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Latest in Science

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.
Environment

New jellyfish discovered near Japan may contain multitudes of venom

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.
Environment

New pterosaur species discovered in Scotland

By Laura Baisas

Illustration of 3D printed brain tissue culture with 25nm scale
Science

Scientists have 3D bioprinted functioning human brain tissue

By Andrew Paul

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

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).
Science

New map of half the known universe shines with cosmic energy

By Laura Baisas

SLIM lunar lander final moon photo
Science

This may be SLIM’s farewell transmission from the moon

By Andrew Paul

The first interstellar interloper detected passing through the Solar System, 1l/‘Oumuamua, came within 24 million miles of the Sun in 2017. It’s difficult to know exactly what ‘Oumuamua looked like, but it was probably oddly shaped and elongated, as depicted in this illustration.
Science

Why interstellar objects like ‘Oumuamua and Borisov may hold clues to exoplanets

By Theo Nicitopoulos / Knowable Magazine

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

Can clownfish count?

By Laura Baisas

Screenshot showing shaded rendering of Doom via E. Coli bacteria display
Science

Running ‘Doom’ on E. coli cells… very, very slowly

By Andrew Paul

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.
Science

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.
Science

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.
Environment

Why artificial light—and evolution—trap moths

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.
Science

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.
Science

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.
Environment

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

By Laura Baisas

Road rage—and parking spot envy—can reveal a lot about how humans tick
Science

Road rage—and parking spot envy—can reveal a lot about how humans tick

By Popular Science Team

Biohybrid robot legs in underwater container
Technology

Watch this cool, useless biohybrid robot take a stroll

By Andrew Paul

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

The moon is shrinking (very slowly)

By Laura Baisas

Ingenuity rotocopter on Mars
Science

RIP Mars Ingenuity, the ‘little helicopter that could’

By Andrew Paul

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

Sex is more important than sleep for these marsupials

By Laura Baisas

Image taken of JAXA SLIM lunar lander on moon upside down
Science

Japan’s SLIM lunar lander stuck the landing—upside down

By Andrew Paul

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.
Science

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.
Environment

Poop stains reveal four previously unknown Emperor penguin colonies

By Laura Baisas

A blue bottle fly.
Environment

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

By Laura Baisas

GIF of Sierra Space LIFE module exploding during pressure test
Technology

Watch a giant, inflatable space station prototype explode during its intentional ‘ultimate burst’

By Andrew Paul

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.
Science

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.
Environment

We may know what makes tardigrades so darn tough

By Laura Baisas

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter concept art above moon
Technology

NASA bounced a laser off a cookie-sized device on the moon

By Andrew Paul

A mako shark swimming in the ocean.
Environment

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

By Laura Baisas

The burgeoning science of search and rescue
Environment

The burgeoning science of search and rescue

By Sarah Scoles/Undark

JAXA lunar lander robots, LEV-1 and LEV-2
Technology

Japan makes history with its first uncrewed moon landing

By Andrew Paul

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

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

By Laura Baisas

The bow of the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Duane, a decommissioned ship deliberately sunk off Florida to serve as an artificial reef.
Environment

Not all underwater reefs are made of coral

By Avery Paxton and D’amy Steward / The Conversation

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.
Environment

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

By Laura Baisas

A new evolutionary theory could explain the mystery of shrinking animals
Environment

A new evolutionary theory could explain the mystery of shrinking animals

By Lauren Leffer

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

Lava closeup volcanic
Science

Why volcanic lava is so hard to stop

By Loÿc Vanderkluysen / The Conversation

A colorized view of the DOLCE structure finalizing its uncoiling process, as seen from the boom camera, over Antarctica, on August 22, 2023.
Technology

The first-ever space solar power tests are finished after a year in orbit

By Andrew Paul

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.
Environment

Four new octopus species discovered in the deep-sea vents off Costa Rica

By Laura Baisas

John Deere 8R Autonomous Tractor in field
Technology

John Deere and Starlink partner to provide satellite internet for rural farmers

By Andrew Paul

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

An Eastern dwarf tree frog covered in seeds.
Environment

These Australian frogs get absolutely covered in seeds

By Ethan Freedman

Check out some of the past year’s best close-up photography
Technology

Check out some of the past year’s best close-up photography

By Andrew Paul

Jupiter’s iconic Great Red Spot and the surrounding turbulent zones, shown in shades of white and brown.
Science

Earth isn’t the only planet with seasons, but they can look wildly different on other worlds

By Gongjie Li / The Conversation

GIF of Ouroboros-3 test rocket igniting
Technology

Watch this rocket ‘eat’ its own body for fuel

By Andrew Paul

Green rhodopsin proteins inside the blue cell walls help these yeast grow faster when exposed to light.
Science

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.
Science

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.
Environment

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.
Science

Peregrine sent back this image from its now abandoned lunar mission

By Laura Baisas

A visual collage of skin fossils described in the new study. The mummified skin specimen is shown sliced into two pieces in the center-left of the image. The surrounding specimen scans are of fossilized skin impressions.
Science

Oldest known fossilized reptile skin was dug up in an Oklahoma quarry

By Lauren Leffer

Four of the best telescopes for deep space side by side on a plain background.
Gear

The best telescopes for deep space in 2024

By Abby Ferguson

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.
Science

NASA delays two crewed Artemis moon missions

By Laura Baisas

NASA plans to unveil experimental X-59 supersonic jet on January 12
Technology

NASA plans to unveil experimental X-59 supersonic jet on January 12

By Andrew Paul

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.
Environment

These extinct, nearly 10-foot-tall apes could not adapt to shifting seasons

By Laura Baisas

How video game tech, AI, and computer vision help decode animal pain and behavior
Science

How video game tech, AI, and computer vision help decode animal pain and behavior

By Peter Hess

Fruit bats hanging on tree branches in daylight in Bangladesh on November 6, 2023.
Science

Why fruit bats can eat tons of sugar without getting diabetes

By Laura Baisas

Microscopic view of Oikopleura dioica
Science

This tiny sea creature builds a ‘snot palace’ to capture food

By Andrew Paul

A white toilet bowl in a bathroom with yellow brick walls is surrounded by multiple shelves holding plants and towels.
Science

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.
Science

Peregrine lunar lander experiences ‘critical loss of propellant’ following successful launch

By Laura Baisas

Illustration of what the Europa Clipper spacecraft will look like flying by Europa, a moon of Jupiter.
Science

These are the exciting space missions slated for launch in 2024

By Ali M. Bramson / The Conversation

The 3,763-meter-high Fuego volcano is located 35 kilometers southwest of Guatemala City. On June 3, 2018, a major eruption triggered an avalanche that swept through the community of San Miguel Los Lotes and part of a highway in the neighboring town of Alotenango, leaving many dead and missing.
Science

Central American volcanoes offer clues to Earth’s geological evolution

By Pablo Fonseca Q. / Knowable Magazine

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

Robert Lodder sends Lexington tourism data ad into space at evening launch event with horses in background
Technology

Lexington, Kentucky sent a tourism ad to ‘extraterrestrials’ with a DIY laser rig

By Andrew Paul

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