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After over 80 years, a team of marine archeologists and historians believe that they’ve uncovered a lost piece of World War II history. The remains of the Japanese freighter Hōfuku Maru were spotted off of the western coast of the Philippines. But the Hōfuku Maru was not just a run of the mill military vessel. The freighter was called a Hellship.

Hellships were requisitioned merchant ships that the Japanese Navy used to transport prisoners of war during WWII in horrific conditions. Inmates died from thirst, heat, beatings, and executions—as well as inadvertent Allied attacks. Hellships traveled within military convoys, and the Allies didn’t know they were transporting prisoners of war. Historians estimate that 20,000 of the over 125,000 Allied prisoners that traveled on Hellships died onboard.

Plaque dedicated to the POWs who died aboard the Hōfuku Maru from the Hellships Memorial, Subic Bay, Philippines. Image: Discovery’s Expedition Unknown.

The remains of Hōfuku Maru were discovered off the coast of the Philippines’ Zambales province. On September 21, 1944, more than 1,000 Allied servicemen died aboard the Hōfuku Maru, when it sank in less than three minutes.The ship had up to 1,000 British and Dutch prisoners in its holds, but the shipwrecks’ identity and location was forgotten. 

In both American and Japanese military archives, the Hellships Memorial Foundation found documents claiming that the Hōfuku Maru sank over 30 miles away from where it was assumed to have gone down.. 

“We were absolutely stunned that Japanese sources had information on where the convoy was attacked and what ships were hit – this was a smoking gun,” retired Naval Officer Randy Anderson and Hellships Memorial Foundation founder, said in a statement. 

Photogrammetry of the wreck newly identified as the Hōfuku Maru. Image: Evan Kovacs, Marine Imaging Technologies, LLC

Thus a team, including imaging specialist Evan Kovacs, maritime archaeologist Calvin Mires, and TV presenter/explorer Josh Gates, came together to track down the mysterious shipwreck. Sonar imaging verified the presence of an uncharted wreck in the area they were investigating, and then identified the wreck during deepwater dives. The team also found human remains. 

The available evidence points to the Hōfuku Maru. Various elements align perfectly with the vessel’s blueprints, and the wreck is broken into two parts, which matches descriptions by both Americans and Japanese. The remains of the vessel lay beneath over 160 feet of water.

“The pieces all fit,” said Tim Beckensall, a researcher at the Hellships Memorial Foundation, “the vessel is the right size, in the right place and from the correct period. I am convinced this is the Hōfuku Maru.” 

The findings will feature in the two-part premiere of Discovery’s Expedition Unknown airing on June 24th.

“The story of the Hellships is a chapter in the history of WWII that demands to be brought to light,” highlighted Gates. “The research and dives that led to this groundbreaking discovery can hopefully offer closure to the families of more than a thousand servicemen who made the ultimate sacrifice. It’s a privilege to work alongside the Hellships Memorial Foundation to honor their memories; they are lost no more.”

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Mongolia contains some of the most well preserved and diverse fossils in the world, but they attract more than paleontologists. Black market smugglers routinely rob both the East Asian country of its prehistoric heritage and the global scientific community of invaluable knowledge. Thanks to recent international recovery efforts, some of those stolen treasures have finally returned home nearly 20 years after their initial disappearance. According to officials at Mongolia’s new National Museum of Natural History, 29 sets of dinosaur fossils are now back in the capital of Ulaanbaatar—including a half-complete, extremely rare relative of Tyrannosaurus rex.

During a recent conference, Ulaanbaatar police spokesperson D. Munkhkhuyag said that smugglers absconded with the remains in 2006, “with the aim of making a profit.” It wasn’t until 2013 that French customs officials discovered some of the first specimens. Over the next two years, France worked with Mongolia under international illicit cultural heritage trafficking laws to repatriate the fossils.

French customs agencies confiscated the fossils between 2013 and 2015, and began returning them a year later. Credit: National Museum of Natural History

A formal handover ceremony took place in Paris in December 2025, where representatives from both countries highlighted the various dinosaurs included in the trove. The collection includes fossil fragments from theropods, ornithomimosaurs, and hadrosaurs that roamed what is now the Gobi Desert approximately 65 to 70 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous.

