and a large yellow eye
Animals

Geckos have a ‘sixth sense’

By Laura Baisas

an illustration of a pterosaur with a short tail walking with legs and its wings on the ground
Animals

The first true flying vertebrates walked before they could soar

By Laura Baisas

a grayish brown wombat walking next to shrubs
Animals

Can wombats kill with their butts? We found the hard truth.

By Laura Baisas

Illustration of the global coronal magnetic field as the sun rotates. The background is the solar corona observed in extreme-ultraviolet waveband, with global coronal magnetic field maps measured at different time overlapped on top of it.
Science

The sun’s magnetic field is where the ‘stuff’ is. It can be dangerous.

By Laura Baisas

a microscope image of a small crustacean with a round body, two large antennae come from its head, and several small legs
Animals

Sorry, zooplankton don’t want to eat your poop

By Laura Baisas

a dolphin in a tank with an open mouth
Animals

Bottlenose dolphins ‘smile’ to say it’s time to play

By Laura Baisas

an illustration of an orange dot orbiting a larger orangish body in space
Deep Space

Astronomers discover a new exoplanet orbiting the closest single star to the sun

By Laura Baisas

mount everest with a wide river below
Science

Mount Everest is still growing taller

By Laura Baisas

a bright green meteor streaks across the sky over cliffs
Science

October’s skies bring an oddball meteor and a shiny new comet–if you’re lucky

By Laura Baisas

a condor, a large bird with black plumage, stands near a creek
Animals

4 endangered California condors will be released into the wild

By Laura Baisas

a sea robin fish with wide pectoral fins and six crab-like legs
Animals

This fish has 6 legs that act like tongues

By Laura Baisas

a CT scan of two jaw fossils from early mammals
Animals

A 225-million-year-old fossilized jaw joint shifts evolutionary timeline

By Laura Baisas

a spook-fish with a narrow snout and large pectoral fins
Animals

Boo! New species of ghost shark uncovered in New Zealand

By Laura Baisas

Mount Thielsen with a base of rocks and trees around its side
Science

Extinct volcanoes could hold rare earth elements

By Laura Baisas

three species of crane stand in tall grass. the first has grey, black and white plumage and is the tallest. the second has mostly white plumage. the last one is small with gray plumage.
Animals

Cranes can migrate 4,000 miles, but that’s not the hard part

By Laura Baisas

dark and finger-like fungi arise from under a piece of wood
Animals

Is this the creepiest fungus in the forest? Yes, definitely.

By Laura Baisas

a wave rising up from a flat sea
Conservation

Extreme 3D ocean waves can reach heights 4x steeper than previously thought

By Laura Baisas

a snake with an open mouth and visible fangs
Animals

New tool helps scientists identify venomous snakes

By Laura Baisas

a Byrde's whale surfaces to breathe in the Pacific Ocean
AI

Elusive whale’s vocalization could be their version of ‘Marco Polo’

By Laura Baisas

a small baby pygmy hippopotamus sits on the ground
Animals

Humans likely wiped out Cyprus’ tiny hippos and elephants in record time

By Laura Baisas

a cartoon of a young boy named oliver reading Popular Science on a tablet. he said "oh i can be popular by doing science."
Science

Curiosity and fart jokes help explain why ‘Volcanoes are Hot’

By Laura Baisas

a red fish with a grumpy expression and large teeth
Animals

Seriously grumpy-faced fish discovered in Red Sea

By Laura Baisas

a long bronze sword
Archaeology

Egyptologists find ancient sword possibly wielded against the mysterious ‘Sea Peoples’

By Laura Baisas

a polar bear cub comes out of a den with its paw up
Animals

Polar bears adapted to the Arctic just 70,000 years ago

By Laura Baisas