More from Laura Baisas

A Skywalker gibbon in a green and leafy forest. Distinguishing characteristics of Skywalker hoolock gibbons compared to other gibbons include thinner eyebrows, a black or brown beard instead of a white one, and incomplete white face rings on the females, like this adult.
Animals

Scientists tracked the love songs of Skywalker gibbons to find them

By Laura Baisas

A smiling bonobo in a body of water.
Animals

Primates have been teasing each other for 13 million years

By Laura Baisas

A 3D model of a section of the Blinkerwall next to a large boulder at the western end of the wall.
Archaeology

Europe’s oldest human-made megastructure may be at the bottom of the Baltic Sea

By Laura Baisas

The wheel of the Arlington, about 600 feet underwater.
Archaeology

Shipwreck hunters find WWII-era ship in Lake Superior

By Laura Baisas

A woman puts a yellow earplug into her ear.
Health

Scientists made a ‘zinc trap’ to prevent noise-induced hearing loss (in mice)

By Laura Baisas

The first published photographs of bacteria.
Biology

Charles Darwin’s eclectic personal library is now online

By Laura Baisas

A mother and calf humpback whale swim underwater.
Animals

Close to half of migratory species are in serious decline: UN report

By Laura Baisas

An illustration of an ancient shark called Glikmanius careforum swimming. It was about 10 to 12 feet long and had a powerful bite.
Animals

Three new ancient shark species discovered in Alabama and Kentucky

By Laura Baisas

Galaxy AM 1054-325 has been distorted into an S-shape from a normal pancake-like spiral shape by the gravitational pull of a neighboring galaxy, seen in this NASA Hubble Space Telescope image. A consequence of this is that newborn clusters of stars form along a stretched-out tidal tail for thousands of light-years, resembling a string of pearls. They form when knots of gas gravitationally collapse to create about one million newborn stars per cluster.
Deep Space

NASA’s Hubble space telescope reveals a galactic ‘string of pearls’

By Laura Baisas

A bunch of wet blueberries.
Agriculture

Why blueberries aren’t technically blue

By Laura Baisas

Molten lava overflows the road leading to the Blue Lagoon geothermal spa, a popular tourist destination in western Iceland. Orange lava covers a dark road, as gray smoke rises.
Science

Volcano in Iceland erupts for the third time in two months

By Laura Baisas

NASA’s Plankton, Aerosol, Climate, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) satellite launches aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Fire and smoke are below the spacecraft as it lifts off from the launch pad.
Climate Change

NASA’s PACE satellite takes off to monitor phytoplankton—from space

By Laura Baisas

Eight gray seals and four wild horses stand on a sandy beach.
Animals

See wild horses and gray seals mingle on Sable Island

By Laura Baisas

The Ingenuity helicopter sits on the surface of Mars on February 4, 2024.
Mars

NASA’s Perseverance Rover spots damaged, lonely Ingenuity helicopter in the ‘bland’ part of Mars

By Laura Baisas

The St. George’s Cross medusa is about four inches wide, three inches long, and has about 240 tentacles. It has a red cross on its body when viewed from above.
Animals

New jellyfish discovered near Japan may contain multitudes of venom

By Laura Baisas

A satellite image of two cyclones over the ocean with land nearby.
Climate Change

Stronger hurricanes may call for a ‘Category 6’

By Laura Baisas

An artist’s illustration of the new pterosaur species Ceoptera evansae. Several of the winged reptiles fly over trees and grass in Jurassic-era Scotland.
Animals

New pterosaur species discovered in Scotland

By Laura Baisas

An ermine moth with white wings and black spots sits on a yellow dandelion.
Animals

Moths fight against echolocating bats with sounds of their own

By Laura Baisas

Two different versions of the eROSITA map. Extended X-ray emissions (left) and point-like X-ray sources (right).
Deep Space

New map of half the known universe shines with cosmic energy

By Laura Baisas

Three common clownfish with orange coloring and white stripes swimming in a sea anemone.
Animals

Can clownfish count?

By Laura Baisas

The constellation Orion, the Hunter as seen in the northern winter Milky Way in February 2020. The Orion Nebula is the bright, overexposed pink glow below the Belt of Orion, while the curving arc of red is Barnard’s Loop, now thought to be a supernova remnant. The bright red glow at upper left is the Rosette Nebula. Red Betelgeuse was at its minimum the night this image was taken, at about the same brightness as Bellatrix to the right—Betelgeuse is usually about as bright as blue-white Rigel at the lower right.
Science

February’s skies shine with Orion, a harmless comet, and an extra day of stargazing

By Laura Baisas

Green dots representing spores are dispersed from a leaf.
Agriculture

Watch ‘tiny tornadoes’ spread plant pathogens

By Laura Baisas

Two long stone tools from the Lincombian–Ranisian–Jerzmanowician (LRJ) culture uncovered at Ranis. Item 1 is a partial bifacial blade point characteristic of the LRJ. Item 2 also contains finely made bifacial leaf points.
Archaeology

Neanderthals and modern humans intermingled in Europe 45,000 years ago

By Laura Baisas

A multiple-exposure photograph of insects circling an artificial light at night. The light can mess with a moth’s sense of what direction is up and which way is down.
Animals

