A bug’s life was cut short when it met its doom, twice, 100 million years ago
To humans, ticks are vile little creatures that do little but annoy and at times cause pain. You’ve probably never felt sorry for one of …
Science
If you get ‘hangry’ when you’re hungry it might be in your DNA
When it comes to hunger, there’s two types of people. Some just get hungry, maybe a little bit sad that there’s no food around, and …
Russia wants to zap space junk with a huge frickin’ laser
Space junk is a big problem. The amount of trash floating around in Earth orbit has gradually piled up over the decades and we’ve now …
The Martian dust storm engulfing the Opportunity rover is so intense NASA is holding a conference – watch live here
It’s only been a few days since NASA held a highly-anticipated press briefing to tell the world that it found organic compounds on Mars that …
Here’s what NASA’s Opportunity rover saw as it was swallowed up by the Martian dust storm
Things are not looking great for NASA’s Opportunity rover on Mars. The rover, which is nearing its 15th year, is currently stuck in a fierce …
The Apollo landings actually made the Moon warmer, but not in the way you’re imagining
It’s common knowledge that mankind has caused the dramatic warming of the Earth — nobody besides conspiracy nuts and politicians looking for contributions from energy …
Woman with vial of Moon dust is proactively suing NASA to prevent its seizure
It should go without saying, but material from the Moon is pretty rare here on Earth. The Apollo astronauts brought a whole bunch of lunar …
Astronomers discover that the Sun has to deal with shrinkage
The Sun is big. By volume, the Sun could fit roughly 1.3 million Earths inside of it, but new research suggests that our friendly star …
Salmonella outbreak hits pre-cut melons just in time for summer
In news that is sure to strike fear in the heart of fruit salad lovers everywhere, an outbreak of salmonella has been traced to pre-cut …
When we finally find aliens, we might find their garbage first
Searching for extraterrestrial civilizations isn’t easy or we’d probably have already found a few. Traveling to other star systems in search of aliens would obviously …
NASA’s Opportunity rover, caught in fierce Martian dust storm, sends message back home
With so much interest in what NASA’s Curiosity rover has been up to recently — with the whole “maybe finding evidence of life” and whatnot …
Astronomers spot a trio of Earth-sized planets orbiting a distant star
Humanity is going to have to leave Earth eventually. We’ve already messed up our planet pretty badly, and even if we don’t push the Earth …
Hailstorm sends American Airlines jet into plunge described as ‘five minutes of hell’
We’ve all seen the statistics that tell us how safe flying is. It’s safer than pretty much any kind of transportation, you’re more likely to …
Researcher discovers new shrimp species with furry feet, names it after Bilbo Baggins
You really have to respect scientists when it comes to the incredible amount of effort it must take to discover, identify, and categorize and entirely …
Paleontologists uncover oldest footprints ever, but they don’t know what made them
Fossilized remains of ancient creatures are pretty hard to find, but fossilized footprints are even harder. For a footprint to survive millions and millions of …
Scientists just discovered something very special about Jupiter’s lightning
Jupiter is a massive, swirling mass of towering storm clouds, and anyone who lives on Earth knows that storms are fantastic at producing lightning. When …
NASA reveals that it’s found organic molecules on Mars that may have come from life
Earlier this week NASA announced that it had something it wanted to tell us about Mars. Today, NASA scientists presented their findings in a pair …
Your dog could be a victim of the next influenza pandemic
Thanks to plenty of warnings from the medical community we’re all pretty familiar with the ability of influenza viruses to jump from other animals to …
How to stream NASA’s mysterious Mars announcement today
NASA regularly releases news, scientific papers, and new theories related to Mars, and typically it’s with very little fanfare. Scientists have lots of hardware working …
NASA’s New Horizons probe just woke back up
The last we heard of NASA’s New Horizons probe was when NASA released a set of photos taken at the farthest point any spacecraft has …
SpaceX forced to delay plans for first space tourism launch
Private spaceflight companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin have made some big promises when it comes to tourism in space. Eager (and very wealthy) astronaut …
Earth’s days used to be just 18 hours long, but the Moon changed that
If you’ve ever felt like there just aren’t enough hours in the day just be glad that you didn’t live on Earth 1.4 billion years …
NASA found something on Mars and it’s holding a press conference on Thursday to tell everyone
NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover has been on the Red Planet for a long, long time. Back in March it tallied its 2,000th Martian day, which …
Mythical ‘Planet 9’ might actually just be a bunch of very rude asteroids
Remember “Planet 9”? No I’m not talking about Pluto. That ship has sailed. I’m talking about the maybe-kinda-sorta hidden planet that might-kinda-maybe be lurking at …
Browse 20 years of Earth’s weather with NASA’s incredible Worldview tool
Whenever NASA shows off a stunning new image of Earth from space it’s fun to take a few minutes to soak in all the details. …
Skeleton of unidentified dinosaur sells for $2.36 million to private buyer, and scientists are ticked off
You’d think that once you find a nearly complete dinosaur skeleton most of the hard work would be behind you, but that wasn’t the case …
Teacher who fed a live puppy to a snapping turtle gets charged with animal cruelty
Science teachers don’t have it easy. They have to explain the workings of the animal kingdom to students in a straightforward and honest way, but …
Pint-sized asteroid spotted just hours before slamming into Earth’s atmosphere
Generally speaking, NASA has a pretty good idea of which asteroids are hanging out in Earth’s neighborhood. Astronomers have spotted, plotted, and forecasted asteroid flybys …
Dozens dead after volcano erupts in Guatemala
All eyes have been on Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano as it continues to pour molten rock from a number of fissures in the ground, but another …
NASA spacecraft captures evidence of frozen methane dunes on Pluto
Pluto might not be an official planet anymore but that doesn’t mean the frozen world is any less interesting from a scientific perspective. The dwarf …
