Science

The ocean floor is famously less explored than the surface of Mars. And when our team of scientists recently mapped the seabed, and ancient sediments beneath, we discovered what looks like an asteroid impact crater.

Intriguingly, the crater, named “Nadir” after the nearby volcano Nadir Seamount, is of the same age as the Chicxulub impact caused by a huge asteroid at the end of the Cretaceous period, around 66 million years ago, which wiped out the dinosaurs and many other species.

In a new 3D modeling study published this week in Science Advances, we show that the giant extinct shark, Otodus megalodon, was a true globetrotting super-predator.

It was capable of covering vast distances in short order, and could eat the largest of modern living super-predators, the killer whale, in five gargantuan bites. It could have swallowed a great white shark whole.

Sitting outside on a summer evening always sounds relaxing until flies and mosquitoes arrive – then the swatting begins. Despite their minuscule eyes and a brain roughly 1 million times smaller than yours, flies can evade almost every swat.

Flies can thank their fast, sophisticated eyesight and some neural quirks for their ability to escape swats with such speed and agility.

We often think of astronomy as a visual science with beautiful images of the universe. However, astronomers use a wide range of analysis tools beyond images to understand nature at a deeper level.

Data sonification is the process of converting data into sound. It has powerful applications in research, education and outreach, and also enables blind and visually impaired communities to understand plots, images and other data.

Water may have been brought to Earth by asteroids from the outer edges of the solar system, scientists said after analyzing rare samples collected on a six-year Japanese space mission.

In a quest to shed light on the origins of life and the formation of the universe, researchers are scrutinizing material brought back to earth in 2020 from the asteroid Ryugu.

When you hear about the gut microbiome, does it ever make you wonder what tiny creatures are teeming inside your own body? As a microbiologist who studies the microbiomes of plants, animals and people, I’ve watched public interest in gut microbes grow alongside research on their possible dramatic influence on human health. In the past several years, microbiome testing techniques used by researchers like me are now available to consumers at home. These personal gut microbiome testing kits claim to tell you what organisms live in your gut and how to improve your gut microbiome using that data.

I became very interested in how these home test kits work, what kind of information they provide and whether they can really help you change your gut microbiome. So I ordered a few kits from Viome, Biohm and Floré, tried them out and sifted through my own microbiome data. Here is what I learned.

In the early 1990s, British neuroscientist Karl Friston was poring over brain scans. The scans produced terabytes of digital output, and Friston had to find new techniques to sort and classify the massive flows of data.

Along the way he had a revelation. The techniques he was using might be similar to what the brain itself was doing when it processed visual data.

Most people don’t realize how hard it is to be a butterfly. They live in a dangerous world, facing environmental challenges like habitat loss and climate change. They also have to contend with predators, including birds, wasps and dragonflies.

But butterflies are much tougher than they look. Some, like monarchs, store toxins in their bodies from milkweed, and even advertise this fact with their bright coloration. Other species have wings that are flashy on top but dull underneath, allowing them to switch between brilliance and near-invisibility as needed.

Rick LaBrode has worked at NASA for 37 years, but he says the American quest to return to the Moon is by far the crowning moment of his career.

LaBrode is the lead flight director for Artemis 1, set to take off later this month -- the first time a capsule that can carry humans will be sent to the Moon since the last Apollo mission in 1972.

The history of whaling shows how humans have wreaked careless havoc on the ocean, but also how they can change course. In my new book, “Red Leviathan: The Secret History of Soviet Whaling,” I describe how the Soviet Union was central both to this deadly industry and to scientific research that helps us understand whales’ recovery.

A humpback whale breaches in Boston Harbor on Aug. 2, 2022. Whaling greatly reduced humpback whale numbers, but the species is recovering under international protection.

“Facts First” is the tagline of a CNN branding campaign which contends that “once facts are established, opinions can be formed.” The problem is that while it sounds logical, this appealing assertion is a fallacy not supported by research.

Cognitive psychology and neuroscience studies have found that the exact opposite is often true when it comes to politics: People form opinions based on emotions, such as fear, contempt and anger, rather than relying on facts. New facts often do not change people’s minds.

Migratory insects number in the trillions. They’re a major part of global ecosystems, helping to transport nutrients and pollen across continents – and often traveling thousands of kilometers in the process.

It had long been thought migrating insects largely go wherever the wind blows. But there’s mounting evidence they’re actually great navigators and can select favorable conditions to undertake their journeys.

Footprints laid down by Ice-Age hunter-gatherers and recently discovered in a US desert are shedding new light on North America's earliest human inhabitants.

Dozens of fossilized prints found in dried-up riverbeds in the western state of Utah reveal more details about how the continent's original occupants lived more than 12,000 years ago -- just as the frozen planet was starting to thaw.