The world’s biggest fish is the mysterious whale shark, which can grow as heavy as 40,000 pounds and as large as 60 feet, though most top out a few feet and pounds smaller than that. It also appears these behemoths can live to be 130 years old, new observations and modeling have shown.
On the way to its final orbit around Earth, NASA’s planet-hunting Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has sailed by the moon and snapped its first picture of space. We’ve said several times that TESS would be able to look at 200,000 stars in the 300 light-years around the Earth—but maybe this new shot will…
I think I’m going to let this one speak for itself:
Are you this guy? Are you this goblin? Email us. We have questions.
High-temperature electricity without resistance could revolutionize electronics. It could take less energy to move electric charge, meaning better-performing, more-efficient electronics that are cheaper to run. It could cut down on energy costs, and might even help researchers realize better quantum computers.…
There’s an eerie and incredibly rare phenomenon witnessed by few that has long puzzled scientists: ball lightning. These flashes, which typically appear in the evenings during thunderstorms and look like small, bright spheres, have gone mostly unexplained aside from some theories. But now, using some of the most…
Praying mantises see the world in three dimensions in a way that’s completely different from how vertebrates (including birds, humans, and other mammals) do, according to a new paper in Current Biology. Also, studying this required putting tiny glasses on mantises.
Nature’s beauty can originate from the most unlikely places. Take leech cocoons, the sacks in which leeches lay their eggs. They have an incredible solid-foam surface, as the image below shows:
This weekend, for the several billionth or so time in Earth’s history, the Moon will be in the part of its orbit around Earth where it’s a little closer, 16,000 miles closer than usual, and it looks a teeny amount larger. By this point, this so-called “supermoon” is a fairly cliched but certainly hyped piece of…
There’s an existential beauty in the fact that everything on this Earth will eventually fall into decay; that our vibrant world is littered with the abandoned husks of past life, past ecosystems, and past civilizations. Even relics that speak to humanity’s exploitation of the natural world can take on a quiet elegance…
Praise Cthulhu! NASA’s Juno spacecraft has just delivered the most incredible images of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot—and that’s a really high bar to clear. The spacecraft has spent the last year beaming back some of the most mind-blowing images of the gas giant. But today’s batch marks a historic moment for the orbiter,…
In news that is sure to vindicate chemtrail truthers, NASA has finally delivered on its longstanding promise to produce a dazzling display of artificial clouds. And dang, was it cool.
If David Lynch designed a planet, it would be Uranus. Much like every episode of Twin Peaks: The Return, Uranus is fiercely unique and weirdly endearing, even though it makes no fucking sense. The planet’s spin axis is 98 degrees, so it essentially rotates on its side—and while we have some idea as to what could have…
Fangblennies are tiny reef-dwelling fish only two inches long that look like they came from some adorable deep-sea vampire movie. Only, if you’re a predator and you piss them off, they will wreck the shit out of you with their opioid-laced venom.
Costume-changes during a live performance are fast and frenetic, limiting how elaborate makeup and outfits can be. But for this performance by Japanese dance duo AyaBambi, a high-speed face-tracking projector was used to change their appearances while they performed, even creating the illusion of wearing masks that…
We don’t understand quasars all that well, but are pretty certain that these incredibly bright lights belong in the centers of galaxies. So it looked a little weird when astronomers spotted quasar 3C 186 thirty six thousand light years away from the center of its galaxy, seemingly trying to escape.
Theoretical physicists and cosmologists deal with the biggest questions , like “Why are we here?” “When did the universe begin?” and “How?” Another questions that bugs them, and likely has bugged you, is “What happened before the Big Bang?”
You might think: Giraffe is a weak creature. Silly tongue, flimsy legs, small brain. If you were thinking this about Giraffe, you are wrong. In fact, Giraffe is strong. Giraffe is killing machine. Giraffe take down lion. No mercy from Giraffe.
On Wednesday, Domino’s achieved a major milestone in automation when it successfully completed the first commercial delivery of a sad pizza you instantly regret ordering by drone.
