More from Laura Baisas

An illustration of Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz, and Anne L´Huillier. The three will share the 2023 Nobel prize in physics.
Physics

Winners of the 2023 Nobel Prize in physics measured electrons by the attosecond

By Laura Baisas

A map of Britain in the late 13th century.
Archaeology

Grisly medieval murders detailed in new interactive maps

By Laura Baisas

The 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is jointly awarded to Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman. This is an illustration of the two scientists.
COVID-19

mRNA vaccine innovators win the Nobel Prize in medicine

By Laura Baisas

Purple, blue, and white meteors fall at night during October stargazing
DIY

A ‘ring of fire’ eclipse and Hunter’s Moon will bring lunar drama to October’s skies

By Laura Baisas

A killer whale in the Salish Sea is observed harassing a porpoise, a behavior that has long perplexed scientists.
Animals

Why are these orcas harassing porpoises? Scientists have 3 theories.

By Laura Baisas

This 6-million-year-old turtle shell still has some DNA
Animals

This 6-million-year-old turtle shell still has some DNA

By Laura Baisas

A volcano spews lava and ash. In roughly 250 million years, massive tectonic activity could push together all of our current landmasses into a supercontinent like Pangea and make the climate inhospitable to humans and other mammals.
Animals

A boiling hot supercontinent could kill all mammals in 250 million years

By Laura Baisas

A row of organic orange carrots with their green stems still attached on a table.
Biology

How carrots get their trademark orange color

By Laura Baisas

A hyenea shows its jaws. Giant hyenas went extinct about 500,000 years ago, but were roughly 240 pounds and skilled scavengers like their modern counterparts.
Animals

How many ancient humans does it take to fight off a giant hyena?

By Laura Baisas

An illustration of Bohemolichas feeding on the seafloor, moments before it is engulfed, buried, and preserved by an underwater mud flow.
Animals

A fossilized trilobite stomach can show us clues to Cambrian cuisine

By Laura Baisas

Aerial view of a hot air balloon over Namib desert. The circular “fairy circles” are derived from any vegetation & surrounded by tall grass.
AI

Mysterious ‘fairy circles’ may appear on three different continents

By Laura Baisas

A close up of the black and white stripes of a zebra. The same patterns that dictate zebra stripes could also control the way sperm swim.
Biology

The mathematical theory that connects swimming sperm, zebra stripes, and sunflower seeds

By Laura Baisas

An artistic representation of the TRAPPIST-1 red dwarf star, featuring its very active nature. Exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 b is the closest planet to the system’s central star and is featured in the foreground with no apparent atmosphere. The exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 g is in the background to the right of the star.
Deep Space

JWST just scanned the skies of potentially habitable exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 b

By Laura Baisas

A tarantula with a mostly black body, but bright blue legs and pincers. Chilobrachys natanicharum is the first tarantula species found in Thailand’s mangrove trees. CREDIT: Yuranan Nanthaisong/ZooKeys.
Animals

Meet the first electric blue tarantula known to science

By Laura Baisas

Rafflesia kemumu in the rainforest of Sumatra.
Biology

Earth’s stinkiest flower is threatened with extinction

By Laura Baisas

An MRI scan of a human brain on a screen. Scanning the brain can help clinicians find abnormalities and the links between them.
Diseases

Substance use disorder may be connected to a specific brain circuit

By Laura Baisas

A high-density field of corals, including the spiraling Iridogorgia magnispiralis. Image courtesy of the NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research, 2016 Deepwater Exploration of the Marianas.
Biology

The deepest known ocean virus lives under 29,000 feet of water

By Laura Baisas

Yellow pollen spring out from a coniferous tree. The pollen that makes us sneeze every spring, may have helped lay the groundwork for the migration of our very distant ancestors into Eurasia.
Archaeology

Pollen could hold clues to mysteries of early human migration

By Laura Baisas

A Caribbean box jellyfish on a black background. It has a round, bell shaped body, with about 11 visible tentacles. It also has four parallel brain-like structures with roughly 1,000 nerve cells in each.
Animals

These 24-eyed jellyfish learn from their mistakes

By Laura Baisas

A view of the Cueva de los Marmoles entrance from the inside. Skeletal remains from at least 12 prehistoric individuals have been found inside.
Archaeology

Early humans carved old skeletal remains from burial caves into tools

By Laura Baisas

A black and white French bulldog puppy sits in a garden with green grass and orange flowers. In an experiment where dogs had to find food hidden in a box, flat-faced dogs were more likely to look back at people than a breed with a mid-length muzzle.
Animals

Humans might just love French bulldogs because they remind them of babies

By Laura Baisas

Multiple reddish pink parasitic plants called balanophora growing in a forest. Balanophora shed one third of its genes as it evolved into a very streamlined parasitic plant.
Biology

These parasitic plants force their victims to make them dinner

By Laura Baisas

A pied tamarin monkey sits on a large rope. Pied tamarin monkeys live in a small geographic range in Brazil, where they eat fruits, flowers, and various tree gums and saps.
Animals

As humans get louder, monkeys mark more territory

By Laura Baisas

An archeologist wearing gloves holes a wedge shaped piece of wood dating back to the Early Stone Age.
Archaeology