One of the most important specimens is an over-half-complete example of a Tarbosaurus bataar. Like many other dinosaur species, T. bataar remains are almost exclusively excavated around Mongolia and Central Asia. Although arid and cold today, the Gobi Desert was once a humid and diverse floodplain dotted by forests and intersected by river channels. T. bataar was the region’s undisputed apex predator, frequently preying on large dinosaurs like ankylosaurids. An adult could easily reach upwards of 33-feet-long, stand nearly 10-feet-tall, and weigh well over five tons. Although still officially its own species, some paleontologists argue that T. bataar so closely resembles T. rex that it actually warrants reclassification as an Asian variant of the North American Tyrannosaurus genus.

Now home, museum paleontologists will catalogue and clean the fossils before debuting them for public display.

“The dinosaur fossil is priceless and a unique piece of heritage,” museum director Manchuk Nuramkhan said during a recent news conference. “We are delighted that children and young people will have the opportunity to see Mongolia’s dinosaur heritage firsthand and learn from it.”

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It’s not unheard of for standard navigation apps to map out a less-than-ideal pedestrian journey. You technically can walk under that bridge and cross that six-lane highway, but that doesn’t mean you want to. The app doesn’t take into account your safety, nor your comfort in steamy weather. Now, a team at Arizona State University (ASU) is developing a tool to tackle the latter aspect of the problem.

The aptly-called Cool Routes is an online navigation system that calculates sun exposure and mean radiant temperatures to suggest cooler (in the temperature sense) pedestrian routes. A radiant temperature measurement represents the total heat load one experiences in a particular spot. The measurement takes elements like sun exposure and reflected heat into account to better describe just how hot a space will be. 

The mean radiant temperature in Phoenix in the sun can go over 150 degrees Fahrenheit, but decrease to under 100 degrees in the shade. Cool Routes updates its data hourly based on meteorological forecasts and also takes into account buildings and trees. 

“Cool Routes is a website running on a server, and anybody can use it. A user can open it in a browser, pick where they want to start and where they want to go on the ASU Tempe campus, and see walking routes that account for heat exposure,” Ariane Middel, director of ASU’s SHaDE Lab, tells Popular Science. “It looks like a navigation map, but with a heat layer added. Instead of only asking, ‘What is the shortest way to get there?’ Cool Routes also asks, ‘What is the cooler way to get there?’” 

To validate the predicted heat loads, researchers used MaRTy, a rolling instrument station that measures human thermal exposure and other meteorological data. Image: Ariane Middel/Arizona State University.

During tests spanning 12 days and different seasons on ASU’s Tempe Campus, Cool Routes successfully found cooler routes over 70 percent of the time, including during mornings and evenings, when there’s usually less of a difference in heat loads between shaded and sunny areas. These paths decreased the perceived heat load by around 4.5 degrees on average. 

To confirm Cool Route’s heat exposure estimates, the team also used a rolling instrument station that measures human thermal exposure among other data., Their results were significantly accurate. Middel and her colleagues describe their work in a study recently published in the journal Building and the Environment. 

“One of the main things we found is that people often do not need to take a very large detour to reduce their heat exposure. In many cases, a slightly longer route can be substantially more shaded compared with the shortest route,” Middel explains. 

“I would definitely walk 10 extra minutes to get more shade and protect myself from UV exposure. But everyone makes that decision differently,” says Waqar Khan, an ASU computer scientist and co-author of the study. “Some people may choose the cooler route, while others may prefer the shortest one. That is why, in our application, we show both the shortest and coolest routes, along with the route length, estimated walking time, and expected heat exposure.”

Cool Routes currently only works for ASU’s Tempe Campus, but the approach can be applied to identify pedestrian paths in other areas, including cities. What’s more, the researchers believe that Cool Routes data could help city planners find the best places for shade solutions, and even test out potential future cooling strategies via heat load simulations. 

Moving forward, the team, including ASU computer science student and co-author Fletcher Emmott, aims to increase the tool’s accessibility with a Cool Routes mobile application as a part of Emmott’s honors thesis. 

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Tucked into a corner of the cavernous Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation, just outside Detroit, is a structure that looks like a cross between a Mongolian yurt and a flying saucer. All gleaming aluminum on the outside, on the inside it’s decorated like the set of The Dick Van Dyke Show, complete with a functional dinette set, midcentury modern living room furniture, and a chrome-clad fireplace. This is the Dymaxion House, and once upon a time it promised to solve a nationwide housing crisis, offering young families two bedrooms, two full baths, and a suite of modern conveniences for the low, low price of $6,500 (about $110,000 today).

