Alex Fox

Alex Fox

 

Alex Fox is a freelance science journalist based in California. He has written for the New York Times, National Geographic, Science, Nature and other outlets. You can find him at Alexfoxscience.com.

An Australian lungfish (Neoceratodus forsteri) at the Haus des Meeres in Vienna, Austria.

Australian Lungfish Has Biggest Genome Ever Sequenced

The air-breathing fish dethrones the Mexican axolotl for the title of largest known genome in the animal kingdom

Artist's rendering of blue jet lightning blasting from a storm cloud towards space. The International Space Station solar panels can be seen in the foreground.

Mysterious Blue Jet Lightning Seen From Space

Researchers captured an instance of this poorly understood type of lightning using instruments aboard the International Space Station

A paleontologist excavating a 98 million-year-old fossil which may belong to the largest land animal ever. Researchers first started unearthing the creatures remains in 2012 at the Candeleros Formation in the Neuquen River Valley, Argentina.

Dinosaur Unearthed in Argentina Could Be Largest Land Animal Ever

The skeleton is still far from complete but paleontologists say what they've found suggests the dinosaur may be more than 120 feet long

Silver-washed fritillary butterfly

Study Reveals the Secrets of Butterfly Flight

The fluttering insects create tiny jets of air by clapping their flexible wings together, which may help them evade predators

The SpaceX Cargo Dragon capsule separating from the International Space Station after undocking from the Harmony module’s international docking adapter.

Case of Bordeaux Wine Returns to Earth After a Year in Space

Last week a dozen bottles splashed into the Gulf of Mexico inside SpaceX’s Dragon capsule after a year aboard the International Space Station

Astronomers have discovered the oldest and most distant quasar in the universe. The quasar, named J0313-1806, formed just 670 million years after the Big Bang some 13 billion light years away.

This 13-Billion-Year-Old Supermassive Black Hole Is the Oldest Ever Found

Huge black hole is so old it offers a glimpse into the early universe, and so big it challenges ideas of how black holes form

Researchers estimate this seagrass found in the Mediterranean could trap about 867 million plastic pieces per year in coastal areas.

This Seagrass Traps Marine Plastic

Researchers find the Mediterranean species of seagrass collects plastics in fibrous balls that form from its fallen leaves

An artist's illustration of two gray wolves (lower left) vying with a pack of dire wolves for a bison carcass near the tar pits in Rancho La Brea roughly 15,000 years ago.

Dire Wolves Weren't Actually Wolves, DNA Analysis Reveals

Ancient DNA extracted from fossils shows the beast split off from Canis lupus and coyotes nearly 6 million years ago

Category-4 Hurricane Laura hit Cameron, Louisiana on August 27, 2020 with winds up to 150 mph and storm surge in excess of 15 feet. The storm caused costly destruction along the coast and inland to the city of Lake Charles and was one of seven storms that caused more than $1 billion in damages.

U.S. Breaks Record for Billion-Dollar Climate Disasters in 2020

A total of 22 disasters caused $95 billion in total damage, reflecting climate change’s growing cost

A manatee seen underwater. These slow-moving, sea grass-munching marine mammals are incredibly docile, which leaves them vulnerable to harassment and boat propellers.

Florida Manatee Found With 'Trump' Written on Its Back

The threatened species faces other serious threats, including boat collisions, habitat loss and toxic algae blooms

If the platypus looks like a mixture of bird and mammal features, it's because it is.

Platypus Genes Are Just as Odd as the Creature Itself

These egg-laying, lactating animals have genes in common with mammals as well as birds

Researchers say some of this woolly rhino's internal organs may still be preserved.

Melting Russian Permafrost Yields New Woolly Rhino Specimen

Russian researchers say this may be the best-preserved woolly rhino ever found

A COVID testing site at Echo Park Stadium on December 30, 2020 in Parker, Colorado. This site is nearby Ebert County, where the first case of a COVID-19 variant that is thought to be more contagious was detected in the United States.

Colorado and California Report First U.S. Cases of Highly Contagious Covid-19 Variant

First discovered in England, the variant appears to be more transmissible but does not cause a more severe case of the disease

A new chemical process uses an iron-based catalyst to turn carbon dioxide into jet fuel. So far the process has only been proven effective in lab settings, but if researchers can scale it up it could lessen the climate impact of air travel.

Scientists Use Iron to Turn Carbon Dioxide Into Jet Fuel

If the chemical reaction at the heart of the process can be scaled up, it could help reduce the carbon footprint of air travel

A newly described python species named Messelopython freyi. The 47-million-year-old specimen is the world’s oldest known fossil record of a python.

Oldest-Ever Python Fossil Found in Europe

The 47-million-year-old snake pushes the evolutionary origins of the group back some 20 million years

Dead bird specimens seen in the collection of the Museum of Southwestern Biology in New Mexico on September 14, 2020.

Southwest Bird Die-Off Caused by Long-Term Starvation

New report finds majority of the birds found dead in early fall were emaciated

Some 1,280 of these species will lose a quarter or more of their remaining habitat and 350 are projected to lose more than half of the areas they currently call home.

Agriculture's Growing Footprint Could Threaten 17,000 Species With Habitat Loss

New research projects 1.3 million square miles of habitat will be converted to croplands by 2050

An octopus in the Red Sea engaged in a collaborative hunt with several fish.

Watch Octopuses Sucker-Punch Fish

Researchers caught the eight-armed sea creatures in the Red Sea slugging fish during collaborative hunts

Taxidermied bare-nosed wombats glowing under a black light at the Western Australia Museum.

Wombats and Tasmanian Devils Glow Under Ultraviolet Light

Preliminary experiments suggest even more species of mammals may possess the UV glow

Nearly 80 percent of the world's vanilla beans are produced by small farmers in Madagascar. The global supply is tiny compared with demand and is often threatened by extreme weather and disease.

Newly Sequenced Vanilla Genome Could Boost Tiny Global Supply

Tweaking the crop’s genes could help increase its yields and make it more resistant to disease and natural disasters

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