World’s oldest known wooden structure pre-dates our species

By Laura Baisas

Colored diamonds from the Argyle diamond mine in Australia.
Science

The mystery behind pink diamonds just got some more clarity

By Laura Baisas

A doctor uses a blood pressure cuff to take a patient's blood pressure.
Diseases

Treating high blood pressure can save 76 million lives in 30 years, WHO says

By Laura Baisas

A dissected ant and where you can see the encapsulated parasites (white oval structures) spilling out of the hind body.
Animals

This parasite deploys mucus slime balls to make ‘zombie ants’

By Laura Baisas

An Australian lungfish named Methuselah swims in a tank at the Steinhart Aquarium. The fish has a flat snout, olive-green scales, and a long torpedo-shaped body.
Animals

World’s oldest living aquarium fish could be 100 years young

By Laura Baisas

A giant panda eats a green plant.
Animals

‘Jet lag’ could be messing with pandas’ natural mating behaviors

By Laura Baisas

A black and white archival photo of the USS Arizona sinking during the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
Climate Change

Pearl Harbor dataset holds clues to how WWII may have shaped weather data

By Laura Baisas

Stone Age animal engravings in Namibian caves guided Indigenous trackers over time
Archaeology

Stone Age animal engravings in Namibian caves guided Indigenous trackers over time

By Laura Baisas

Dogs and wolves remember where you hide their food
Animals

Dogs and wolves remember where you hide their food

By Laura Baisas

An orca whale swims around an ice flow with a crabeater seal and penguin on the ice.
Animals

New series offers an intimate look into how climate change impacts the lives of wildlife

By Laura Baisas

An artist’s illustration of the 25 million year old Ditjimanka Lumakoala blackae, featuring (left to right) the wallaby-sized herbivore Muramura williamsi, an extinct koala relative named Madakoala devis,i and the calf-size lizard called Ilaria lawsone.
Animals

Scientists discover a cat-sized ancient koala in Australia

By Laura Baisas

A worker uncovers a mummy belonging to the pre-Inca Ychsma culture buried in a shallow funeral chamber on an ancient sanctuary during an excavation in the Huaca Pucllana, in the heart of a residential area in the district of Miraflores in Lima, on September 5, 2023.
Archaeology

1,000-year-old mummy with full head of hair and intact jaw found in Peru

By Laura Baisas

Colorful plastic cutlery on a white background. The United States uses more than 36 billion plastic utensils every year.
Conservation

Millions of tons of waste could be eliminated by ‘nudging’ consumers to skip the plastic fork

By Laura Baisas

An optical image of the galaxy in which the new event occurred, taken from archival PanSTARRS data. The X-ray object was located to somewhere inside the white circle, which is about the size a pinhead 100m away would appear. The position of a 2 year old supernova is also shown.
Black Holes

A newly spotted black hole keeps munching on a star the size of our sun

By Laura Baisas

A blue semi circle on the right with a ball of blue light on the left on a black background. The orientation of the magnetic field in the distant 9io9 galaxy, seen here when the universe was only 20 percent of its current age and the furthest ever detection of a galaxy’s magnetic field.
Deep Space

Astronomers detect a distant galaxy’s magnetic field for the first time

By Laura Baisas

An artist’s illustration of Fujianvenator prodigiosus, an avialan theropod who lived during the Late Jurassic period and had a lower leg that was twice as long as its thigh.
Biology

Leggy dinosaur species could be the latest feathery clue to bird evolution

By Laura Baisas

Vegetation makes its way through the drought-ridden earth on the shores of the Viñuela reservoir in Spain. The reservoir feeds the tropical crops of Axarquía, such as mangoes and avocados. It is in a phase of desiccation, with no water inflow, but consumption that has led the municipalities of Málaga to impose restrictions on the consumption of drinking water.
Climate Change

A ‘season of simmering’: This summer’s 3-month streak was hottest ever recorded

By Laura Baisas

Two monkeys sitting in a forest. Dartmouth researchers report that apes and early humans evolved more flexible shoulders and elbows than monkeys to safely get out of trees. For early humans, these versatile appendages would have been essential for gathering food and deploying tools for hunting and defense.
Animals

Our tree-climbing ancestors evolved our abilities to throw far and reach high

By Laura Baisas

Fiver different types of paper cups sitting are sitting on a table. Some have eco-friendly labeling and one warns of plastic chemical leaching. Paper cups are replacing plastic cups on the market, but paper cups can also be toxic to living organisms, shows a new study from the University of Gothenburg.
Biology

Paper cups still use plastic—and it’s a problem for the planet

By Laura Baisas

A couple standing on the beach in warm sunlight.
Biology

Couples often share more common traits than we might think

By Laura Baisas

Dinosaurs footprint in Serras de Aire e Candeeiros, Portugal.
Dinosaurs

These toothy vegetarian dinosaurs have eluded paleontologists in Europe for decades

By Laura Baisas

Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) captured this detailed image of SN 1987A (Supernova 1987A). At the center, material ejected from the supernova forms a keyhole shape.
Deep Space