“Newest answer to housing shortage is round, shiny, hangs on a mast and is made in an airplane factory,” announced LIFE Magazine, in a 1946 article about the unveiling of the prototype, designed by architect R. Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller. The Dymaxion House—its name a portmanteau of “dynamic,” “maximum,” and “tension”—was “eminently practical,” the article’s author claimed, adding that only “one major question remained: Would people buy such a strange house?”

“All indications are that there was a great deal of interest,” Marc Greuther, chief curator at The Henry Ford, tells Popular in answer to LIFE’s skepticism. Still, despite some 30,000 unsolicited orders that arrived shortly after Fuller unveiled his prototype, it was unclear “how many folks were swept up in the moment, and how many were genuinely intrigued.” 

The house of the future came just in time

The Dymaxion House certainly did arrive at the right moment. Fuller, today best-known for popularizing the geodesic dome, had actually conceived the Dymaxion House in the 1920s, but it wasn’t until after World War II ended that circumstances aligned to make it a reality. 

“The housing shortage has become a serious problem throughout the Nation,” wrote President Harry S. Truman, in a February 1946 statement calling on religious communities to help. “Thousands of our veterans are finding it impossible to obtain adequate housing for themselves and their families. In spite of our best efforts to facilitate new construction, the shortage will probably remain acute for some months.” 

Architect R. Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller is seen here with a four foot model of his Dymaxion House in Philadelphia, where he discussed the project at the Philadelphia Art Alliance. Image: Bettmann / Contributor / Getty Images Bettmann

Meanwhile, factories that had ramped up capacity for the war effort were in need of new projects, especially ones that could make use of surplus materials no longer needed for military aircraft and shipbuilding. 

“Circumstances have converged to produce Emergency in relation to House,” Fuller told a New Yorker correspondent (who transcribed the futurist’s pronouncements using somewhat idiosyncratic capitalization), “thus enabling mass production of House for the first time in the history of Man.”

Dymaxion Houses hit the assembly line

Two Dymaxion prototypes were built in Wichita, Kansas, by the Beech Aircraft Corp., which aimed to build 200 houses a day (Fuller planned eventually to license the design to other manufacturers, with a goal of building 185,000 a year.) 

The house would have the efficiency of a submarine, with molded plastic bathrooms and built-in, rotating shelves, and it would be hung from a central mast, its weight supported by tension like a suspension bridge. That would allow for much lighter construction than a conventional house, consistent with Fuller’s aim to “do more with less,” and it would make shipping more practical—the whole house weighed only three tons, about as much as a full-size pickup truck, and could be shipped anywhere in America for $100. 

“It’s always struck me as a very technological solution to shelter,” Greuther says. “In the modern era all shelter is technological to some degree, but it rather wears it on its sleeve, doesn’t it?”

The Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation has the only remaining Dymaxion House prototype in the world. Image: Michael Barera / CC BY-SA 4.0

Still, while it may have looked like something from The Jetsons, the Dymaxion House was not truly “futuristic,” he argues. 

“I think Fuller was at pains to indicate what was being demonstrated was possible. It wasn’t based on some future development of some kind—wireless technology or whatever. It was achievable with the manufacturing and the technological means of that time. It was designed to be realizable.” 

Unfortunately for Fuller, and for the thousands of families that tried to order their own, the Dymaxion House ultimately was not realizable. 

Why the Dymaxion House never took off

While Beech Aircraft had the capability, it would have cost more than $10 million to retrofit the factory for high-volume production. Meanwhile, Fuller, never much of a businessman, fell out with his investors. Despite the hype, only two houses were ever actually built, and one not even assembled. 

Inside, the Dymaxion House had two bedrooms, two full baths, and a suite of modern, built-in conveniences. Image: Library of Congress / LC-USF34- 057367-D

A Kansas oilman, William Graham, bought one Dymaxion House, incorporating it into his family’s country home, which was abandoned to a colony of raccoons after he died in 1981. That could have been the end, except that in 1991 the Graham family donated the house to The Henry Ford, which used what was left of both prototypes to construct the model that visitors tour today.

Eight decades after the Dymaxion House almost became a reality, the United States is again facing a housing crisis, as rents soar in major metropolitan areas and young families struggle to find affordable starter homes. Might Fuller’s idea have something to teach us today?

