1.9 million-year-old finding points to the earliest evidence of humans outside of Africa
When a stone sits on the Earth’s surface, cosmic rays quietly pepper it, leaving behind rare isotopes like…
Indigenous communities in southern Brazil hunted large whales 5,000 years ago
The first clue sits in a museum drawer, not on a windswept Arctic shore. It is a whale…
Why triceratops and other horned dinosaurs evolved such massive noses
The skull of Triceratops looks almost exaggerated, as if someone enlarged the front half without adjusting the rest.…
MIT scientists create pill capsule sensor to help doctors track missed doses
Missing a dose can feel small in the moment. But in transplant care, HIV, tuberculosis, and many heart…
773,000-year-old Moroccan cave fossils reveal human and neandertal evolutionary split
A set of ancient human fossils found on Morocco’s Atlantic coast now sits on one of the tightest…
New study uncovers the formative conditions that made Io dry and Europa watery
A moon can sit next door to another and still feel like a different world. Around Jupiter, that…
Scientists reveal how quantum electron spin can create magnetism
At the smallest scales of matter, nature behaves in ways that feel almost counterintuitive. Individual particles follow simple…
Event Horizon Telescope captures magnetic turbulence flickering at the edge of black hole M87*
For a few brief nights each year, you get a rare chance to watch a monster blink. The…
Simple amino acid in saliva could help you keep that beautiful smile
Morning routines can feel small until you picture what happens right after breakfast. Sugar hits your mouth. Bacteria…
Study finds microbes used oxygen far earlier than scientists thought
Oxygen fills the air today, but for most of Earth’s early history it barely existed. Scientists say the…
Scientists create the first global map of rare, deep-mantle earthquakes
Stanford University researchers have pulled back a curtain on a hidden part of Earth that rarely makes headlines.…
The surprising role of baby dinosaurs within the Jurassic food chain
About 150 million years ago, the land that is now the western United States was alive with dinosaurs.…