1+ hour, 3+ min ago  (876+ words) Behind the tidy skeletons in a natural history display sits a messy job. Getting animal bones clean, without cracking or warping them, has frustrated museum staff for generations. New research now suggests that the larvae of darkling beetles, known as…...

18+ hour, 17+ min ago  (719+ words) Today's Image of the Day from NASA Earth Observatory shows the enormous burn scar left by Utah's Cottonwood fire. Wildfire season arrived early across parts of the western United States this year, and the warning signs had been building for…...

17+ hour, 2+ min ago  (624+ words) Every human body carries more bacteria than there are stars in the Milky Way. They coat our skin, line our noses, and swarm through our guts. Scientists who study them say almost no biological process runs without them. Yet most…...

18+ hour, 1+ min ago  (1072+ words) The extinct human relative, Homo floresiensis, nicknamed the "hobbit," did not hunt big game or cook its food over fire, according to a new study. Instead, it fed on the raw remains that Komodo dragons left behind after killing large…...

19+ hour, 49+ min ago  (971+ words) Picture a single seed landing on a bare stretch of roadside, hundreds of miles from where its parent grew. There are no neighbors of its kind anywhere in sight. For most flowering plants, that is where the story ends. A…...

19+ hour, 10+ min ago  (949+ words) Coyotes have become a familiar sight in cities across North America, yet attacks on people remain remarkably rare. When dozens of people were bitten or scratched in Vancouver's Stanley Park during the pandemic, researchers wanted to understand what had changed....

21+ hour, 19+ min ago  (1006+ words) For decades, fire crews and foresters in Canada have shared a piece of hard-won wisdom. When a wildfire runs into a stand of aspen, it tends to lose its momentum. That reputation earned aspen a memorable nickname, the asbestos forest....

1+ day, 32+ min ago  (895+ words) When an ant is injured, another worker quickly steps in to provide care. Surprisingly, the caregiver is not chosen because of experience or training, but because its daily routine makes it more likely to cross paths with the injured nestmate....

19+ hour, 27+ min ago  (763+ words) The search for life beyond Earth has always been full of surprises. Strange radio signals have sparked excitement. Odd gases on distant worlds have raised questions. Even ordinary objects have been mistaken for UFOs. Time and again, scientists have had…...

20+ hour, 52+ min ago  (985+ words) The human immune system relies on a protein that acts like an alarm, springing into action the moment a virus invades. Scientists expected to find the same strategy in one of our oldest animal relatives, the sea anemone. Instead, they…...