Parrots don’t just hang out for fun. To move along narrow branches, a parrot can hang from a branch with its beak, swing its body sideways and grab hold farther along with its feet. The newly described gait, dubbed beakiation, expands the birds’ locomotive repertoire and underscores how versatile theirContinue Reading
A sample from the asteroid Bennu, collected by the OSIRIS-REx mission, has arrived at London’s Natural History Museum for analysis. Scientists are optimistic that it could contain the seeds of life. A tiny fragment from the most dangerous asteroid in the solar system has arrived in the U.K. — andContinue Reading
An underwater volcano that gave birth to a new island off Japan’s Iwo Jima island has erupted again, sending huge plumes of ash and smoke into the sky in footage released by Japan’s Coast Guard. An underwater volcano that recently gave birth to a new island in the Pacific hasContinue Reading
Six exoplanets with sizes between Earth and Neptune have been in rhythm with each other since they were born around the same star 4 billion years ago, new research suggests. Astronomers have discovered a remarkable star system with six planets unlike any in our solar system. According to new research,Continue Reading
New COVID vaccines have been approved to guard against coronavirus variants that are currently circulating. Like the annual flu shots, COVID-19 vaccines have been getting a yearly update each fall — and we’re due for a new batch. So who should get one this time around? What shots are approvedContinue Reading
This parasitic worm crawls into the eyestalks of snails, takes over its brain then pulsates to make the mollusk look like a dancing caterpillar. Name: Green-banded broodsac (Leucochloridium paradoxum) Where it lives: Europe, North America and Japan What it eats: Waste in the digestive tracts of birds, before it isContinue Reading
While some might find the book dense, it offers illuminating insights into our current crisis As once-prosperous farmlands collapsed in the northern part of the empire, people fled to the south. The southern Akkadians’ response? Build a more than 150-kilometer-long wall between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, barring entry toContinue Reading
The results could help scientists understand the complex flows of water and air on Earth Some days really are longer than others. And now scientists know by precisely how much. Using a laser gyroscope, scientists have measured variations in Earth’s rotation rate smaller than a millionth of a percent. TheContinue Reading
The term will help people remember how important the organisms are, researchers say Fungi. They grow between toes, on bread and in the shower. But the organisms also produce food and medicine and act as ecosystem maids by decomposing dead matter — benefits that are sometimes overlooked. That’s why theContinue Reading
Immune cells in the skull may sense and influence brain inflammation Cells hidden in the skull may point to a way to detect, diagnose and treat inflamed brains. A detailed look at the skull reveals that bone marrow cells there change and are recruited to the brain after injury, possiblyContinue Reading