More from Laura Baisas

A side view of a great white shark. Regional endothermy in fish has been seen in apex predators like the great white sharks or giant tuna.
Animals

Megalodon’s warm-blooded relatives are still circling the oceans today

By Laura Baisas

A louse on human hair under a microscope. Humans and lice have coevolved for thousands of years. The oldest human louse known to scientists is a 10,000 year-old specimen from Brazil.
Animals

What head lice can tell us about human migration

By Laura Baisas

This square astronomical image is divided horizontally by a waving line between a white-orange cloudscape forming a nebula along the bottom portion and a comparatively blue-purple-pink upper portion. From the nebula in the bottom half of the image, an orange cloud shaped like a horsehead sticks out. In the bottom left of the image, a white round glow is visible. The clouds from the bottom half of the image shine purple/blue light into the upper half. The top of the image shows the black expanse of space. Speckled across both portions is a starfield, showing stars of varying sizes and colors. Blue stars are younger and red stars are older.
Deep Space

Euclid telescope spies shimmering stars and galaxies in its first look at the ‘dark’ universe

By Laura Baisas

Astronomers found the most distant black hole ever detected in X-rays (in a galaxy dubbed UHZ1) using the Chandra X-Ray Observatory and the James Webb Space Telescope. X-ray emission is a telltale signature of a growing supermassive black hole. This result may explain how some of the first supermassive black holes in the universe formed. These images show the galaxy cluster Abell 2744 that UHZ1 is located behind, in X-rays from Chandra and infrared data from JWST, as well as close-ups of the black hole host galaxy UHZ1.
Black Holes

Farthest black hole ever recorded by astronomers is nearly as old as our universe

By Laura Baisas

A sample of Asteroid Bennu is put on public display for the first time at the Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC, on November 3, 2023. A sample collected from the 4.5-billion-year-old asteroid Bennu contains abundant water and carbon, NASA revealed, offering more evidence for the theory that life on Earth was seeded from outer space. The small black rock is located in a glass viewing pain.
NASA

Smithsonian unveils a very small sample of the 4.5-billion-year-old Bennu asteroid

By Laura Baisas

A baby loggerhead turtle pokes out of a shell on the sand. Its head and front flippers are out of the shell, with the lower half remaining inside.
Animals

Endangered sea turtles build hundreds of nests on the Outer Banks

By Laura Baisas

An illustration of Ekgmowechashala, the last primate to inhabit North America before humans. The animal has a white furry face, with a pink nose, and large dark eyes like a lemur. It is sitting in a leafy tree.
Animals

North America was once home to some unusual wild monkeys

By Laura Baisas

A large asteroid with a smaller asteroid orbiting it. This image shows the “moonrise” of the satellite as it emerges from behind asteroid Dinkinesh as seen by the Lucy Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager. This image was taken by NASA’s Lucy spacecraft at 12:55 p.m. EDT on November 1, 2023, within a minute of closest approach, from a range of approximately 270 miles. From this perspective, the satellite is behind the primary asteroid. The image has been sharpened and processed to enhance contrast.
NASA

First NASA images from Lucy’s flyby reveal that ‘Dinky’ is not alone

By Laura Baisas

A black and white cat with a large mid-section sits on a kitchen floor.
Animals

Overfeeding cats will mess with their guts and poop

By Laura Baisas

The synthetic melanin is being applied to Inflamed skin. Just under the surface of the skin are green free radicals, also known as ROS, or "reactive oxygen species."
Health

Lab-made ‘super melanin’ speeds up healing and boosts sun protection

By Laura Baisas

A white rat pops its head out of a black box. Like in humans, the rat’s hippocampus is the part of the brain where mental maps of the world are stored.
Animals

Rats may have imaginations

By Laura Baisas

yeah! caption is A size comparison of Dinkinesh (shown in blue) and other main asteroid belt objects Bennu and (2867) Steins.
NASA

NASA spacecraft Lucy says hello to ‘Dinky’ asteroid on far-flying mission

By Laura Baisas

Photograph of the skeletal mount of an Allosaurus specimen (AMNH 5753), from William Diller Matthew's 1915 book “Dinosaurs.”
Biology

