All Stories
- Animals
This massive ancient whale may be the heaviest animal ever known
Called Perucetus colossus, it may have tipped the scales at up to 340 metric tons — more than today’s blue whales.
By Skyler Ware - Psychology
Spending time in green spaces can provide big health benefits
Walking through a park or playing in a yard can make you feel better, both mentally and physically. Here’s how — and evidence it works for people at any age.
- Animals
This egg-eater may have the biggest gulp of any snake its size
Slither aside, Burmese pythons. This little African snake has a truly outsized swallow.
- Archaeology
Let’s learn about Stonehenge
Questions remain about exactly who built Stonehenge and why. But some details are known about the site’s origins.
- Chemistry
Scientists Say: Rare earth element
Rare earth elements aren’t all that rare — but skyrocketing demand for these metals makes them precious.
- Brain
A rat’s playfulness relies on cells in one part of its brain
Certain cells here control its behavior. Studying this circuitry could also help us understand depression in people.
By Simon Makin - Animals
A new technique creates glowing whole-body maps of mice
Removing cholesterol from mouse bodies lets fluorescent proteins seep into every tissue. That has helped researchers map entire body parts.
- Agriculture
Crops are being engineered to thrive in our changing climate
Plants are already the best carbon catchers on Earth. New research could make them even better.
- Animals
Toothed whales use their noses to whistle and click
Much as people do, toothed whales, such as dolphins and sperm whales, make noises in three different vocal registers.
- Earth
Take candy core samples with this science activity
Act like a geologist as you drill ‘core samples’ from candy bars using a straw. Can you identify the type of candy bar just from a sample?
- Agriculture
Cow dung spews a climate-warming gas. Adding algae could limit that
But how useful this is depends on whether cows eat the red algae, a type of seaweed — or it gets added to their wastes after they’re pooped out.
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