A newly identified ichthyosaur from the UK’s Jurassic Coast is rewriting part of the prehistoric playbook. Nicknamed the “Sword Dragon of Dorset,” the three-meter-long marine reptile lived during a poorly understood window of evolution when major ichthyosaur groups were disappearing and new ones emerging. Its beautifully preserved skeleton — complete...
Scientists engineer bacteria to eat cancer tumors from the inside out
Researchers are engineering bacteria to invade tumors and consume them from the inside. Because tumor cores lack oxygen, they’re the perfect breeding ground for these microbes. The team added a genetic tweak that helps the bacteria survive longer near oxygen-exposed edges — but only once enough of them are present...
Higher Water Levels Could Turn Cultivated Peatland in the North Into a CO2 Sink
A two year field experiment carried out in the world’s northernmost cultivated peatland, located in Pasvik in Finnmark, shows that greenhouse gas emissions can be greatly reduced by raising and maintaining the water table at 25–50 centimetres below the soil surface.
Long-Term Warming Transforms Mountain Meadows Above and Below Ground
In the longest-running field warming experiment of its kind, researchers have documented dramatic shifts in high-elevation mountain meadows, revealing that changes in climate alter not only the plants we can see above ground, but the invisible world of fungi and microbes in the soil below.
The “Grand Canyon” of the Atlantic
How a shifting plate boundary and hot mantle material formed one of the largest canyons in the ocean.
Schrödinger’s color theory finally completed after 100 years
A century after Erwin Schrödinger sketched out a bold vision for how we perceive color, scientists have finally filled in the missing pieces. A Los Alamos team used advanced geometry to show that hue, saturation, and lightness aren’t shaped by culture or experience — they’re built directly into the mathematical...
A hidden force beneath the Atlantic ripped open a 500 kilometer canyon
Far beneath the Atlantic Ocean, about 1,000 kilometers off Portugal’s coast, lies a colossal underwater canyon system that dwarfs even the Grand Canyon. Known as the King’s Trough Complex, this 500-kilometer stretch of trenches and deep basins formed not from rushing water, but from dramatic tectonic forces that once tore...
Cleaner wrasse show self awareness in stunning mirror experiments
Cleaner wrasse have revealed a remarkable new side of fish intelligence. Marked with fake parasites, they used mirrors to inspect and remove the spots—far faster than seen in earlier tests. Even more striking, some fish dropped shrimp in front of the mirror to watch how its reflection moved, a form...
A giant blade-crested spinosaurus, the “hell heron,” discovered in the Sahara
Deep in the heart of the Sahara, scientists have uncovered Spinosaurus mirabilis — a spectacular new predator crowned with a massive, scimitar-shaped crest that may once have blazed with color under the desert sun. Discovered in remote inland river deposits in Niger, the fossil rewrites what we thought we knew...
A simple water shift could turn Arctic farmland into a carbon sink
Deep in the Arctic north, drained peatlands—once massive carbon vaults built over thousands of years—are quietly leaking greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. But new field research from northern Norway suggests there’s a powerful way to slow that loss: raise the water level. In a two-year study, scientists found that restoring...