When a Jurassic giant died, predatory dinos probably feasted on the carcass

By Laura Baisas

An orange starfish, or sea star, on a black backgorund. The unusual five-axis symmetry of sea stars has long confounded our understanding of animal evolution.
Animals

The sea star’s whole body is a head

By Laura Baisas

Several blooming yellow sunflowers under a blue sky with white clouds.
Agriculture

We still don’t fully know how sunflowers turn toward the sun

By Laura Baisas

An artist's illustration of an early lamprey's teeth and sucker. The Jurassic lampreys Yanliaomyzon had a feeding apparatus that surprisingly resembles that of the pouched lampreys. It foreshadows the ancestral flesh-eating habit of present day. lampreys.
Animals

Giant prehistoric lamprey likely sucked blood—and ate flesh

By Laura Baisas

Beaver moon sets behind Rocca Calascio castle in Calascio, Italy, on November 9, 2022. November full moon takes this name because during this month beavers fill the banks of rivers and build their dams and dens to take refuge in view of winter.
Science

You can see three meteor showers at their peak and a full Beaver Moon this November

By Laura Baisas

An artist's rendition of the infrared aurora superimposed on a Hubble Space Telescope photograph of Uranus. The planet is blue with a white ring around it and the aurora is shown in red at its poles.
Deep Space

Uranus has a weird infrared aurora

By Laura Baisas

An artist’s illustration of two Jormungandr walhallaensis mosasaurs fighting. The extinct creatrue is a long sea serpent with flippers, a shark-like tail, and narrow jaws. One is seen biting the other in the next, while pterosaurs fly above it.
Animals

Newfound mosasaur was like a giant Komodo dragon with flippers

By Laura Baisas

A computer-generated three-dimensional perspective view of the surface of Venus. Venus has a surface temperature of over 800 degrees Fahrenheit.
Science

Earth-like plate tectonics may have shaped Venus billions of years ago

By Laura Baisas

The Asian Lady Beetle (Harmonia axyridis) aka the Halloween beetle looks very similar to more common ladybugs, but they are generally bigger and with more spots. The bug is sitting on a yellow flower.
Animals

Why ladybugs and ‘Halloween beetles’ are everywhere right now

By Laura Baisas

Ma Rainey, a post-reproductive female of the Ngogo community of chimpanzees in Kibale National Park, Uganda, and her adult son Wes. The two are sitting among trees in a forest.
Animals

Wild chimpanzees show signs of potential menopause—a rarity in the animal kingdom

By Laura Baisas

A long torpedo-shaped fish swims among green plants. Knifefish like the black ghost knifefish are known for their shimmying motions and electrical pulses. and live in freshwater lakes and rivers in Central and South America.
Animals

Why electric knifefish ‘shimmy’

By Laura Baisas

A steak with kelp on top is plated by a chef holding a sauce pan.
Agriculture

This sea-to-farm-to-table restaurant wants kelp to catch on

By Laura Baisas

Ancient rock carvings that reappeared in the region of the Lajes Archaeological Site due to the severe drought affecting the region's rivers on the banks of the Negro River in Manaus, Brazil, on October 21, 2023. The carvings feature depictions of human faces.
Archaeology

Drought reveals ancient rock carvings of human faces in Brazil

By Laura Baisas

A woman wearing over the ear headphones leans her head back and closes her eyes.
Health

Your favorite, bittersweet tunes may help relieve pain better than unfamiliar, relaxing music

By Laura Baisas

A kingfisher with blue and yellow feathers and outstretched wings dives through the air.
Animals

How kingfishers pull off breakneck dives without hurting their brains

By Laura Baisas

A fuzzy yellow and black bumblebee foraging on a green plant.
Animals

Bumblebees carbo-load on the fly

By Laura Baisas

A life-sized reconstruction of the head and jaws of the oldest megapredatory pliosaur called Lorrainosaurus. The reptile is long and torpedo shaped, with closed jaws and sharp exposed teeth.
Animals

This Jurassic-era ‘sea murderer’ was among the first of its kind

By Laura Baisas

A view from the summit of Volcán Salín, one of three Andean volcanoes where researchers uncovered the mummified cadavers of mice. Analyses of the mummies, combined with the capture of live specimens, suggest that the rodents scaled the Mars-like peaks on their own — and are somehow managing to live on them.
Animals

How did mummified mice end up on volcanoes in the Atacama Desert?