Why artificial light—and evolution—trap moths

By Laura Baisas

H5N1 flu has been confirmed in Gentoo penguins for the first time. Over 20 Gentoo chicks have been reported dead from the virus or are showing symptoms of this highly contagious strain of bird flu.
Animals

Antarctic penguins are now dying from the H5N1 strain of bird flu

By Laura Baisas

Face-on spiral galaxy, NGC 628, is split diagonally in this image: The James Webb Space Telescope’s observations appear at top left, and the Hubble Space Telescope’s on bottom right. JWST’s observations combine near- and mid-infrared light and Hubble’s showcase visible light. Dust absorbs ultraviolet and visible light, and then re-emits it in the infrared. In JWST’s images, we see dust glowing in infrared light. In Hubble’s images, dark regions are where starlight is absorbed by dust.
Deep Space

JWST images show off the swirling arms of 19 spiral galaxies

By Laura Baisas

An artist’s reconstruction of the locomotor behavior and paleoenvironment of Lufengpithecus. Six primates that resemble chimpanzees are in a wooded area. Some are walking upright on two legs, while others are on all fours.
Animals

Extinct ape’s inner ear holds clues to how humans learned to walk upright

By Laura Baisas

A great white pup swimming in the Pacific Ocean. In July 2023, wildlife filmmaker Carlos Gauna and University of California, Riverside biology doctoral student Phillip Sternes took footage of what could be the first newborn great white shark ever recorded.
Animals

This could be the first newborn great white shark ever captured on camera

By Laura Baisas

The full moon rises, with clouds below and behind it.
Moons

The moon is shrinking (very slowly)

By Laura Baisas

This photograph shows a male dusky antechinus in a naturalistic enclosure located in Cape Otway, Australia.
Animals

Sex is more important than sleep for these marsupials

By Laura Baisas

A bright young star within a colorful nebula. The star is identifiable as the brightest spot in the image, surrounded by six large spokes of light that cross the image. A number of other bright spots can also be seen in the clouds, which are shown in great detail as layers of colorful wisps.
Deep Space

Check out JWST’s new image of a star factory

By Laura Baisas

A colony of Emperor penguins in Antarctica. The larger black, white, and yellow adult penguins are standing behind the small and fuzzy black, white, and grey chicks.
Animals

Poop stains reveal four previously unknown Emperor penguin colonies

By Laura Baisas

A blue bottle fly.
Animals

How bug ‘wranglers’ help document the lives of flies, dung beetles, and more

By Laura Baisas

A colorful orange pink, and purple butterfly rotates against a dark screen. A new camera system and software package allows both researchers and filmmakers to capture and display animal-view videos.
Animals

How animals see the world, according to a new camera system

By Laura Baisas

A sea otter resting in a kelp bed in Monterey Bay, California.
Animals

Sea otters can help conserve vital kelp forests

By Laura Baisas

A top-down view of the OSIRIS-REx Touch-and-Go-Sample-Acquisition-Mechanism (TAGSAM) head with the lid removed, revealing the remainder of the asteroid sample inside. The picture was taken using manual high-resolution precision photography and a semi-automated focus stacking procedure. The result is an image that can be zoomed in on to show extreme detail of the sample. The remaining sample material includes dust and rocks up to about 0.4 inch in size.
NASA

This is what’s inside NASA’s previously stuck asteroid sampler

By Laura Baisas

A brownish-gray tardigrade swimming. These microscopic invertebrates have eight limbs and shriveled skin.
Animals

We may know what makes tardigrades so darn tough

By Laura Baisas

A mako shark swimming in the ocean.
Animals

The ‘meg’ may have been longer and less chonky than previously thought

By Laura Baisas

A yellow salamander with a brown stripe on its back sits on a green leaf.
Animals

Why small, scary, and ‘non-charismatic’ lost species are harder to rediscover

By Laura Baisas

Dense thickets of the reef-building coral Desmophyllum pertusum make up most of the deep-sea coral reef habitat found on the Blake Plateau in the Atlantic Ocean. The white coloring is healthy–deep-sea corals don’t rely on symbiotic algae, so they can’t bleach. Images of these corals were taken during a 2019 expedition dive off the coast of Florida.
Biology

World’s largest known deep-sea coral reef is bigger than Vermont

By Laura Baisas

A team of astronomers identified a new radio source (white square) in the center of globular cluster 47 Tucanae (red circle).
Science

Astronomers produce most sensitive radio image of a globular cluster ever taken

By Laura Baisas

Dead elephant seal pups in the front line with an adult male carcass contrasting in size, and another adult individual in the background. The beach in Argentina is empty of living seals that should be thriving in the area at this time of the year.
Animals

Seal pup die-off from avian flu in Argentina looks ‘apocalyptic’

By Laura Baisas

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.
Animals

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.
Science

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.
Biology

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

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.
Animals

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

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.
Animals

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.
Animals

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.
Biology

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.
Moons

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.
Science

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.
Animals

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.
Animals

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.
Diseases

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.
Moons

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.
Science

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
Science

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.
Health

Shaking presents for science

By Laura Baisas

A jellyfish Cladonema pacificum with multiple branched tentacles.
Animals

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.
Science

The Running Chicken Nebula shimmers in new ESO image

By Laura Baisas

Five new species of soft-furred hedgehogs have been identified
Animals

Five new species of soft-furred hedgehogs have been identified

By Laura Baisas