Pure Science

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Five new mules at Olympic National Park in Washington State are ready for the busy tourist season. Murl, Cutti, Pip, Checkers, and Gopher join the park’s large working mule herd. Mules have helped maintain the trails in national parks...

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Nearly half of all known objects currently orbiting Earth technically classify as space junk, but the true amount may be even higher. Not only that, the debris continues amassing faster than it’s being removed. The latest red alert report...

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New satellite images are helping scientists understand a major tsunami that changed the landscape of a popular tourist destination in Alaska forever.  On August 10, 2025, a tsunami larger than the Eiffel Tower ripped through Tracy Arm...

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This article was originally featured on The Conversation. Exactly how did birds evolve from dinosaurs? It’s a mystery that has been with us for more than 150 years, and palaeontologists are still hunting for pieces of the puzzle today....

Popular Science

Fifteen-year-old Evan Budz was on a camping trip when he saw a snapping turtle that would become the impetus for an award-winning invention. As someone who loves hiking, canoeing, and just being outside, the Canadian high school student...

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High above Big Bear Lake in southern California, a pair of eaglets’ eyesight is coming into focus. Sandy and Luna, the 2026 chicks of internet-famous bald eagles Jackie and Shadow, now boast vision abilities nearly equal to that of adult...

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The groundbreaking experimental aircraft known as Solar Impulse 2 has met an untimely end. According to a National Transportation Safety Board report, the completely solar-powered plane crashed into the Gulf of Mexico during an autonomous...

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On April 1, Texas’ Fort Worth Zoo welcomed  a 285-pound baby into the world. It wasn’t an April Fool’s joke—the newborn was a healthy male Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) calf, and he represents the newest member of a four-generation...

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Leopards (Panthera pardus) in India are doing pretty well, all things considered. According to a report published in 2024, experts estimate their population in the country at a range of 12,616 to 15,132 individuals, which wildlife...

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If you’ve spent any time on TikTok lately, you’ve probably seen the smart dog wall test. Someone scoops up their dog (or cat!), carries them face-first toward a wall, and the internet decides whether the pet is smart or not based on...

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Researchers studying copulation in mayflies pulled off a stunt worthy of the naughtiest ancient Greek myths. Just like Hephaestus used an unbreakable net to trap his wife Aphrodite and her lover Ares in the middle of their adulterous act,...

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Billions of stars illuminate the Milky Way. Down here on Earth, only about 6,000 stars are visible to the naked eye, but with the right camera, we can see tens of thousands more. The Milky Way Photographer of the Year awards celebrate the...

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Renewable energy is the cornerstone of any sustainable society, but why limit your options to wind or solar installations? In the United States alone, over one million homes host a tiny, furry alternative power source without even...

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A rare white bison (Bison bison) calf was born at the Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge in Prairie City, Iowa. Most newborn bison are born with a reddish or brown coat, and the National Park Service estimates that white bison are born...

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Complex problems require creative solutions, and wildlife veterinarian Nielsen Donato is no stranger to what might seem like out-of-the-box problem solving. Last month, Donato and his team at Vets in Practice in the Philippines fixed...

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Bioluminescence is everywhere in nature, but it puts on its biggest light shows underwater. In the deepest regions of the oceans, as much as 90 percent of all living creatures may possess at least some ability to shimmer thanks to cellular...

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Flying cows, SUVs soaring through the air like toys, quaint towns that are virtually wiped off the map. Hollywood certainly makes the very real world of chasing tornadoes appear exciting on the big screen. And yet the reality of storm...

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Famed British naturalist and broadcaster Sir David Attenborough turns 100 years old on May 8, and a team of researchers has prepared a special present: an entire new genus of wasp named in his honor.  Meet Attenboroughnculus tau, a...

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Psilocybin is the psychoactive compound that puts the “magic” in magic mushrooms. Ingest enough of a fungus like Psilocybe cubensis, and users are liable to experience sensory hallucinations, euphoria, and even altered perceptions of time....

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Concrete is everywhere, and that’s a problem. Manufacturing the essential material accounts for around eight percent of annual global carbon dioxide emissions, making it one of the single biggest contributors to the climate crisis....

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Four words: sled dog puppy cam. The Puppy Cam at Denali National Park and Preserve in Alaska is back for the season, and viewers can now watch five future canine rangers in action. Named after various national parks, sled dogs Sequoia,...

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If you’re one of the roughly 1.6 million who took a cruise in Alaska last year, chances are you sailed through the Tracy Arm fjord. The picturesque, narrow fjord is a popular sightseeing area  and is part of the Tongass National...

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Pope Leo XIV receives gifts from visitors from all over the world every year, but a newly identified insect may be the first papal tribute of its kind. In the journal Nota Lepidopterologica, entomologists describe a striking moth species...

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This colorful cloud over Jonggol, Indonesia, is not a portal to the land of Oz. Or the rainbow road into Asgard from Norse mythology. Or even an AI-generated image. They are iridescent clouds, a rare type of cloud that appear when...

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Tonight, there will be more birds in the sky than there are people in the United States. According to Cornell Lab’s BirdCast, an estimated 373 million winged migrators will continue their journey north during the early evening hours of May...

