Keep up to date on the world of science with these selected links to online articles in a variety of disciplines, updated regularly.
***NEW FOR OCTOBER***
From Popular Mechanics:
These Ancient Drawings Have Been a Mystery for Decades. Scientists Just Discovered Hundreds More.
(Anthropology)
From Ars Technica:
We’re only beginning to understand the historic nature of Helene’s flooding
(Meteorology)
From Smithsonian:
Divers in Mexico’s Underwater Caves Get a Glimpse of Rarely Seen Artifacts, Fossils and Human Remains
(General Science)
From Scientific American:
Scientists Will Engineer the Ocean to Absorb More Carbon Dioxide
(Oceanography)
***ARCHIVE***
Agricultural Science
From Smithsonian Magazine:
The Nation’s Corn Belt Has Lost a Third of Its Topsoil
Anthropology
From Aeon:
Why Make Art in the dark?
From CNN:
Paleo diet? Study Reveals New Insight on What Stone Age Humans Really Ate
From Inverse:
One Extremely Human Quality May Help Explain Why Neanderthals Went Extinct
From Pocket:
Eight Billion People: How Different the World Would Look if Neanderthals Had Prevailed
From GoodNewsNetowrk:
Thousands of Years Ago, a Woman Underwent Two Surgeries to Her Head–and Survived Both Procedures
From Science News:
Human Footprints in New Mexico Really May Be Surprisingly Ancient, New Dating Shows
From Pocket:
Did Lead Poisoning Cause Downfall of Roman Empire? The Jury Is Still Out
From Nature:
Human Ancestors Nearly Went Extinct 900,000 Years Ago
From CNN:
Mysterious Species Buried Their Dead and Carved Symbols 100,000 Years Before Humans
From CNN:
Scientists have decoded the smell of Cleopatra’s perfume
From Aeon:
Children of the Ice Age
From The Conversation:
We Can Still See These Five Traces of Ancestor Species in All Human Bodies Today
From Aeon:
Finding the First Americans
From CNN:
Neanderthals Cooked Meals with Pulses 70,000 Years Ago
From The Guardian:
DNA of 13 Neanderthals Reveals ‘Exciting’ Snapshot of Ancient Community
From CNN:
Controversial Rock Art May Depict Extinct Giants of the Ice Age
From Pocket:
Genetics Spills Secrets From Neanderthals’ Lost History
From CNN:
Fossilized Footprints Show Humans Made It to North America Much Earlier Than First Thought
From Aeon:
Sheanderthal
From Smithsonian Magazine:
Who Invented the Alphabet?
From Smithsonian Magazine:
The Lost History of Yellowstone
From Pocket:
Did Prehistoric Women Hunt? New Research Suggests So
From Pocket:
How the Extinction of Ice Age Mammals May Have Forced Us to Invent Civilization
From Phys Org:
Scientists Present a Theory Explaining Why We’re the Only Humans on Earth
Archaeology
From The CNN:
Discovery of ‘Superhighways’ Suggests Early Mayan Civilization Was More Advanced Than Previously Thought
From CNN:
A 3,400-year-old City in Iraq Emerges from Underwater After an Extreme Drought
From The Guardian:
How Science is Uncovering the Secrets of Stonehenge
From ScienceAlert:
Mysterious Vanishing of Advanced Chinese Civilization 4,000 Years Ago Finally Solved
From Pocket:
New Evidence Supports Idea that America’s First Civilization was Made Up of ‘Sophisticated’ Engineers
From Pocket:
Archaeologists Have a Lot of Dates Wrong for North American Indigenous History
From Pocket:
The Mysterious Bronze Objects that Have Baffled Archaeologists for Centuries
Astronomy
From Ars Technica:
An asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs, not a comet, new study finds
From NPR:
Never Seen an Exploding Star? This Year, You’ll Have Your Chance
From Vox:
The Total Solar Eclipse is Returning to the United States — Better Than Before
From Scientific American:
NASA’s New Asteroid Sample Is Already Rewriting Solar System History
From CNN:
How Ancient Texts Can Shed Light on Auroras
From CNN:
Astronomers Make Unprecedented Discovery in Search for Water in Space
From Mashable:
The Webb telescope just looked inside our galaxy’s core. It’s wild.
