Is it climate change, pollution, an unknown disease? A dedicated few are trying to crack the mystery. ABINGDON, VIRGINIA – To an untrained eye, the crystal waters of the Clinch River, which meanders southwest across the Virginia-Tennessee border, look clean…
This may just be the weirdest thing you’ve seen today! Thousands of these marine worms, called fat innkeeper worms—or “penis fish”—washed up on Drake’s Beach after a recent storm. 🌊 But why? pic.twitter.com/vGMpSvGoATDecember 11, 2019 Try not to be…
A newborn panda cub in an incubator at Chongqing Zoo, China on June 23, 2019. Newborn giant pandas are tiny compared to their moms. Giant panda babies are born weirdly tiny and underdeveloped. No one knows why, and the major…
The Cullinan diamond was mined in Premier Mine in South Africa in 1905. The same mine has yielded superdeep diamonds, which could hold secrets to the quakes occurring in the mantle’s transition zone. SAN FRANCISCO — Deep under Earth’s surface,…
Scientists analyzed ancient proteins in fossils from the enormous primate Gigantopithecus to identify its closest living relative. The mythical and elusive “Bigfoot” is a creature of legend, but for millions of years, the original Bigfoot — a shaggy, bipedal ape…
Life restoration of Fukuipteryx prima. Around 120 million years ago, a bird about the size of a pigeon fluttered through Cretaceous forests in what is now Japan. The newly discovered fossil, preserved in three dimensions, is the first primitive Cretaceous…
Narwhal the puppy appears to have a tail protruding out of his face. But what makes up this “tail”? This puppy may not be quite as unique as a unicorn, but he’s close: The pint-sized pup appears to have a…
This wild cow was the first found roaming North Carolina’s outer banks, having likely swam miles to get there. Three cows that were swept out to sea after Hurricane Dorian hit their home on Cedar Island in North Carolina were…
When your dog’s big, pleading eyes look up at you, is it with old-age wisdom or teenage naiveté? Researchers came up with a new equation to calculate your dog’s age in human years. And the math isn’t as simple as…
This life restoration shows the snake Najash rionegrina moving through the dunes of the Kokorkom desert that extended across Río Negro (in Northern Patagonia), Argentina, during the Late Cretaceous (100 million years ago). On very rare occasions, an exceptional fossil…
Evolutionary scientists have been thinking about same-sex sexual behavior all wrong. That’s the implication of a new study on same-sex behavior in animals. Instead of asking why animals engage in same-sex behavior (SSB), researchers should be asking, “Why not?” the…
The erythrosuchid species Garjainia madiba, illustrated here, was native to South Africa. Millions of years before the dinosaurs, tank-like predators that looked like Komodo dragons with absurdly huge heads roamed the planet. And it turned out that these reptiles, known…