All Stories

Humans

How torchlight, lamps and fire illuminated Stone Age cave art

Experiments with stone lamps and torches are helping scientists see 12,500-year-old cave art with fresh eyes.

Animals

Uncovering secrets of the glasswing butterfly’s see-through wings

The tricks of its transparency include sparse, spindly scales and a waxy coated membrane.

Earth

Let’s learn about Antarctica

This continent is dry, windy and very cold — and home to penguins, ice and a lot of scientific research.

Space

Cosmic filaments may have the biggest spin in outer space

These rotating threads of dark matter and galaxies stretch millions of light-years. Scientists want to know how their spin begins.

Animals

Some beetles walk along the underside of the water’s surface

Their upside-down scurrying is a rare method of getting around.

Space

Moon-sized white dwarf is the smallest ever found

This dead star is also spinning very fast and has an amazingly powerful magnetic field.

Fossils

Dinosaur families appear to have lived in the Arctic year-round

Fossils of baby dinosaurs in northern Alaska challenge the idea that northern dinosaurs only spent their summers in the high Arctic.

Animals

Spiders can take down and feast on surprisingly big snakes

Snared in sticky webs and subdued by poison, even venomous snakes can become a spider’s soup.

Environment

‘Zombie’ wildfires can reemerge after wintering underground

Climate change may make these not-quite-dead blazes more common. Scientists are learning to predict where a zombie might emerge.

Fossils

Ancient creature revealed as lizard, not a teeny dinosaur

CT scans of 99-million-year-old fossils of hummingbird-sized specimens trapped in amber reveal a number of lizardlike features.