From space/com:
The Moon May Be 40 Million Years Older Than We Thought, Apollo 17 Samples Suggest
From space.com:
NASA Opens OSIRIS-REx’s Asteroid-Sample Cannister
From Phys.Org:
If Earth Were an Exoplanet, JWST Would Know There’s an Intelligent Civilization Here
From Gizmodo:
NASA’s Perseverance Rover Finds Preserved Organic Molecules on Mars
From AP:
Scientists Have Finally ‘Heard’ the Chorus of Gravitational Waves that Ripple Through the Universe
From Pocket:
The Romantic Venus We Never Knew
From Nautilus:
Astronomers Dig Up the Stars That Birthed the Milky Way
From Nautilus:
Giant Zombie Atoms of the Cosmos
From space.com:
Evidence of Ancient Mars Ocean Increases Probability of Past Life
From NASA:
NASA’s DART Mission Hits Asteroid in First-Ever Planetary Defense Test
From space.com:
Did a Second Killer Asteroid Finish the Dinosaurs Off?
From space.com:
James Webb Space Telescope: An Astronomer Explains the Stunning, Newly Released 1st Images
From UChicago News:
Scientists Release First Analysis of Rocks Plucked from Speeding Asteroid
From CNN:
Enormous Comet Has Entered Our Inner Solar System
From The Atlantic:
We Don’t Know Neptune at All
From Chicago News:
Astronomers reveal first image of the black hole at the heart of our galaxy
From Quanta Magazine:
Secrets of the Moon’s Permanent Shadows Are Coming to Light
From UChicago News:
How the Earth and Moon Formed, Explained
From Quantamagazine:
The Webb Space Telescope Will Rewrite Cosmic History. If It Works.
From Nautilus:
Where Aliens Could Be Watching Us
From LiveScience:
How Fast is Earth Moving?
From UChicago News:
The Solar Wind, Explained
From space.com:
Potentially Habitable Exoplanet Candidate Spotted Around Alpha Centauri A in Earth’s Backyard
From Pocket:
Astronomers Creep Up to the Edge of the Milky Way’s Black Hole
From space.com:
More than half of all sunlike stars in the Milky Way may have a habitable planet
From Pocket:
The Sun Is Stranger Than Astrophysicists Imagined
From CNN:
Andromeda Galaxy’s ‘Halo’ is Nudging the Milky Way
From space.com:
Satellite Megaconstellations Could Have ‘Extreme’ Impact on Astronomy, Report Finds
From Pocket:
Our Solar System Is Even Stranger Than We Thought
From MSU:
MSU Astrophysicists Study Mystery Object Through Gravitational Waves
From Sky & Telescope:
Potential Biosignature Found in Venus’s Clouds
Biology
From Science Alert:
Your Genes May Influence Your Behavior More Than You Realize
From The Washington Post:
How did life on Earth begin? The chemical puzzle just became clearer.
From Nautilus:
The Thoughts of a Spiderweb
From Pocket:
How a Guy From a Montana Trailer Park Overturned 150 Years of Biology
From CNN:
Meet the Man Who Has Transformed our Understanding of Evolution
From Quanta Magazine:
Why Extraterrestrial Life May Not Seem Entirely Alien
From Science:
Breeders Toughen Up Bees to Resist Deadly Mites
From CNN:
How Mosquitoes Evolved to be Attracted to Humans, and What that Means for the Future
From Science:
Pools in the Mexican Desert are a Window into Earth’s Early Life
Botany
From NPR:
‘It feels like I’m not crazy.’ Gardeners Aren’t Surprised as USDA Updates Key Map
From The Conversation:
The Amazing System Plants Use to Shape Their Roots and Why It Could Help Protect Crops From Climate Change
From Phys.Org:
Invasive Plant Species are Increasing Exponentially, But No One Knows How Many Species There Are
From NASA:
NASA Data on Plant ‘Sweating’ Could Help Predict Wildfire Severity
From Science Daily:
Plants Evolved Complexity in Two Bursts — with a 250-Million-Year Hiatus
From Pocket:
A 16-Million-Year-Old Tree Tells a Deep Story of the Passage of Time
Chemistry
From Science News:
Chemists are Reimagining Recycling to Keep Plastics Out of Landfills
From Chemistry World:
The Complexity of Fire
From Scientific American:
One Mystery of Stonehenge’s Origins Has Finally Been Solved
Climate Science
From Vox:
Our most meaningful solutions to the climate crisis are hidden in plain sight
From Salon:
Will Earth Hit a Climate “Tipping Point?” Here’s Why Experts Say this Framework is Problematic
From Vox:
The Earth is Getting Greener. Hurray?