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Combining lasers and sharks may sound like a bad idea, but marine ecologists are banking on it to help save some of the planet’s most threatened species. By merging optical technology and geochemistry, a group of researchers in Australia...

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Jackie and Shadow’s newly named chicks Sandy and Luna are growing by leaps and bounds. While they pretty much look the same to the naked eye, there are some ways to tell them apart, according to Friends of Big Bear Valley (FOBBV). ...

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Over a dozen keel-billed toucans (Ramphastos sulfuratus) that were found stuffed inside of a vehicle’s dashboard officially have a clean bill of health. The birds were rescued from the illegal wildlife trade at the United States-Mexico...

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In a move that will certainly tug on the heartstrings of anyone that grew up in the 90s, Representative Sam Liccardo (D-Ca.)and other co-sponsors have introduced the Save Willy Act, aiming to protect the whales that enter the San Francisco...

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Heeding legitimate signs is always important, but between May 1st and October 15 at Yellowstone National Park it will be particularly significant. These signs will help visitors avoid encounters with the friend-shaped but not-too-friendly...

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Nothing ruins a summer picnic like a dry, mealy, tasteless watermelon. Maybe you learned to knock on a melon or look for certain webbing patterns when trying to find the ripest fruit, but what about investigating the...

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The internet is chock full of talking birds, whether they’re squawking at a vet, singing “You are my sunshine,” or annoying cats while barking like a dog (naturally). But why are some birds so chatty? The answer, which we explore on a new...

Popular Science

After careful deliberation by a brilliant group of students, Jackie and Shadow’s new eaglets have names. Chick 1 will henceforth be known as Sandy and chick 2 is Luna. According to Friends of Big Bear Valley (FOBBV), Sandy was the most...

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At a wildlife park in Germany, a young ring-tailed lemur did something bold: It launched itself at an adult ruffed lemur and started gently slapping and grabbing her. Rather than putting an end to these antics, the bigger, stronger ruffed...

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The king has returned. Maintenance workers at Katmai National Park in Alaska spotted 2025 Fat Bear Week champion Chunk. In a video shared by Katmai Conservancy, National Park Service (NPS) maintenance crews spotted the roughly large adult...

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An exclusive dance party is raging in the coastal marshes along southern Texas—and it’s coming to an end. However, to score an invite to this event, you have to be an Attwater’s prairie chicken (Tympanuchus cupido attwateri). From February...

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Scorpions are optimized hunters, whose skills have been honed through millions of years of evolution. An armored exoskeleton, strong pincers, a poisonous stinger—almost everything about their anatomy aids in either hunting insects, small...

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The people have spoken…and chuckled. Fans of the Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards crowned Alison Tuck the winner of the Sterna People’s Choice Award. Tuck’s hilarious photo (seen above) captures the relatable frustration of a gannet on a windy...

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Every day, the average American spends nearly 2.5 hours scrolling through social media. Cats, on the other hand, waste approximately no time on the internet. Which species generally appears less stressed and anxious? Sure, this may not be...

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Sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) go deep. They can dive 1,300 to 4,000 feet-deep and also travel as much as 15,000 miles per year. These depths and distances make sperm whales and other whale species particularly difficult for...

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While an enormous sea lion named Chonkers makes a splash in San Francisco, you don’t have to live in the Golden City to sneak a peek. Viewers can watch the action from home with Pier 39’s livestream as this 2,000-pound Stellar sea lion...

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The average male Steller sea lion (Eumetopias jubatus) is about 10-feet-long and weighs around 1,200 pounds. But Chonkers is no average sea lion. At an estimated 2,000 pounds , the absurdly humongous, Redditor-nicknamed marine mammal has...

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There’s a gaping 2,000-pound hole in Earth’s food web. Saber-toothed cats with 7-inch-long fangs, sloths the size of elephants, wombats the size of cars, and many of the world’s largest mammals disappeared between 50,000 and 10,000 years...

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The newest residents of the internet’s favorite eagle nest are rapidly growing right before our eyes. Nearly one month after hatching, Jackie and Shadow’s two to-be-named chicks are beginning to put more on thermal fur. This extra warmth...

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It’s a downright creepy feeling. You’re striding confidently down what seems to be a clear, open path, and then you feel it. Stretchy filaments dragging across your skin, your clothes—even worse, your face. The more you try to backtrack...

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The Antarctic sea, where glaciers drift across the surface. What kind of world lies 1,300 meters below the surface? Scientists have now succeeded in directly observing a realm that had previously been inferred rather than seen. There, hot...

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It’s common knowledge that parrots can learn to speak like humans, sometimes a little too much. Lincolnshire Wildlife Park in England even has five foul-mouthing African grey parrots (Psittacus erithacus). But can they use names the way we...

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From ROMP!: A Journey Through the Natural History of Otters and Why They Matter by Heide Island, PhD, to be published on 4/28/26 by Avery, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. Copyright 2026 © by...

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A rare type of sea turtle is on the road to recover at the Georgia Sea Turtle Center in Jekyll Island, Georgia. But this reptile is the offspring of a surprising parent duo: a Kemp’s ridley sea turtle (Lepidochelys kempii) mother and a...

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Mira, my cat, does not care about television. She likes sitting on my lap while I watch TV, she just doesn’t care about what’s on it.  I thought she never would. Turns out I was just watching the wrong things. There are thousands of...