More from Laura Baisas (Page 7)

meteors fall in the night sky near a lighthouse
Space

January stargazing: Ring in 2025 with a meteor shower, ‘planet parade,’ and best chance to spot Mars

By Laura Baisas

a mummy with a necklace of cheese
Archaeology

10 fascinating archeological discoveries of 2024

By Laura Baisas

a baby pygmy hippo stands on straw at a zoo
Animals

11 weird, groundbreaking, and cute animal stories from 2024

By Laura Baisas

a black and white photograph of NASA mission control. several men are sitting at various screens and work stations
NASA

On Christmas Eve 1968, millions watched the Apollo 8 astronauts broadcast from space

By Laura Baisas

An adult female chimpanzee cracks an oil palm nut with a stone hammer and anvil while her infant son looks at the camera.
Wildlife

Some chimpanzees are great nutcrackers

By Laura Baisas

a svalbard reindeer with antlers standing on muddy terrain
Wildlife

Shorter, fatter, and hairier: 5 fun facts about the world’s smallest reindeer

By Laura Baisas

a strange fish with a blob on its head sits on a rock
Land

27 new, exciting, and blobby species discovered in the Peruvian rainforest

By Laura Baisas

An artistic representation of an active centaur like Chiron. The different colors in the coma indicate varying compositions of gas, ice, and dust.
Solar System

An ‘oddball’ asteroid-comet hybrid dates back 4.6 billion years

By Laura Baisas

The first image depicts star cluster NGC 602 in vibrant and festive colors. The cluster includes a giant dust cloud ring, shown in greens, yellows, blues, and oranges. The green hues and feathery edges of the ring cloud create the appearance of a wreath made of evergreen boughs. Hints of red representing X-rays provide shading, highlighting layers within the wreath-like ring cloud. The image is aglow with specks and dots of colorful, festive light, in blues, golds, whites, oranges, and reds. These lights represent stars within the cluster. Some of the lights gleam with diffraction spikes, while others emit a warm, diffuse glow. Upon closer inspection, many of the glowing specks have spiraling arms, indicating that they are, in fact, distant galaxies.
Mars

Happy holidays from space!

By Laura Baisas

A Sombrero ground lizard (Pholidoscelis corvinus) photographed on Sombrero Island in June 2021. This species is endemic to the Carribbean island.
Land

Population of nearly extinct lizard grows 16X in only six years

By Laura Baisas

An Andean bear at the nature reserve Bioparque Wakata, in Briceno municipality near Bogota, Colombia, on June 21, 2023.
Land

Shy ‘Paddington’ bears need more plants to survive

By Laura Baisas

an illustration of a black hole
Black Holes

Enormous black hole napping after eating a ton of gas

By Laura Baisas

a squirrel sits eating a vole, pulling its meat with its teeth
Wildlife

‘Shocking:’ These squirrels are hunting and eating other rodents

By Laura Baisas

a turtle swims in a tank wearing a black weighted harness on its side
Biology

Sea turtle with ‘bubble butt syndrome’ gets a 3D-printed custom harness

By Laura Baisas

A reconstruction of the oldest known gorgonopsian in life.
Wildlife

This dog-like predator is the oldest known mammal ancestor

By Laura Baisas

a small blue-colored penguin called a little penguin swims in the ocean
Ocean

Turtles and penguins have a swimming sweet spot that reduces drag

By Laura Baisas

four human bones that show evidence of being chewed on by other humans
Archaeology

Bronze Age butchery and cannibalism unearthed in England

By Laura Baisas

a close up of the eyes of an older dog. it has black fur with touches of grey
Dogs

Is my dog ‘old’? Vets finally have the answers

By Laura Baisas

red brain neurons
Medicine

Why is deep sleep so important to memory? It’s about time.

By Laura Baisas

waves in a deep cavern
Fish

Earthquake off northern California shook the water in Devils Hole, 500 miles away

By Laura Baisas

The 5,600-year-old teeth and other bones from this study were found near Kosenivka, Ukraine and are some of the only human remains found that are associated with the Cucuteni-Trypilla culture.
Archaeology

Fire likely killed a group of Stone Age humans uncovered in Ukraine

By Laura Baisas

A juvenile Nile crocodile. It is small with pointed teeth
Wildlife

Why are crocodiles so bumpy? A dermatological mystery has been solved

By Laura Baisas

a new shrimp-like crustacean. it is white with two protruding tusk-like appendages at its head, at least 8 legs, and two tail-like appendages at the back
Ocean

New predator uncovered 25,000+ feet under the Pacific

By Laura Baisas

a microscopic zooplankton
Ocean

Microscopic ‘eating and pooping machines’ are great at sucking up carbon

By Laura Baisas

a woman leading a dance rehearsal in the a studio
Physics

How the Rockettes use math to make holiday magic

By Laura Baisas

An illustration of an Early Cretaceous floodplain in southeastern England, 135 million years ago: a spinosaur (center) takes over the carcass of an ornithopod, much to the annoyance of the smaller tyrannosaurs (left) and dromaeosaurids (bottom right).
Dinosaurs

Retired quarryman uncovers fossilized tyrannosaur teeth

By Laura Baisas

two twisted bowstrings uncovered from a cave
Archaeology

Europe’s oldest known bowstrings found in a cave in Spain

By Laura Baisas

Two views of a slingshot spider (Theridiosoma gemmosum) web. The right image shows the web’s cone shape with a spider at the tip.
Spiders

Watch a slingshot spider deploy a perfectly-timed trap

By Laura Baisas

a siberian husky sits in the snow. it has piercing blue eyes and its ears are perked up
Evolution

