Pokémon-obsessed kids who grew into pokémon obsessed-semi-adults probably think they know everything there is to know about these mythical creatures. Honestly, though, it’s not good enough to merely “catch” ‘em all—to be a real pokémaster means knowing them inside and out. Literally.
Cells, they’re all different. Even two similar-looking cells that are supposed to work together in the same tissue might express completely different traits, and make different proteins. So how do you make left and right of it all?
After long years of research, your efforts have paid off: the archaeological site you’re digging in has turned up a stash of rare, striking bones, no doubt the beginning of a groundbreaking discovery. Only then, you find the KFC wrapper, revealing that this “ancient burial ground” is just the leftovers of someone’s…
Despite our squabbles here on Earth, the universe is full of so much beauty it’s almost stupid. Jupiter is perhaps the most unreasonably beautiful thing in our entire solar system, and it’s not shy about flexing. Recently, citizen scientists/JunoCam superstars Gerald Eichstädt and Seán Doran created one of the most…
What was life really like here on planet Earth before animals were big enough to leave fossils behind? How did living things turn from dinky capsules of genetic material into the intelligent, complex organisms that do things like fart and type curse words into posts on the internet? Scientists think they’ve found the…
Officials at Vanderbilt University Medical Center have decided to recall 8,000 pairs of eclipse viewing glasses that were distributed last weekend at the Williamson County Fair. The recall was prompted after the original manufacturer of the glasses could not be confirmed.
There are plenty of people who enjoy the warm sadness cowboy drink known as whiskey. While some might have a John Wayne instinct to drink it neat, the real aficionados know that adding a few drops of water to the drink can improve and expand its flavor profile. Now, in the great whiskey war of whether or not one…
You’ve no doubt heard a peanut allergy horror story sometime in your life. Maybe a friend’s friend was on a plane that needed to make an emergency landing for an allergy sufferer, or someone you knew had an allergic reaction from kissing their romantic partner. We now have things like epi-pens to help, but of course…
When Gentoo penguins swim into the open ocean to hunt for food, they often produce wierd buzzing sounds that marine biologists assume is a form of communication. By strapping cameras to the backs of these aquatic birds, scientists have finally figured out the purpose of these odd vocalizations.
Particle accelerators have a lot of important jobs, like looking for new stuff by slamming beams of old stuff together. But a new particle accelerator observation has managed to be important while doing almost precisely the opposite of what we’d expect. Physicists have found evidence for hard-to-detect stuff by, well, …
If active galactic nuclei don’t make you say “holy shit,” what will? Lots of galaxies contain incredibly bright regions at their center, spewing high-energy jets into the depths of space, brighter than the light the galaxy’s stars can produce.
Our families pass on pieces of themselves to us in more than one way. Your eye color may be thanks to genetic inheritance, but not everything we inherit is encoded in the letters of our DNA. An affinity for Russian literature might be something your parents passed on via social influence, reading it to you before…
During the 65 million years following the extinction of the dinosaurs, the success story of the mammals has been more than a little imbalanced. Eutherians (placental mammals like dogs, horses, you and I) had an evolutionary rager, exploding in diversity and filling vacant ecological roles across the Northern…
A female Aldabra giant tortoise named Abuh who had escaped from a Japanese zoo earlier this month has been found just a few steps away from the facility. Which got us wondering: Just how far could a 121 pound tortoise travel in 16 days?
Monday’s total solar eclipse will provide some much-needed wholesome enjoyment for all of us here in the United States. To make things even sweeter, NASA—in collaboration with researchers at Montana State University—will be seizing the opportunity to launch some giant balloons during the event.
Each year, our civilization pours around eight million tons of plastic into the ocean, a portion of which ends up in the bellies of fish, and by consequence, our dinner plates. New research suggests that at least one species of fish isn’t ingesting this plastic debris by chance—they’re actually attracted to the smell.
Solar eclipses are certainly one of the most striking astrophysical phenomena. The most important light of the day, the Sun, gets blacked out by the most important light of the night. But there’s actually nothing weird or surprising about that—sure, eclipses are rare, but with the Moon close and the Sun far away,…
Good news, everyone! The Earth is still like a car with the windows rolled up, and it doesn’t seem like anyone is coming by with the keys anytime soon.
Paleontologists uncovered a strange new dinosaur a few years ago—a crazy, patchwork quilt of a creature dubbed Chilesaurus diegosuarezi. Its bizarre and often conflicting characteristics defied classification, forcing scientists to make an educated guess about its place on the dino family tree. New research suggests…
On October 14, 2014, our Sun let out a great big burp, a coronal mass ejection that swept through the Solar System at an incredibly fortuitous angle. Several spacecraft (and one intrepid Martian rover) detected the solar blast, resulting in an unprecedented experiment that stretched all the way from Venus to outer…
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