“I think it might be in the thinking as opposed to the execution,” Greuther says, “Fuller was one of the earliest people to be really vocal about whole systems…thinking about all the world’s needs—for housing and food and all the rest of it—and how to balance them. It might be the wrong answer, but it’s still the right question.”

In That Time When, Popular Science tells the weirdest, surprising, and little-known stories that shaped science, engineering, and innovation.

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The goblin shark (Mitsukurina owstoni) is one of Earth’s rarest and most elusive sharks. It’s also one of the weirdest. With its distinctive, hornlike snout and protrudable jaws, the pink-skinned living fossil is the only surviving representative of a family lineage that dates back nearly 125 million years. 

The goblin shark was first identified in 1898, but sightings remain few and far between. The fish typically remain at a depth of around 3,000 feet, and any encounters with humans have been the result of accidental fishing line snags. The 13-foot-long predators also die quickly after reaching the surface.

However, marine biologists at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa recently captured videos revealing not one, but two goblin sharks swimming in their native habitats. The clips accompany a study published in the Journal of Fish Biology, and showcase the surreal encounters in the Pacific Ocean.One goblin shark was spotted near Jarvis Island (halfway between Hawaii and the Cook Islands) and the other on the slope of the Tonga Trench southeast of Fiji.

“Seeing the most iconic of all the deep-sea sharks alive and looking healthy in its natural habitat is a unique honor,” said University of Hawaii at Mānoa oceanographer and study co-author Aaron Judah.

Spotted on separate expeditions in 2024 and 2025, both videos offer new information on the goblin shark simply based on where they were located. The Jarvis Island sighting extends the animal’s known habitat to the Central Pacific Ocean, while the Tonga Trench recording occurred nearly 2,300 feet deeper than expected.

“The goblin shark is one of these deep-sea charismatic animals that I never thought we’d see alive,” said study-coauthor and Minderoo-University of Western Australia Deep-Sea Research Center founder Alan Jamieson, who spotted the Tonga Trench shark. “To do so was amazing, but to then learn that colleagues in Hawaii also saw one was just incredible.”

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They say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but what about judging a painting by the way it looks? While that sounds much more intuitive, a technique called X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy reveals that what’s on the surface might not be the whole story. 

At a first glance, the painting that producer and filmmaker Thomas Schuhbauer found in his parents’ house in Germany seemed innocent enough. It was painted by Erich Mercker (1891–1973), a successful artist from Munich, and it was a wedding present gifted to Schuhbauer’s parents in 1966. 

It showcases a motif that is found in some of his other works, too: a view of Munich’s the Feldherrnhalle (Field Marshals’ Hall) monument. The landmark is an arched hall built in the early 1840s in honor of the Bavarian army. However, in 1933, a smaller monument called the Mahnmal der Bewegung was added inside Felderrnhalle. The monument paid tribute to the rebels who died during the failed Nazi coup d’état in November of 1923. 

Nonetheless, the painting doesn’t have any blatant Nazi references. The flag waving at the side of the monument is the Bavarian one and not the more familiar Nazi flag. One feature, however, suggests that not all is as it seems. Beneath the closest arch to the viewer is a statue on the pedestal—the top of the Mahnmal der Bewegung. Given that the Mahnmal der Bewegung was destroyed right after World War II, this indicates that Mercker painted it during the Nazi era. 

If you look closer at the Bavarian flag’s white and blue colors, you can also find traces of reddish color. Indeed it was the traces of red that made Schuhbauer think there was more than meets the eye, according to Ioanna Mantouvalou, a physicist at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin research center and first author of a study on the painting recently published in Nature Journal Heritage Science..

Schuhbauer thus turned to the research center, where Mantouvalou and a colleague used X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF). It consists of a non-destructive technique that, simply put, reveals the presence of elements in things, and comes in handy when researchers want to study hidden layers. 

“I investigated the painting together with Yannick Wagener, a masters student at the TU Berlin, and we found that large areas of the original painting had been hidden,” Mantouvalou tells Popular Science. 

Namely, the Bavarian flag hides a red Nazi flag, and someone also covered up soldiers, Nazi salutes by passersby, and wreaths on the Mahnmal der Bewegung monument. 

