Galapagos Lava Heron is Distinct Bird Species, New Study Shows
Early Miocene Fossil Fills Gap in Ape Family Tree
CT Scans Solve Decades-Old Mystery of Triassic Cynodont
CERN Physicists Discover Heavier Cousin of Proton
New Species of Plant-Eating Dinosaur Unearthed in Korea
Ornithologists Identify Cryptic New Bird Species in Japan
By combining infrared observations from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope with visible-light imagery from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have produced new views of Saturn, revealing atmospheric bands, storms and brilliantly reflective rings. These Webb (left) and Hubble (right) images reveal Saturn in infrared and visible light. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / STScI /...
On its way to Jupiter, ESA’s Juice spacecraft briefly turned its gaze toward a rare interstellar visitor, 3I/ATLAS, capturing valuable data from an object born beyond our Solar System. This image of 3I/ATLAS was captured by the Navigation Camera (NavCam) onboard Juice in November 2025. Image credit: ESA / Juice / NavCam. 3I/ATLAS was first spotted on July 1, 2025, by the NASA-funded ATLAS survey...
Both the Tasmanian tiger (Thylacinus cynocephalus) and the Tasmanian devil (Sarcophilus harrisii) are believed to have become extinct on the Australian mainland about 3,000 years ago. However, until now there were only 23 known rock art depictions of the Tasmanian devil and about 150 Tasmanian tiger paintings and petroglyphs, mostly at rock art sites in northern Australia. Scientists have now uncovered...
Long thought to be fueled by increased atmospheric oxygen concentration, enormous griffinflies from the Carboniferous period, 300 million years ago, may have grown large for other reasons, according to new research led by University of Pretoria paleontologist Edward Snelling. Gigantic griffinfly in a Carboniferous forest. In the 1990s, scientists suggested a period of high atmospheric oxygen around...
The Galápagos lava heron, a small heron that stalks the lava-strewn shores of the Galápagos Islands, Ecuador, may finally have secured its place as a distinct species. The Galápagos lava heron (Butorides sundevalli). Image credit: Casey Klebba / CC BY-SA 4.0. The Galápagos lava heron, a slate-gray to black heron endemic to the Galápagos Islands, has long puzzled ornithologists. Some classified...
By probing supercooled water with ultrafast lasers before it crystallizes, physicists at Stockholm University observed telltale signs of a long-theorized transition between two liquid states, including surging heat capacity and critical fluctuations. You et al. studied supercooled water at timescales before ice formation by heating high- and low-density amorphous ices using infrared ultrafast laser...
New research suggests that vitamin D supplements can reshape how the immune system responds to gut bacteria in patients with inflammatory bowel disease, potentially nudging the body toward a more protective, less inflammatory state. The findings offer early clues toward therapies that restore immune tolerance rather than simply suppress symptoms. Gubatan et al. demonstrate that vitamin D promotes...
Scientists have extracted and analyzed DNA from 216 canid remains, including 181 from Paleolithic and Mesolithic Europe. The oldest data that they recovered are from a 14,200-year-old dog from the Kesslerloch site in Switzerland. Their results suggest that domesticated dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) predate farming and share deep ancestry with wolves (Canis lupus) from Eurasia, challenging ideas about...
By tracing magnetic signals preserved in 3.5-billion-year-old rocks in Western Australia, geoscientists have found the oldest direct evidence yet that parts of the planet’s outer shell were shifting across the globe, pushing the origins of plate motion deep into Earth’s early history. Hadean Earth. Image credit: Alec Brenner. “There has been a huge range of ages suggested for timing,” said...
Both the Tasmanian tiger (Thylacinus cynocephalus) and the Tasmanian devil (Sarcophilus harrisii) are believed to have become extinct on the Australian mainland about 3,000 years ago. However, until now there were only 23 known rock art depictions of the Tasmanian devil and about 150 Tasmanian tiger paintings and petroglyphs, mostly at rock art sites in northern Australia. Scientists have now uncovered...
