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A golden wattle plant in bloom in Australia's Western Desert

Cool Finds

50,000-Year-Old Campfires Reveal the Deep Historical Roots of Australia's National Flower

Australian wattle or acacia plants were used as firewood by ancient people navigating the harsh climes of the Western Desert, new research finds

A 14th-century illustration depicts accused witches being burned at the stake. More than 2,500 witches were executed under Scotland's 1563 Witchcraft Act.

Scotland Issues Formal Apology to Thousands Accused of Witchcraft

An estimated 2,500 Scots were executed as witches between the 16th and 18th centuries

Fones Cliffs along the Rappahannock River in Virginia. Last week, the Rappahannock Tribe announced the reacquisition of 465 acres of ancestral homeland along the river.

Good News

Ancestral Homeland Returned to Rappahannock Tribe After More Than 350 Years

The historic reacquisition spans 465 acres in the Northern Neck of Virginia

Fossil skeleton of the owl Miosurnia diurna, which was active during the day.

This Ancient Owl Hunted in the Daytime

The fossil evidence fills a gap in these birds' evolutionary history

A small library on Maine's Matinicus Island is actively collecting banned books in a challenge against recent political efforts to remove controversial literature off the shelves of libraries and school curriculums.

This Small Library Off the Coast of Maine Is Collecting Banned Books

With challenges to books in the United States at a high, the Matinicus Island Library is a remote haven for controversial literature

The food library and museum is slated to reopen later this spring.

A Museum in Rome Narrates Italian History Through Cookbooks and Kitchenware

Reopening this spring, Garum explores more than 500 years of local culinary traditions

Spot can reach speeds up to 3mph, has 360 degree vision that helps it avoid obstacles and is protected from dust and rain, per its creator, Boston Dynamics. 

Meet Spot, the Dog-Like Robot Roaming the Ruins of Pompeii

The bot, built by Boston Dynamics, can navigate difficult terrains that humans can't access safely

Researchers at George Mason University are designing an experiment to test whether honey collected from bees foraging near human corpses will contain evidence of those remains.   

Forensic Scientists Are Testing Whether Honey Bees Can Help Locate Human Bodies

Researchers think they can find evidence of volatile organic compounds from a decomposing body in honey

Filling in genome gaps could help scientists better the genetic basis for certain diseases and lead to new medical discoveries.

Good News

Scientists Have Finally Sequenced a 'Gapless' Human Genome

Scientists have deciphered the missing eight percent of our genetic blueprint, setting the stage for new discoveries in human evolution and disease

The Hubble Space Telescope detected Earendel after homing in on a magnified streak of light boosted by a nearby galaxy.

Hubble Telescope Spots the Most Distant Star Ever Detected in Outer Space

The star, nicknamed Earendel, is 28 billion light-years from Earth

The lunar dust collected by Neil Armstrong as part of the 1969 Apollo 11 mission in will be auctioned off with a number of space-related items, and is expected to fetch between $800,000 and $1.2 million at auction

Trending Today

Apollo 11 Moon Dust Samples Go Up for Auction Against NASA's Wishes

Auction house Bonhams is expecting around $1 million

“[T]his study show[s] how the owner of the house stimulated the visitor’s senses to convey a message about its power and wealth,” says co-author Danilo M. Campanaro in a statement.

Why Archaeologists Virtually Reconstructed an Ancient House in Pompeii

The team hopes to simulate how visitors would have experienced the space and gain a stronger understanding of the motivation behind Roman designs

A worker prepares a hot air balloon during a festival in Ba Vi National Park, west of Hanoi, Vietnam.

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Good News

Uplifting stories to brighten your day

An illustration of a mummification experiment shows a bound body's breakdown of soft tissue after three weeks, and after seven months.

Researchers Find Potential Evidence of Oldest-Known Mummification

Newly discovered photographs help researchers to re-analyze 8,000-year-old remains from burials in Portugal

Acid-spewing tawny crazy ants, formerly called raspberry crazy ants, have been spreading through the gulf coast in recent years.

A Killer Fungus Is Annihilating Invasive 'Crazy Ants' in the United States

Entomologists are hopeful the pathogen could slow the insects' spread through the country

Bats, rodents, hedgehogs, and shrews are mammals among the orders that are predicted to have the most undescribed mammals. (Pictured: a bicolored shrew)

Good News

Study Finds Hundreds of Mammals Are Waiting to Be Discovered

New species may be hidden in areas that have more comprehensive geographic ranges with high variability in temperature and precipitation

Scientists claim that the rock used to carve the Venus of Willendorf statue likely came from Italy.

New Research

3-D Scans Show 30,000-Year-Old Stone Sculpture Dug Up in Austria Likely Came From Italy

Scientists suspect an ancient limestone carving known as the Venus of Willendorf traveled hundreds of miles across the Southern Alps

A protester holds a sunflower during a London rally in support of Ukraine on March 26, 2022.

Why Sunflowers Are Ukraine's National Flower

People around the world are embracing the bright bloom as a symbol of solidarity with the beleaguered country

After analyzing the DNA of 50 domestic cats, researchers identified regions along the two genes that code for Fel d 1 that the team could cut and edit with CRISPR.

Researchers Are Closer to Creating Hypoallergenic Cats Using CRISPR Technology

The allergen-causing protein Fel d 1 was removed from feline cells using the gene-editing tool

New research shows that mass migration of ancient peoples from the south were essential to bringing maize cultivation to Maya communities in Central America. Scientists previously thought knowledge of farming techniques were shared by word of mouth between neighboring communities. 

New Research

New Study Finds Migrants Brought Maize to the Maya

DNA analysis of skeletal remains in Belize helps piece together how corn cultivation came to thrive in Central America

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