48+ min ago   (1110+ words) Beneath the frozen crust of Jupiter’s moon Europa sits a global ocean that might harbor life. Scientists have long hoped for a shortcut to sample it. New simulations put that hope to a hard physics test. Anyone who has lived…...

55+ min ago   (901+ words) Scientists have long treated Earth’s scorching twin Venus as a world where nothing much happens anymore. New simulations of its enormous rift valleys suggest that story needs a rewrite. Stand at the edge of the Grand Canyon and you’re looking…...

1+ hour, 26+ min ago   (723+ words) Some elephants spend decades performing for tourists or working in circuses. When those days end, a hard question follows about what comes next. Can an animal shaped by captivity be successfully rewilded? A team from the Elephant Reintegration Trust in…...

1+ hour, 51+ min ago   (1120+ words) Stand at the waterline on any beach and watch for a few minutes. Most waves die at roughly the same spot on the sand. Then one runs far past it and soaks the towel you were sure you’d left out…...

3+ hour, 42+ min ago   (965+ words) A new study has calculated how much energy Hannibal’s army used in hauling itself and its war elephants over the Alps in 218 BC. One route comes out far cheaper than the rest. Of the passes he could have taken to…...

5+ hour, 3+ min ago   (831+ words) Most sea turtle bones from old Caribbean sites are small, burnt, and broken. For a long time, that was the end of the road because a broken piece could be called a sea turtle and nothing more. A new protein…...

6+ hour, 17+ min ago   (801+ words) A new study has found microplastics lodged inside animals living in deep-sea hydrothermal vents more than 6,500 feet (2,000 meters) below the ocean surface. The particles turned up in about nine of every ten snails and mussels the researchers examined in one…...

6+ hour, 40+ min ago   (905+ words) Most shark skin feels like fine sandpaper. One way it runs smooth, the other way it grips. That texture comes from millions of tiny, tooth-shaped scales called dermal denticles. They lie flat against the body, all angled backward to cut…...

7+ hour, 7+ min ago   (811+ words) Plenty of people believe a dog or a cat is good for their health. A large survey in Switzerland found little sign that owning one makes a real difference. Rahel Marti led the study at the University of Basel in…...

7+ hour, 39+ min ago   (829+ words) Forty-seven women got the same advice: cut 500 calories a day for six months. Twenty-six of them also agreed to change their eating time and fit every meal into a nine-hour stretch. Both groups lost about the same weight. Only the…...