At least one version of this painting in its original Nazi version exists, but did Mercker himself modify the Schuhbauer’s copy? The materials in the painting suggest that it could have been altered. The oil paints used to cover these elements had notable quantities of titanium white, a pigment that isn’t in any other part of the painting. However, a tube of oil paint labelled “Titanium White 10103 Schmincke” came to light among the artist’s paint tubes. What’s more, the back of the painting shows a number code which was deciphered in the project to reveal the year of production—1934. 

Left: The painting depicts a corner of Munich’s Odeonsplatz, with the Bavarian flag flying over the square. X-ray fluorescence analysis shows where areas have been overpainted with titanium white. Right: False-colour representation of the reconstructed painting featuring the memorial and the Nazi flag. Image: © npj Heritage Science (2026)

Mantouvalou explains that the paper presents, “the first definite proof that a painting by Erich Mercker was overpainted in order to hide Nazi symbols. The person who conducted the overpainting probably did it with great haste, as a monument, which was destroyed right after the end of the war, is still visible. We cannot prove unambiguously that Erich Mercker himself did it, but all findings point to this theory.”

After World War II, Mercker also created versions of the same perspective that were free of Nazi symbols. The Nazi-versions were titled “Die Stätte des 9. November” (The Site of November 9), while the post-war versions were titled “Feldherrnhalle” (Field Marshals’ Hall), or “München am Odeonsplatz” (Munich at Odeonsplatz, the square where Feldherrnhalle hall is), among others.  

According to the researchers, a significant number of artists that collaborated with the Nazis largely avoided backlash for decades. Once the war had ended, many German artists, including Mercker, carried on with business as usual. 

“From a purely monetary point of view, it makes sense to overpaint symbols in an oil painting which are not acceptable due to a change in political systems. The fact implies that moral considerations were not important enough to destroy the painting or completely redo the scene,” says Mantouvalou. “This does shed light on the way people come to terms with history and their personal involvement.” 

The post Hidden Nazi symbols discovered in famous German artist’s painting appeared first on Popular Science.

The world of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AM fungi) runs deep. They live symbiotically with around 70 percent of Earth’s plant species. Using vast underground networks, the fungi offer vegetation nutrients and water in exchange for their carbon. The fungi then siphon the carbon into the soil, supporting pretty much all life on the planet. In particularly healthy conditions, AM fungi webs can boost plant roots’ foraging area by 100 times while providing over 80 percent of its needed phosphorus.

But just how much fungi is actually doing all of this heavy lifting? New analysis published today by the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks (SPUN) reveals there are over 621 trillion miles of fungal pathways containing around 300 megatons of carbon within Earth’s topsoils. That’s nearly a billion times the Earth’s distance from the sun carrying four to six times the mass of all humans. For the first time, these pathways are visualized in a new global mapping project called A Hidden Infrastructure.

“It is hard to overstate the importance and enormity of these fungi. There could be up to 10 meters (32 feet) of mycorrhizal network in just a teaspoon of soil,” said Justin Stewart, a SPUN mycologist and the co-author of an accompanying study published today in the journal Science.

Mycorrizhal fungi seen from Morrison microscope at at AMOLF Institue of Complex Materials, Amsterdam. September 12, 2025. The circular structures are spores. The original photo is black and white, color is altered for legibility. Credit: Tomas Munita Morrison-setup

The carbon-nutrient supply chains in these formations are fast, too. Previous research shows speeds reaching 120 micrometers a second. That’s around 248 miles per hour when scaled to human proportions. Every year, these fungi move around four billion tons of carbon dioxide into the soil—about 11 percent the amount of human-produced emissions.

As incredible as these figures are, they make sense to mycologist and Popular Science contributor Matt Kasson.

“Nothing really surprises me when it comes to fungi. They are some of the most underappreciated yet important organisms on this planet,” he says. “The numbers are staggering, nevertheless. 110 quadrillion kilometers of fungal hyphae in the top 15 centimeters of Earth’s soils is absolutely mind-blowing.”

Where is all of this fungi? According to the team’s modeling, grasslands contain about 40 percent of Earth’s AM infrastructures, with particularly high concentrations predicted in the Florida Everglades, the Tibetan plateau in Asia, and South Sudan in Africa. The project team stressed that this poses a problem, however. Grasslands remain some of the planet’s least protected areas, and are being turned into farmland at a rate four times that of forests. Once turned into farmlands, these underground networks are frequently reduced by half. The mapping estimates underscore previous research indicating 95 percent of AM fungi hotspots exist outside properly safeguarded regions.

