It is amazing that some animals can stay underwater for hours or even months without breathing, even though their bodies are not designed to do so. Fish get oxygen from water through their gills, but marine animals that breathe air need to make amazing changes to their bodies and behavior to live in the deep. ...
The universe has never looked this clear or this bright. The NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory sent out its first scientific pictures on June 23, 2025. These pictures gave people an unprecedented look at the universe, which is always changing. The biggest digital camera ever built took these early pictures. They are just a taste ...
Behind clouds of interstellar dust, a cosmic drama is playing out deep in the southern constellation of Chamaeleon. The Chamaeleon I dark cloud is one of the closest places to Earth where stars are born. It is only 550 light-years away. In this “stellar nursery,” newborn stars break through the darkness and light up huge ...
The San Andreas Fault isn’t just a crack in California’s crust; it’s a bomb that is going off. This tectonic boundary between the Pacific and North American plates runs for more than 800 miles (1,300 km) from the Salton Sea to Cape Mendocino. It has changed the shape of California’s land and its future in ...
For most of human history, the night sky has been a place where stars, planets, and faraway galaxies can be seen. But what was there before the first stars came to life? Was the universe full of light when it was young, or was it a dark void? The answer is much more interesting than ...
An ancient geological force has been quietly shaping the planet for millions of years deep beneath Oman’s rough terrain. Scientists have found a “ghost” plume, a column of hot rock rising from the Earth’s core. This plume may have been very important in changing the direction of the Indian tectonic plate when it crashed into ...
Picture this: you’re standing beside a familiar river that has flowed in the same direction for thousands of years, when suddenly the ground shakes violently beneath your feet. Within hours, something absolutely mind-boggling happens – the river starts flowing backward. This isn’t some fantasy tale or Hollywood movie plot. This is a real phenomenon that ...
In a remote village high in the Peruvian Andes, there is a 68-meter-long (224-foot) knotted cord that is the biggest of its kind ever found. Khipus were the Inca Empire’s advanced way of keeping records. They encoded everything from tax records to poetry. But researchers now think they might have something even more amazing: a ...
For a long time, science fiction has teased us with images of humanoid robots flying through the air like superheroes in comic books. That fantasy is getting closer to coming true now. The Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) has revealed iRonCub MK3, the first humanoid robot in the world that can take off vertically with ...
Hells Canyon, a winding cut through the American West, has kept its origins a geological mystery for hundreds of years. Scientists have been trying to figure out how this 1.5-mile-deep (2.4 km) chasm, carved by the Snake River, came to be for a long time. It runs through Oregon, Idaho, and Washington. How could the ...