By Laura Baisas

NASA astronaut Harrison Schmitt is standing on the moon’s surface next to a large split lunar boulder, with a roving vehicle on the other side of the boulder.
Moons

The moon is 40 million years older than we thought, according to crystals collected by Apollo astronauts

By Laura Baisas

A box of a nasal decongestant called SudafedPe on a store shelf.
Health

CVS to stop selling cold and allergy pills that FDA warns don’t work

By Laura Baisas

An illustration of a newly discovered shark species called Strigilodus tollesonae. The shark looks somewhat like a stingray, with outstretched wings, fan-like top fins, and a long tail with black spots.
Animals

Prehistoric shark called Kentucky home 337 million years ago

By Laura Baisas

An image of Jupiter taken with the James Webb Space Telescope’s NIR Cam in July 2022. Researchers recently discovered a narrow jet stream traveling 320 miles per hour sitting over Jupiter’s equator above the main cloud decks. The numerous bright white "spots" and "streaks" are likely very high-altitude cloud tops of condensed convective storms. Auroras, appearing in red in this image, extend to higher altitudes above both the northern and southern poles of the planet.
Deep Space

Why a 3,000-mile-long jet stream on Jupiter surprised NASA scientists

By Laura Baisas

A satellite photo showing the swirling clouds of Hurricane Lee and Tropical Storm Margot in the Atlantic Ocean.
Climate Change

Atlantic hurricanes are getting stronger faster than they did 40 years ago

By Laura Baisas

A group of worker bees surround the queen bee on a honeycomb. All worker honeybees are female and they can go to extreme lengths to serve their queen even shedding their own ovaries.
Animals

Female honeybees may pass down ‘altruistic’ genes

By Laura Baisas

The planet Earth, as seen from the DSCOVR satellite. Earth appears as a bright blue dot against the darkness of space, with the shadow of an annular solar eclipse over much of North America.
Deep Space

What the ‘Ring of Fire’ eclipse looked like to a satellite nearly 1 million miles from Earth

By Laura Baisas

An artist's illustration of a cutaway of Mars along with the paths of seismic waves from two separate quakes in 2021. These seismic waves, detected by NASA’s InSight mission, were the first ever identified to enter another planet’s core.
Mars

Giant quake that shook Mars for hours had a surprising source

By Laura Baisas

A yellow-ish pepper named Pepper X sits on a crystal dish. Pepper X is the new hottest chili pepper in the world. It was crossbreed with Carolina Reaper and a mystery pepper.
Agriculture

The world’s hottest chili pepper is worse than bear spray

By Laura Baisas

Coral Beach on Scotland’s Isle of Skye, dotted with various types of seaweed.
Agriculture

Europeans ate a lot more seaweed 8,000 years ago

By Laura Baisas

Three stage of digital reconstruction. From left, the Pierolapithecus cranium shortly after discovery, after initial preparation, and after virtual reconstruction.
Animals

12-million-year-old ape skull bares its fangs in virtual reconstruction

By Laura Baisas

Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm speaks before US President Joe Biden at Tioga Marine Terminal on October 13, 2023 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Biden discussed how his Bidenomics agenda is creating good-paying union jobs, investing in infrastructure, accelerating the transition to a clean energy future, and combating the climate crisis.
Climate Change

US will build seven regional ‘hydrogen hubs’ to spark clean energy transition

By Laura Baisas

An endangered Texas ocelot in the vicinity of the highway.
Animals

Wildlife exits on Texas roads could help endangered ocelots

By Laura Baisas

The cave lion remains from Siegsdorf, Germany are displayed alongside a reproduction of a wooden spear similar to those used by Neanderthals.
Archaeology

Neanderthals may have hunted mighty cave lions

By Laura Baisas

Travis Gienger of Anoka, Minnesota celebrates during a pumpkin-weighing contest in Half Moon Bay, California.
Agriculture

This year’s heaviest pumpkin could be baked into 700 pies

By Laura Baisas

Two frogs mating in a body of water.
Animals

Female frogs appear to play dead to avoid mating

By Laura Baisas

Two loaves of rustic sourdough bread on a wooden counter.
Health

Why no two sourdoughs are exactly the same

By Laura Baisas

Sweet potato, brown eggs, and corn in a husk on a stove. Traces of sweet potato, peanut, chili peppers, papaya, and more were found in coprolite samples from Puerto Rico.
Archaeology