Network of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal network with a muti-nucleate reproductive spore imaged with a fluorescent dye and confocal microscopy. Credit: Vasilis Kokkoris / VU Amsterdam, AMOLF

“Mycorrhizal fungi have shaped life on earth for hundreds of millions of years, but we still understand too little about how the infrastructure of these living transport systems is distributed across the planet,” said biologist and study co-author Merlin Sheldrake, adding that the recent modeling breakthroughs can help address these challenges. 

But while a major step forward, Kasson believes there is much work still to be done on the road to understanding these ecosystems.

“Studies like this one certainly move the needle, but less than 10 percent of known fungi have been formally described,” he says. “Without that information, it’s hard to convince the public that not only are fungi critical for maintaining resilient plant communities, but that fungal conservation is in their best interest.”

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Making espresso literally boils down to two major components: extremely hot water and high pressure. Add up the world’s espressomakers, and all those shots of caffeine make for a sneakily energy intensive industry. However, researchers at Australia’s University of New South Wales Sydney recently discovered a way to sidestep one of these brewing needs. According to their study published in the Journal of Food Engineering, firing ultrasonic soundwaves into room temperature water makes equally strong and flavorful espresso shots that are indistinguishable from the traditional morning fuel.

“It’s a different process, but you get the same richness and concentration of a normal espresso in under three minutes,” chemical engineer and study co-author Francisco Trujillo said in a university profile.

This isn’t Trujillo’s first time introducing ultrasonic frequencies to coffee. He previously patented a similar system for cold-brew coffee. However, those conditions were tailored for the popular drink’s smoother, more diluted flavor with around one-fifth of espresso’s caffeine concentration.

That said, the underlying principles and technology remain the same for ultrasonic espresso. Researchers converted a standard filter basket into a soundwave generator using a transducer. After placing the small metal mechanism against the basket, ultrasound soundwaves shake the container strongly enough to pass along the vibrations through both the coffee grounds and water. This generates a phenomenon called acoustic cavitation, in which microscopic bubbles quickly form and pop in the liquid. The collapsing bubbles then function like miniscule brushes whenever they come into contact with the coffee grounds, which break open to release their flavor molecules, caffeine, and oils.

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“The most important [part] was the brew ratio—that is how much water is used per gram of coffee—because this helps ensure the final drink is concentrated and not too diluted,” explained Trujillo, adding that the team also tinkered with additional factors including the coffee ground’s consistency and length of exposure to soundwaves.

After settling on the optimum ingredient balance and brewing time, researchers conducted a blind taste-test with 100 coffee drinkers using traditional espresso and filter coffee, as well as their ultrasonic alternatives. The team noted that the participants could not consistently differentiate between standard and ultrasonic espressos, and actually had an even harder time assessing between filter and frequency-aided coffee.

Ultrasonic brewing machines may make their way into home kitchens, but the real promise is the technique’s scalability. Trujillo hopes mass production coffeemakers can eventually use his designs to manufacture their drinks much more quickly while using barely 25-percent of the normal energy.

“These findings showed that using ultrasound did not harm taste, and in some cases even improved it, despite brewing at room temperature and without the heat normally associated with coffee making,” said Trujillo.

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For Jenny Voisard, watching the daily antics of a bald eagle family perched above the shimmering waters of Big Bear Lake in Southern California is about togetherness as much as birdwatching. 

“We’re all together as a community. We mourn together, we laugh together, we cry together. So it’s emotional and deep. It’s hard to explain in words, really,” Voisard tells Popular Science.

A former corporate marketing consultant from Oregon, Voisard now works as the media manager for Friends of Big Bear Valley (FOBBV). The non-profit is dedicated to conserving the land around Big Bear Lake in the San Bernardino Mountains. However, the organization is most famous for its eagles. FOBBV livestreams a pair of bald eagles named Jackie and Shadow in their nest to millions of viewers around the world 24/7. After their first egg of 2026 was snatched by Ravens, Jackie laid two more eggs that hatched in April and will likely fledge from the nest in July.

Voisard originally joined as a volunteer to help answer questions and learn about eagles. But life and FOBBV had other plans. 

“I never could have believed in a million years that this is my life and this is what I’d be doing, even just a few years ago,” says Voisard. “So it’s just a testament to Sandy and her vision and her when she starts something.”

