Earth & Life
California almonds need even more water than the viral claim suggested
A viral statistic about California almonds turned out to be true—and worse than anyone thought.
Science & Engineering
Germany's insect census reveals 32,000 species mostly unknown to science
Germany's insect census reveals a hidden world: nearly 32,000 species may exist in the country, but science has barely begun to catalog them.
Science & Engineering
Scientists struggle to save species with only two rhinos left alive
Thirty-nine pure northern white rhino embryos have been produced, and as of April 2026 six of them had gone into southern white rhino surrogates in Kenya without producing a lasting pregnancy. Every recent egg collection has come from one animal, a 26-year-old female called Fatu.
Earth & Life
Windows kill far more birds annually than wind turbines ever could
The debate over wind turbines' impact on birds rests on a false comparison—one that obscures a far deadlier culprit hiding in plain sight.
Science & Engineering
Vibrating truck reveals hidden rock layer 2.4 miles beneath Yellowstone
What lies beneath Yellowstone's surface—and how close is the molten rock to breaking through?
Science & Engineering
Neutron star collision reveals constraints on dark matter particles
Physicist Bhupal Dev and colleagues have used the multi-year record of GW170817 — the 2017 neutron star merger seen in both gravitational waves and light — to tighten bounds on axion-like particles, treating the hot post-collision remnant as a natural forge for dark matter candidates.
Science & Engineering
Scientists revived viruses frozen for 48,500 years, but only studied ones that infect amoebae
Scientists resurrected viruses frozen for 48,500 years, but deliberately chose to study only those that infect single-celled organisms—a safety decision that reveals how researchers navigate the ethics of reviving ancient pathogens.
Earth & Life
Robot submarine hunting toxic waste finds 700-year-old ghost ship instead
What should have been a routine hunt for toxic waste instead unveiled a medieval ghost ship sealed in the depths for centuries.
Science & Engineering
Humpbacks sang louder in Monterey Canyon as blue whales went silent after heat wave
A single hydrophone bolted to the seafloor of Monterey Bay has produced six years of near-continuous acoustic data on baleen whale behavior, and the sound it…
Earth & Life
Snow leopards roam territories far larger than scientists thought
The invisible borders humans draw for wildlife mean nothing to snow leopards—and conservation maps built on guesswork are proving dangerously wrong.
Earth & Life
Antarctica's ice sheet surged with record snowfall linked to tropical warming
A Nature study links an exceptional Antarctic mass gain to tropical warmth that redirected moisture towards East Antarctica, temporarily interrupting a longer-term decline.
Science & Engineering
Ancient date seeds from Masada sprouted after sitting dormant for two millennia
Seven ancient Judean date seeds have been germinated and genotyped. That the seeds grew is not what the one critic to respond on the paper's own page contests. What he questions is whether the radiocarbon dates record when they grew.
Science & Engineering
Drone counts reveal penguin colony collapse in Antarctica over three decades
A thriving penguin colony that once numbered nearly 90,000 has collapsed to half its size, offering a grim snapshot of how rapidly Antarctic ecosystems are unraveling.
Science & Engineering
VR space station made sweet smells even sweeter, contradicting astronaut complaints
Fifty-four volunteers sniffed vanilla, almond and lemon inside a VR reconstruction of the ISS. The two sweet smells came through stronger in the simulated spacecraft — the opposite of what astronaut complaints about bland food would predict.
Science & Engineering
Six decades of shipping logs reveal earliest plastic pollution in the North Atlantic
An accidental archive of ocean plastic emerged from six decades of maintenance logs kept by technicians who were simply noting when a plankton-sampling device malfunctioned.
Earth & Life
Bald eagles nest beside launch pads at Kennedy Space Center's hidden refuge
Kennedy’s undeveloped lands and lagoon waters support a refuge established in 1963. Eagle surveys, nest rescues and protection from launch-pad lighting show what managing the shared landscape involves.