From Axios:
Earth is Hurtling Toward Nearly 3°C of Warming: Report
From CNN:
New Maps Show Where Snowfall is Disappearing
From The Guardian:
Rapid Ice Melt in West Antarctica Now Inevitable, Research Shows
From The Guardian:
‘Gobsmackingly Bananas’: Scientists Stunned by Planet’s Record September Heat
From The Conversation:
Is it really hotter now than any time in 100,000 years?
From Quartz:
The World Just Recorded its Hottest Day Ever
From Scientific American:
Why Is the Amazon So Important for Climate Change?
From space.com:
Greenland’s Glaciers are Melting 100 Times Faster than Estimated
From space.com:
Rising Sea Levels Could Swamp the US Coastline by 2050, NASA Predicts
From Pocket:
Greenland Ice Losses Set to Raise Global Sea Levels by Nearly a Foot, New Research Shows
From Pocket:
How the Speed of Climate Change Is Unbalancing the Insect World
From Science News:
A UN Report Shows Climate Change’s Escalating Toll on People and Nature
From NASA:
Sea Level to Rise up to a Foot by 2050, Interagency Report Finds
From MIT Technology Review:
The Rare Spots of Good News on Climate Change
From CNN:
The Arctic Ocean Began Warming Decades Earlier than Peviously Thought, New Research Shows
From IPCC:
Climate change widespread, rapid, and intensifying – IPCC
From LiveScience:
10 Signs That Earth’s Climate Is Off the Rails
From space.com:
Earth is Trapping Twice as Much Heat as it did in 2005
From NASA:
Direct Observations Confirm that Humans are Throwing Earth’s Energy Budget off Balance
From space.com:
Seas Will Likely Rise Even Faster Than Worst-Case Scenarios Predicted by Climate Models
From LiveScience:
Why Do Deserts Get So Cold at Night?
From space.com:
Scientists Solve a Major Climate Mystery, Confirming Earth is Hotter than It’s Been in at Least 120 Centuries
From space.com:
We’ve Already Blown Past the Warming Targets Set by the Paris Climate Agreement, Study Finds
From Pocket:
An Icy Conquest
From Pocket:
A World Without Clouds
From The Ohio State University:
Warming Greenland Ice Sheet Passes Point of No Return
From ProPublica:
New Climate Maps Show a Transformed United States
Cosmology
From space.com:
Unexpected Cosmic Clumping Could Disprove Our Best Understanding of the Universe
From space.com:
How Big is the Universe?
From space.com:
Is There Really a ‘Crisis’ in Cosmology?
From space.com:
Dark Matter Could be Made of Black Holes from the Beginning of Time
From space.com:
Mysterious ‘Kick’ Just After the Big Bang May have Created Dark Matter
From Quanta Magazine:
How to Understand the Universe When You’re Stuck Inside of It
From Pocket:
Bizarre ‘Dark Fluid’ With Negative Mass Could Dominate the Universe
From Sky & Telescope:
New 3D Map of the Universe — and a Growing Cosmological Debate
From Quantamagazine:
A New Cosmic Tension: The Universe Might Be Too Thin
Entomology
From Vox:
A Rare Burst of Billions of Cicadas Will Rewire our Ecosystems for Years to Come
From Scroll.in:
From a Revered Ancient Egyptian Symbol to AI Inspiration, the Click Beetle Continues to Fascinate
From NPR:
Mosquitoes Surprise Researcher with Their ‘Weird’ Sense of Smell
From Pocket:
How Does a Caterpillar Turn into a Butterfly?
