The oldest light in the universe gets its closeup
Don’t worry, it’s much less terrifying than Norma Desmond, and infinitely more complex. Researchers at the European Space Agency (ESA) released their image of the light produced by the Big […]
Category Archives: Natural History
I’m not hunting wabbits
Had Elmer Fudd been around when the Neanderthals walked the earth, he would have been very disappointed to find they were not, in fact, hunting rabbits. At least according to […]
Is the appendix extraneous?
Everyone knows you don’t need your appendix…or do you? Okay, it’s been proven by the millions of people without one that you don’t need it, but they could be missing out […]
I’d like to introduce you to the rat people
It’s us! Don’t worry, we’re not alone. Our entire clade is made up of rat-hamsters, rat-porpoises, rat-antelope and many, many more. That’s because we, the placentals, owe our ancestry to […]
New sea monster discovered in Nevada
It might be in the desert, but the discovery of the newest species of ichthyosaur has roots all the way back in Chicago. Field Museum scientists Jim Holstein, Martin Sander and Olivier […]
Birds get emotional, too
There are people who cry at the opera. Maybe you get a touch of euphoria when you hear Elton John on the radio. Or perhaps you sob hysterically every time […]
The history of life in a single day
Man discovering fire seems so long ago that it’s almost at the dawn of time. In reality, our time on Earth is barely a blink in the planet’s history. But […]
Could this be the earliest dinosaur?
Nyasasaurus isn’t a new discovery, but this is the first time it’s been considered a dinosaur. Bits of the small dino were discovered in the 1930’s in Tanzania’s Manda Beds and […]
Antarctic bacteria provide hope for alien life
Twenty-seven meters below the surface of east Antarctica isn’t a place you’d expect to see life, but researchers have found lots of it. Not only is the salty, negative 13 […]
How stalagmites tell the Mayan story and point to climate change
The Maya were a very mysterious, mystical culture. Like many ancient societies, archaeologists are still trying to unravel much of their story. But we do know a few things. The […]