See the stunning Supernova 1987A in a whole new light

By Laura Baisas

A kākāpō sitting in its burrow. They can live up to 90 years and forage on the ground for food since they are flightless birds.
Animals

The next frontier in saving the world’s heaviest parrots: genome sequencing

By Laura Baisas

Four skulls of human ancestors A. africanus, A. afarensis, H. erectus, H. neanderthalensis, and one modern human skull.
Archaeology

An ‘ancestral bottleneck’ took out nearly 99 percent of the human population 800,000 years ago

By Laura Baisas

Two Atlantic puffins stand on a white rock above the ocean, with another group of puffins in the background, Atlantic puffins are sometimes nicknamed “sea parrots,” and their chicks hatch in Maine in early July.
Animals

Maine’s puffins show another year of remarkable resiliency

By Laura Baisas

The Harvest Moon on October 1, 2020 over a field in Waseca, Minnesota.
Science

September’s night sky will sparkle with the Harvest Moon and a newly discovered comet

By Laura Baisas

A Late Bronze Age urn from Austria in roughly 1400-1300 BCE, containing cremated human remains. The urn is open on a table, with dusty pieces spilling out of it.
Archaeology

Cremated remains still hold clues to life and death in the Bronze Age

By Laura Baisas

A truck passes through flooded streets caused by Hurricane Idalia passing offshore on August 30, 2023 in Tarpon Springs, Florida.
Climate Change

Category 3 Hurricane Idalia makes landfall on Florida’s Gulf Coast

By Laura Baisas

An artistic reconstruction of Kylinxia, a relative of present day insects and crustaceans. It has two extended forelimbs, a round and segmented body, and three eyes on its head.
Animals

A three-eyed organism roamed the seas half a billion years ago

By Laura Baisas

A large spiral galaxy takes up the entirety of the image. The core is mostly bright white, but there are also swirling, detailed structures that resemble water circling a drain. There is white and pale blue light that emanates from stars and dust at the core’s center, but it is tightly limited to the core. The rings feature colors of deep red and orange and highlight filaments of dust around cavernous black bubbles.
Deep Space

The Whirlpool Galaxy’s buff, spiral arms grab JWST’s attention

By Laura Baisas

Part of the exposed Roman walls with the room layout already recognizable. The remains of the floor construction are still preserved in the foreground of the picture.
Archaeology

Remnants of an ancient Roman society found buried in the Alps

By Laura Baisas

A magnetic resonance image of the patient’s brain by fluid-attenuated inversion recovery showing an enhancing right frontal lobe lesion (left). A live third-stage larval form of Ophidascaris robertsi removed from the patient’s right frontal lobe (right).
Animals

‘Alive and wriggling’ worm survived in woman’s body and brain for at least a year

By Laura Baisas

Shiny fish oil capsules laid out on a table. Fish oil contains two omega-3 fatty acids called EPA and DHA. These acids are all found in flax seeds, walnuts, and fatty fish such as salmon.
Diseases

Fish oil supplements might still not be as good as the real thing

By Laura Baisas

Lush and green mint leaves growing in a garden. To keep disruptive “jumping genes” quiet, some plant species use a process called methylation, which adds regulatory markers to the specific sites in the DNA and can be passed down through epigenetic memory.
Agriculture

We’re finally figuring out how plants pass on genetic memories

By Laura Baisas

A large group of white and gray fossils laid out on a blue tarp.
Biology

Fossils of 10 unknown species found by sewage plant

By Laura Baisas

A portion of the far side of the Moon looms large just beyond the Orion spacecraft in this image taken November 21, 2022, by a camera on the tip of one of Orion’s solar arrays. The darkest spot visible near the middle of the image is Mare Orientale.
NASA

You might be able to plant a tree from seeds NASA flew by the moon

By Laura Baisas

A woman holds a red smoothie in a glass with a handle on it and a stainless steel straw sticking out. A group of ‘forever chemicals’ commonly called PFAS were not detected on the stainless steel straws in this study, but were on 18 out of 20 brands of paper straws.
Climate Change

‘Forever chemicals’ detected in paper and plastic straws

By Laura Baisas

A sequence of Hubble Space Telescope images from 1994 to 2020 that chronicles the waxing and waning of the amount of cloud cover on Neptune. This long set of observations shows that the number of clouds grows increasingly following a peak in the solar cycle.
Science

What the heck is up with Neptune’s dark spots?

By Laura Baisas

Two Emperor penguin chicks standing on sea ice in Antarctica.
Animals

Emperor penguins suffer ‘unprecedented’ breeding failure as sea ice disappears

By Laura Baisas

An illustration showing three abelisaurs on a beach, with a dead dinosaur and another smaller dinosaur. Fossils have been found of several types of abelisaur showing the diversity of dinosaurs in Morocco at the end of the Cretaceous period.
Animals

T. rex cousins with shorter arms were thriving right up until the asteroid hit

By Laura Baisas

This Gua Sireh Cave art was drawn with charcoal on limestone save walls and is dated between 1670 to 1830 CE. Two geometric figures, with one prominently wielding a weapon are featured.
Archaeology

Newly dated cave art tells a dark story in Borneo’s history

By Laura Baisas