Food Science
From Pocket:
The Science Behind Honey’s Eternal Shelf Life
Geology
From ScienceAlert:
There’s a Change Happening to Earth’s Outer Core, as Revealed by Seismic Wave Data
From Live Science:
Two Giant Blobs in Earth’s Mantle May Explain Africa’s Weird Geology
From space.com:
Earth’s Crust is Way, Way Older Than We Thought
From USGS:
Just How Long has the Yellowstone Hotspot been Around?
From space.com:
Earth Spent 500 Million Years Creating and Eating Dead Continents
From Knowable Magazine:
The Origin of Mud
From Science:
Ancient Earth Rock Found on the Moon
From Space.com
How did Earth Crack? New Study May Explain Origins of Plate Tectonics on our Planet.
Geoscience
From LiveScience:
Columbia, Rodinia and Pangaea: A history of Earth’s supercontinents
From space.com:
Ten Dramatic Discoveries about Earth from 2023
From CNN:
They Went Hunting for Fossil Fuels. What They Found Could Help Save the World
From ScienceNewsExplores:
A Volcanic Eruption Sparked the Highest Lightning Ever Seen
From Pocket:
The Length of Earth’s Days Has Been Mysteriously Increasing, and Scientists Don’t Know Why
From Nature:
Has Earth’s Inner Core Stopped Its Strange Spin?
From The Guardian:
The Anthropocene Epoch: Have We Entered a New Phase of Planetary History?
From ScienceAlert:
We May Have Seriously Underestimated How Hostile Conditions on Early Earth Were
From Pocket:
Earth Has a 27.5-Million-Year ‘Heartbeat’, But We Don’t Know What Causes It
From LiveScience:
The Five Mass Extinction Events that Shaped the History of Earth — and the Sixth that’s Happening Now
From BBC:
How Cities Will Fossilize
From space.com:
Earth nearly lost all its oxygen 2.3 billion years ago
Mathematics
From Quanta Magazine:
How Math Has Changed the Shape of Gerrymandering
From Pocket:
Why Mathematicians Can’t Find the Hay in a Haystack
From Quanta Magazine:
Scientists Uncover the Universal Geometry of Geology
Medicine
From The Guardian:
Microplastics are infiltrating brain tissue, studies show: ‘There’s nowhere left untouched’
From Ars Technica:
US prepares for bird flu pandemic with $176M Moderna vaccine deal
From CNN:
Scientists Have Finally Decoded Mysteries of the Y Chromosome. Here’s Why It Matters
From Pocket:
How Evolution Helps Us Understand and Treat Cancer
From CNN Health:
Scientists Say They Have Nailed Down the Ideal Amount of Sleep in Middle and Old Age
From CNN:
Ancient Case of Disease Spillover Discovered in Neanderthal Man Who Got Sick Butchering Raw Meat
From The Washington Post:
How the Hunt for this Deadly Virus Shaped the Search for Coronavirus’s Origins
From Interesting Engineering:
Researchers Fix Cholesterol in Monkeys Through CRISPR Gene Editing
From The New York Times:
What Do Vaccine Efficacy Numbers Actually Mean?
From Duke University:
Duke Researcher Busts Metabolism Myths in New Book
From New York Times:
Opinion: The Secret Life of a Coronavirus
From The Conversation:
End of Ageing and Cancer? Scientists Unveil Structure of the ‘Immortality’ Enzyme Telomerase
From Scientific American:
Governments Worldwide Consider Ditching Daylight Saving Time
From Wired:
A Zombie Gene Protects Elephants from Cancer
From Scientific American:
A Visual Guide to the SARS-CoV-2 Coronavirus – What scientists know about the inner workings of the pathogen that has infected the world
From Gizmodo:
Bacteria Found in Nuclear Reactors Could Be the Secret to Faster, Cheaper Vaccines
From Yellowstone Public Radio:
MSU Researcher Says Confirmed COVID-19 Cases Were Tip Of Iceberg
Meteorology
From Fast Company:
Hurricane Beryl becomes the earliest Category 5 on record. Here’s why its intensification. Is alarming.
