Margherita Bassi

Contributor

About

In addition to Popular Science, her bylines include Smithsonian Magazine, Gizmodo, Discover Magazine, BBC Travel, Live Science, Interesting Engineering, Atlas Obscura, and more.

More from Margherita Bassi

a pink flamingo standing in water (left). a blue songbird sitting on a tree branch (right)

Florida finally makes the flamingo its state bird

By Margherita Bassi

an illustration of a woman wearing an ancient headdress made with antler bones, fur, and teeth

7,000-year-old deer antler headdress uncovered in Germany

By Margherita Bassi

a horse standing in a green field with its mouth open

Horse whinnies are weirder than they sound

By Margherita Bassi

a woman holds a large lizard. it has black and white scales and is sticking out a red tongue tipped black

Frostbitten lizard found in Rhode Island is healing

By Margherita Bassi

bones laid out in a grave

Stone Age burial ground reveals deep family trees

By Margherita Bassi

A great white shark swims near Guadalupe Island in Mexico.

Great white sharks don’t always flee after orca attacks

By Margherita Bassi

a monkey with white and black fur and a blue-ish face sits in a tree

Endangered Species

Blue-faced, puffy-lipped monkey scores a rare conservation win

By Margherita Bassi

a parrot with mostly green feathers and yellow feathers on the neck

The parrots having human-like conversations

By Margherita Bassi

a tunnel under roman ruins

Inside the Colosseum’s Passage of Commodus, where emperors once walked

By Margherita Bassi

a hamster asleep in the gloved hand of a scientist

How hibernating hamsters could help astronauts

By Margherita Bassi

the sun hits a waterfall so it looks like fire

Yosemite’s glowing, golden waterfall is flowing again

By Margherita Bassi

white bird poop on a black car

Bird poop powered this pre-Hispanic kingdom

By Margherita Bassi

a new species of lady bug. it is black and the size of a grain of sand

New ladybug species is the size of a grain of sand

By Margherita Bassi

a sea turtle swimming with a boat in the distance

Endangered Species

The world’s smallest sea turtle lives in a noisy ocean

By Margherita Bassi

fake images of wild horses standing on a beach wrapped in pink mattress-like insulation material

No, North Carolina’s wild horses were not wrapped in insulation

By Margherita Bassi

a small primate with large eyes clings to a branch

Endangered Species

This wide-eyed baby primate is cute, cuddly—and venomous

By Margherita Bassi

a green caterpillar on a plant's stem

Caterpillars use tiny hairs to hear

By Margherita Bassi

a large dark millipede

These rare, giant millipedes only exist in Florida

By Margherita Bassi

a shark with brownish yellow scales and spots curled up among coral

‘Walking sharks’ lay eggs without breaking a sweat

By Margherita Bassi

a jellyfish with a red center, blue circle on the outer part of its body, and small tentavles

Perplexing blue button jelly looks like something out of ‘Lord of the Rings’

By Margherita Bassi

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