Pigeons Have a Built-In Magnetic Compass — and Scientists Just Found It in Their Liver
For decades, scientists wondered how homing pigeons navigate hundreds of miles with pinpoint accuracy. The answer turned out to be hiding in one of the last places anyone expected: iron-filled immune cells tucked inside the liver.
Household Dishwashing Sponges Are Quietly Releasing Microplastics — Here Is What the Science Says
A new study found that kitchen sponges shed measurable amounts of microplastics during everyday use, but the research also uncovered a surprising finding about what actually causes the most environmental damage when you wash dishes.
This Solar-Powered Device Pulls Drinking Water From the Ocean — Without Creating Harmful Waste
Scientists engineered laser-textured metal panels that use sunlight to desalinate seawater, skip the toxic byproducts, and even recover valuable minerals like lithium.
Chimpanzees Build Friend Groups That Look a Lot Like Ours, Study Finds
A new study shows that chimpanzees and bonobos organize their social lives in layered circles, similar to how humans maintain close friends alongside larger networks of acquaintances.
NASA's Roman Telescope Could Discover 100,000 Exoplanets and Rewrite Planetary Science
A powerful new NASA telescope is preparing to search deep into the Milky Way, hunting for planets in ways no mission has tried before. The results could change everything we think we know about how worlds are born.
Your Brain Is Already Planning Your Social Moves Seconds Ahead of You
New research shows that a wave of brain activity predicts social behavior before any movement happens — and the strength of that signal reveals how social a person naturally is.
Scientists Discover Fire Salamanders Glow and Ooze Fluorescent Slime
A chance experiment with a UV flashlight on a rainy night in Spain revealed that fire salamanders light up with brilliant teal spots and produce glowing goo. Researchers think this hidden ability could be a warning system or even a mating signal.
Tardigrades Turn Themselves Into Glass to Survive Space, Radiation, and Extreme Cold
Tiny eight-legged animals called tardigrades can survive conditions that would destroy almost any other living thing. The secret is a process that basically pauses their biology at the molecular level.
Color Vision Came First: The Surprising Evolutionary Timeline of Nature's Palette
Scientists traced hundreds of millions of years of evolutionary history to answer one of nature's biggest puzzles — and the answer flips what most people would guess.
Meet the Honey Mushroom: The Single Organism That Covers 3.5 Square Miles of Oregon Forest
Beneath the Malheur National Forest in Oregon, one living organism stretches across 2,385 acres — older than many ancient civilizations and larger than any whale or tree ever recorded.
Mushrooms Could Be Used to Create Future Computer Chips
Scientists have trained shiitake mushrooms to behave like computer memory chips, switching electrical states thousands of times per second. If this research succeeds, your future devices could be powered by biodegradable, low-cost fungi.
NASA Is Building a Computer Chip That Could Let Spacecraft Think on Their Own
NASA's powerful new space processor is 500 times faster than current spacecraft chips — and it could help robots and spacecraft make decisions millions of miles from Earth.