From Popular Mechanics:
What You Need to Know About How Tornadoes Form
From The Conversation:
What is a Derecho? An Atmospheric Scientist Explains these Rare but Dangerous Storm Systems
Microbiology
From Science News:
Recent Microbial Discoveries are Changing our View of Life on Earth
Neuroscience
From Quanta Magazine:
Why the Human Brain Perceives Small Numbers Better
From The Guardian:
Study Reveals Striking Differences in Brains of Modern Humans and Neanderthals
From Pocket:
Why Can’t You Remember Being Born, Learning to Walk or Saying Your First Words?
From ScienceAlert:
Scientists Have Finally Discovered Why The Brain Consumes So Much Energy, Even at Rest
From Pocket:
Scientists Say Your “Mind” Isn’t Confined to Your Brain, or Even Your Body
(Neuroscience)
From space.com:
Brains Might Sync As People Interact — and That Could Upend Consciousness Research
From Time Magazine:
Why Do We Dream? A New Theory on How It Protects Our Brains
Oceanography
From Popular Mechanics:
4,000 Meters Below Sea Level, Scientists Have Found the Spectacular ‘Dark Oxygen’
From Vox:
Seven Ocean Mysteries Scientists Haven’t Solved Yet
Ornithology
From Audubon:
Why Do Hummingbirds Fight So Much?
From Audubon:
As Spring Shifts Earlier, Many Migrating Birds Are Struggling to Keep Up
From Pocket:
Crows Are Self-Aware and ‘Know What They Know,’ Just Like Humans
From Audubon:
Do Migrating Birds Take the Same Routes in Spring and Fall?
From Pocket:
Birds Sing to Their Eggs, and This Song Might Help Their Babies Survive Climate Change
From George Bumann’s Blog:
To Catch a Raven
From The Conversation/Pocket:
How Did the World’s Smallest Flightless Bird Get to Inaccessible Island?
From NPR:
The Evolutionary History of Penguins Is Far From Black And White
From Pocket:
A Parliament of Owls
Paleobotany
From ScienceAlert:
A Newly Discovered Fossil Could Be The Answer to Darwin’s ‘Abominable’ Mystery
Paleontology
From PhysOrg:
Novel Technique Uncovers Clues to Disappearance of North America’s Large Mammals 50,000 Years Ago
From Gizmodo:
Massive Extinct Whale May Be the Heaviest Animal Ever
From CNN:
Scientists Find New Clue in What Led to Megalodon’s Demise
From The New York Times:
A Saber-Toothed Predator from Long Before Evolution Came Up With Cats
From Hakai:
The Lion, the Land Bridge, and the New World
From Pocket:
The Story of Charles Willson Peale’s Massive Mastodon
From Smithsonian Magazine:
Five Fascinating Ice Age Finds Discovered in Yukon Permafrost
From Pocket:
How Dinosaurs Thrived in the Snow
From Pocket:
We Still Don’t Know Why the Reign of the Dinosaurs Ended
From Nautilus:
T. Rex Was a Slacker
From Science (AAAS):
How many T. rexes were there? Billions.
From Science:
Mammoth Molars Yield the Oldest DNA Ever Sequenced
From Quanta Magazine:
Fossil Discoveries Challenge Ideas About Earth’s Start
From Pocket:
The Brontosaurus Is Back
From Wired:
How to Outrun a Dinosaur
From Wired:
Paleontologists Are Trying to Understand Why the Fossil Record Is Mostly Males
From Pocket:
Why Does the U.S. Army Own So Many Fossils?