Mummified poop reveals a diverse ancient Caribbean diet

By Laura Baisas

This new infrared image of NGC 346 from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) traces emission from cool gas and dust. In this image blue represents silicates and sooty chemical molecules known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs. More diffuse red emission shines from warm dust heated by the brightest and most massive stars in the heart of the region. Bright patches and filaments mark areas with abundant numbers of protostars.
Deep Space

Star-making hot spot looks like a glowing raven in new JWST image

By Laura Baisas

Grazer looking chunky and getting ready for winter on September 14, 2023. The bear is in the river intensely staring for salmon.
Animals

Fierce mama Grazer takes 2023’s Fat Bear Week crown

By Laura Baisas

This image shows many looping and overlapping orbits encircling the Sun, all of different colors (to differentiate between asteroids). The center of the image – representing an area within the orbit of Jupiter – is very densely packed with orbits, while the outer edges remain clearer, showing the background plane of the Milky Way.
Science

A mission to map the universe unveils star clusters, asteroids, and tricks of gravity

By Laura Baisas

Human hand bones during an archaeological dig.
Archaeology

Sensitive to pain? It could be your Neanderthal gene variants.

By Laura Baisas

An underwater closeup of Cayo margarita (a new species) in the coral reef of the Florida Keys. Note the two long tentacles, used by the snail to spread the mucus net for feeding.
Animals

New neon-yellow snail from the Florida Keys gets a happy hour-ready name

By Laura Baisas

A capybara standing on a riverbank. Capybaras are semi-aquatic rodents that can weigh up to 174 pounds.
Animals

4 capybara facts you’ll love, and 1 you’d like to forget

By Laura Baisas

A dove is released at noon from a window of the Nobel Peace Center following the announcement of the laureates of the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize at the Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo on October 6, 2023. The Nobel Peace Prize was on October 6 awarded to imprisoned rights campaigner Narges Mohammadi, honored for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran.
Science

Meet the 2023 Nobel Prize winners

By Laura Baisas

A newly discovered sauropod dinosaur left behind some epic footprints
Biology

A newly discovered sauropod dinosaur left behind some epic footprints

By Laura Baisas

A pair of chickens at a poultry farm. Bird flu has been detected in at least 67 countries.
Agriculture

USDA bans French poultry imports over avian influenza vaccine

By Laura Baisas

A lioness bears her teeth. Mammals in a new study were twice as likely to abandon a waterhole when hearing human voices than the sounds of a lion.
Animals

Humans are now the African savannah’s top predator

By Laura Baisas

Exposed sedimentary rock on a mountain slope. High erosion in southern France exposes these sedimentary rocks to weathering, releasing carbon dioxide as the ancient organic carbon breaks down.
Climate Change

Rocks may be able to release carbon dioxide as well as store it

By Laura Baisas

Two chimpanzees share a meal. A new study found that same-sex sexual behavior helps establish and maintain positive social relationships in animals including chimpanzees, bighorn sheep, lions, and wolves.
Animals

Mammals may use same-sex sexual behavior for conflict resolution, bonding, and more

By Laura Baisas

The Morona-Santiago stubfoot toad (Atelopus halihelos) in Ecuador is listed as critically endangered.
Animals

How we can help the most endangered class of animals survive climate change

By Laura Baisas

Moungi Bawendi, Louis Brus, and Alexei Ekimov will share the 2023 Nobel prize in chemistry.
Science

Discoverers of colorful quantum dot nanotech win 2023 Nobel Prize in chemistry

By Laura Baisas

A green monk parakeet standing in dirt. Parrots could have a unique tone of voice just like humans do.
Animals

No two parakeets sound exactly the same

By Laura Baisas

Artist conception of early starbursting galaxies. The image is rendered from FIRE simulation data used for this research that can explain recent JWST results. Stars and galaxies are shown in the bright white points of light, while the more diffuse dark matter and gas are shown in purples and reds.
Deep Space

Bursting stars could explain why it was so bright after the big bang

By Laura Baisas