Humans gave dogs treats 12,000 years ago, new archeological evidence suggests

By Laura Baisas

The anglerfish species Lophius piscatorius.
Evolution

Anglerfish are so much more than just their dangly bioluminescent lures

By Laura Baisas

brain scans in pink, blue, and yellow
Animals

Humans may have big brains thanks to our gut

By Laura Baisas

cattle grazing in a field
Agriculture

Feeding seaweed to gassy cattle can reduce methane

By Laura Baisas

a constellation of seven stars grouped in a circle
Space

December’s skies illuminate with the Seven Sisters and Cold Moon

By Laura Baisas

an orca whale dorsal fin coming out of the water
Ocean

Orcas observed preying on massive whale sharks

By Laura Baisas

a photo from the movie "moana 2." a whale shark swims by a group of voyagers on the ocean
Science

‘We know the way’: How Polynesian voyagers navigate Earth’s biggest ocean

By Laura Baisas

Micro-CT scans of bone needle and needle specimens and the species they were compared with.
Archaeology

Ice age humans made needles from animal bones, archeologists discover

By Laura Baisas

a long piece of fossilized dinosaur poop on the ground
Evolution

200-million-year-old dinosaur poop and vomit reveal a lost Jurassic world

By Laura Baisas

An artificially colored view of Jupiter as seen in ultraviolet light. In addition to the Great Red Spot, which appears blue, another oval feature can be seen in the brown haze at Jupiter's south pole. The oval, an area of concentrated haze, is possibly the result of mixing generated by a vortex higher up in the planet's ionosphere. These dark UV ovals also appear periodically at the north pole, though less often.
Solar System

Great Red What? Check out Jupiter’s giant, magnetic tornado

By Laura Baisas

a more colorful dominant male fish next to a more muted subordinate fish
Fish

Stress is warping these fish brains

By Laura Baisas

A still showing the jet ejected from a squirting cucumber, which carries its seeds distances of up to 32 feet away from the mother plant.
Biology

High-speed camera catches cucumber squirting seeds at 65 feet-per-second

By Laura Baisas

An illustration of the amygdala, shown in red. It is a part of the brain’s limbic system and plays a key role in processing emotions.
Mental Health

‘Was I awkward?’ What overthinking after a party has to do with your ‘lizard brain’

By Laura Baisas

a black meteorite on display at a musuem
Mars

4-billion-year-old mineral offers clues about Mars’ steaming hot past

By Laura Baisas

a scan of a zebrafish with its eye highlighted in green and other parts of its anatomy stained red and blue
Biology

Mapping the shifting gaze of ‘fishlets’

By Laura Baisas

the skeleton of a Parasaurolophus dinosaur. it has a wave like crest at the top of its skull
Dinosaurs

A 3D-printed duck-billed dinosaur’s skull could help us learn what it sounded like

By Laura Baisas

Notre Dame de Paris cathedral on November 2, 2016 in Paris, France. It's the finest example of French Gothic architecture and the largest and most well-known church buildings in the world.
Engineering

Notre Dame rises from the ashes in behind-the-scenes photos

By Laura Baisas

Each individual strand is too narrow to be clearly captured by any form of visible light camera or microscope.
Science

Behold the world’s thinnest spaghetti

By Laura Baisas

A mother and calf West Indian manatee (Trichechus manatus latirostris) in Crystal River, Florida.
Ocean

Florida’s famous manatees were originally tourists

By Laura Baisas

a side by side of a rare gold coin from 1870
Archaeology

Rare California Gold Rush coin fetches $1.44 million at auction

By Laura Baisas

an astronaut on a spacewalk in a full spacesuit takes a selfie with earth in the background
International Space Station

Six months in space is not that bad for your brain

By Laura Baisas

stone walls separating several small houses in ireland
Evolution

Scottish, Irish, and Northern English better at detecting fake accents

By Laura Baisas

a silver coin minted before the american revolution. one side has the letters NE on it for new england and the other has the roman numeral 3 for its value
Archaeology

Colonial silver coin found in cabinet sells for $2.5 million

By Laura Baisas

An illustration of two Skiphosoura bavarica in flight.
Evolution

New pterosaur species sliced through the air with a sword-like tail

By Laura Baisas

a tick half embedded in human skin
Global Warming

How hitchhiking ticks are bringing diseases to new places

By Laura Baisas

a molting penguin with a mixture of feathers
Birds

Famously extra large penguin Pesto is molting

By Laura Baisas

a female mountain lion walks at night with some kittens behind her
Land

Mountain lions in Los Angeles become night owls to avoid humans

By Laura Baisas

a small bird with black, gray, and white, plumage solves a puzzle in a lab
Birds

Immigrating great tits learn from their new neighbors

By Laura Baisas

A diver from National Geographic Pristine Seas measures the world’s largest coral colony in the Solomon Islands.
Ocean

World’s largest coral discovered and it’s longer than a blue whale

By Laura Baisas

a colorful coral reef with fish swimming above it
Ocean

Chlorine and cocoa butter may help disease-ridden corals

By Laura Baisas

a large lump of fat, oil, grease, and other refuse dug up from a sewer on display in a musuem
Engineering

The battle against fatbergs has a new weapon

By Laura Baisas

x-ray scans of early human skulls. the teeth are colored red, green, orange, blue, and purple to show the differences among them
Evolution

These 1.77-million-year-old teeth could help demystify human childhoods

By Laura Baisas

a small baby gibbon with large eyes sits on its mother
Animals

Endangered newborn siamang gibbon is a ‘sign of hope’

By Laura Baisas

a new mollusc with a hood over its head
Biology

New deep-sea slug catches crustaceans like a Venus fly trap

By Laura Baisas

a person performs CPR
Medicine

Bystander CPR done within 10 minutes likely increases survival rates

By Laura Baisas

a yellow dog shakes excess water off of its fur
Dogs

Why wet dogs shake so much

By Laura Baisas