Physics
From Wired:
The Hunt for Ultralight Dark Matter
From Pocket:
100 Years Ago, a Quantum Experiment Explained Why We Don’t Fall through Our Chairs
From Newsweek:
Near-Unlimited Energy a Step Closer As Scientists Overcome Fusion Problem
From Axios:
Scientists Propose a “Missing Law” for Evolution in the Universe
From The Conversation:
What is an Attosecond? A Physical Chemist Explains the Tiny Time Scale Behind Nobel Prize-Winning Research
From The Guardian:
Scientists May Be On Brink of Discovering Fifth Force of Nature
From Quanta Magazine:
Inside the Proton, the ‘Most Complicated Thing You Could Possibly Imagine’
From Big Think:
The Five Greatest Puzzles in Fundamental Physics
From Big Think:
Quantum Entanglement Wins 2022’s Nobel Prize in Physics
From space.com:
Why is Gravity So Weak? The Answer May Lie in the Very Nature of Space-Time
From space.com:
Higgs Boson: The ‘God Particle’ Explained
From CNN:
Bottling the Sun
From space.com:
Life As We Know It Would Not Exist Without This Highly Unusual Number
From Wired:
The Physics of the N95 Face Mask
From space.com:
Twisted Light from the Beginning of Time Could Reveal Brand-New Physics
From Quanta Magazine:
Dark Energy May Be Incompatible With String Theory
From Quantamagazine:
Why Gravity Is Not Like the Other Forces
From Space.com:
The Universe’s Clock Might have Bigger Ticks than We Imagine
From Pocket:
What Does Quantum Theory Actually Tell Us about Reality?
Science – General
From Undark:
People Hate Daylight Saving. Science Tells Us Why.
From Mental Floss:
Fifteen of History’s Greatest Mysteries
From The Guardian:
Empire of Dust: What the Tiniest Specks Reveal About the World
From Scientific American:
Who Invented the Measurement of Time?
From Engadget:
Hitting the Books: How 20th Century Science Unmade Newton’s Universe
From AuNews:
The World Has Reached 8 Billion People — But Soon We’ll Hit a Decline We’ll Never Reverse
From Space.com:
An Asteroid and Volcano ‘Double Punch’ Doomed the Dinosaurs, Study Suggests
From SciencAlert:
The 6th Mass Extinction Really Has Begun, Scientists Warn in Newly Published Study
From Vox:
Eleven Epic Mysteries Scientists Totally Can’t Solve
Space Science
From space.com:
Why Haven’t Aliens Contacted Earth? New Fermi Paradox Analysis Suggests We’re Not That Interesting Yet
From Nautilus:
If Aliens Exist, Here’s How We’ll Find Them
Technology
From Pocket:
The Most Important Computer You’ve Never Heard Of
From Quanta:
Data Compression Drives the Internet. Here’s How It Works.
From CNN:
Nuclear Fusion: How Long Until This Breakthrough Discovery Can Power Your House
From Vox:
We Have a Genuine Fusion Energy Breakthrough
From ScienceAlert:
Scientists Find a Simple Way to Produce Hydrogen From Water at Room Temperature
From Pocket:
How a Handful of Prehistoric Geniuses Launched Humanity’s Technological Revolution
From CNN:
World’s First Living Robots Can Now Reproduce, Scientists Say
From Quantamagazine:
The Uselessness of Useful Knowledge
From The Guardian:
Scientists May Have Solved Ancient Mystery of ‘First Computer’
From Quanta Magazine:
How Claude Shannon Invented the Future
Zoology
From Smithsonian Magazine:
Ancient DNA Unravels the Mysteries of the Dingo, Australia’s Wild Dog
From Discover:
100 Million Years Ago, Snakes Gained Their Most Iconic Traits
From Pocket:
Why Whales Got So Big
From Pocket:
How to Outrun a Dinosaur
From Science:
What Are Farm Animals Thinking?
From Nautilus:
The Mystery of the Largest Light in the Sea
From Gizmodo:
A Massive Project Is Helping Scientists Unravel the Genetic Secrets of Mammals
From BBC:
Why Giant Prehistoric Animals Got Smaller
From CNN:
‘Mind control’ by Parasites Influences Wolf-Pack Dynamics in Yellowstone National Park
From The Atlantic:
How Animals Perceive the World
From Pocket:
Eight Facts About the Animals of Chernobyl
From Pocket:
Why Whales Got So Big
From The Wildlife Society:
The Synergistic Relationship Between Bats and Prairie Dogs
From Pocket:
Why Bats Are One of Evolution’s Greatest Puzzles
From Pocket:
The Ocean’s Largest Mystery—Why Has No One Seen a Whale Shark Give Birth?
From Science (AAAS):
Team recovers ancient genomes from dirt, revealing new history of North America’s bears
From Science:
The Legendary Dire Wolf May Not have Been a Wolf At All
From Science:
Urban Foxes May be Self-domesticating in our Midst