The Sandy who Voisard is referring to is not the eaglet who hatched this spring, but FOBBV’s former executive director Sandy Steers. Sandy died on February 11 after battling cancer. A life-long wildlife activist, she helped launch the cameras in 2015 and was FOBBV’s resident bald eagle expert. She devoted countless hours and energy to educating the public on the animals that call this slice of the San Bernardino National Forest home.

Sandy Steers served as FOBBVs executive director and bald eagle expert. Image: FOBBV.

“She was very intuitive on how people learned,” says Voisard. “What she really wanted to do was blend science and storytelling and make it so that it would resonate. She hoped people would understand what they were watching, but then maybe they would pay attention more to the birds in their own backyard. Ultimately, what she thought was that if people cared about what was happening with nature, they’d want to take care of it.”

One of Sandy’s passion projects was protecting the last undeveloped northern shoreline along Big Bear Lake from development. Called Moon Camp, this stretch of land has been sought after by luxury housing and marina developers for nearly 25 years. The land sits less than one mile away from Jackie and Shadow’s nest, and this part of the lake is home to all of the fish that the eagles and their eaglets rely on for sustenance. It is also home to undisturbed forest that support birds, squirrels, and other animals, as well as the ash-gray indian paintbrush (Castilleja cinerea), a rare and threatened endemic plant only found here. 

FOBBV is concerned about further human encroachment on the animal and plant species in the area, particularly the eagles. Bald eagles have made a remarkable comeback due to conservation efforts, but still face several threats including lead poisoning, collisions with cars, avian influenza, eating fishing line, and habitat loss.

“There used to be 20 to 35 visiting bald eagles that used to come to Big Bear Lake during the winter, and now we’re down to six to 10 at best,” says Voisard. “And bald eagles are increasing everywhere else.”

The land is currently owned by RCK Properties and discussions about its development stretch back to 2002. In September 2025, the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors met to discuss the proposed development of over 50 homes and a 55-slip marina to the unincorporated community of Fawnskin.

A map of the proposed development area and trees where birds can/may perch. Image: FOBBV

At the time of the hearing, RCK Properties’ Steve Foulkes told CBS News Los Angeles that he believes it is a sound project from an environmental standpoint, that the building will be slow, and the project will provide jobs and income over a longer period of time. 

Foulkes tells Popular Science that, “RCK Properties has no comment on the fundraising effort beyond confirming that we entered into an Option Agreement with the San Bernardino Mountains Land Trust.”

Sandy and the San Bernardino Mountain Land Trust negotiated a limited purchase agreement with the developer and are fundraising to purchase the land for its appraised value of $10 million. The fundraiser has already raised over $3 million with more than one month to go. 

“Sandy passed away right after the agreement was signed, so we’re doing this in her honor,” says Voisard. “She put all of that on her shoulders because she wanted to save everything.”

Sandy releasing mountain yellow-legged frogs into Bluff Lake. Image: FOBBV.

If they do not raise enough money by the end of July, Voisard says that the money will go towards a financing option with the land owners. With this option, the land trust would pay a higher interest rate quarterly. 

A celebration of Sandy’s life will be held on Saturday, June 13 at Veterans Park in Big Bear, California. The event will also be livestreamed—just like Jackie, Shadow, Sandy, and Luna’s nest. 

“I hope that they remember her love of life and nature and everyone and her kindness and her just big open heart,” Voisard says. 

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Imagine the world millions of years ago. You’re in forest clearing bordered by tall conifers. Suddenly, the trees part and a Tyrannosaurus rex stomps into view. As it gets closer, the air fills with the smell of fear. And the smell of T. rex. It’s pretty pungent. But what exactly did T. rex’s breath smell like? Experts reckon it wasn’t pleasant. 

In 2018, the Field Museum in Chicago opened a new exhibit centered around Sue, a 13-foot-tall, 40-foot-long T. rex fossil. Sue is one of the most complete T. rex fossils ever found, and Ben Miller, an exhibition developer at the museum, wanted to make Sue’s exhibit as immersive as possible by stimulating visitors’ senses, including their sense of smell. 

“Everybody knows what a T. rex is about, but have they considered what its breath smells like?” he asks Popular Science. 

T. rex had very stinky breath

The exhibit incorporated a total of four different scents. Three were plant odors, and the fourth represented Sue’s breath. This last smell was, in short, awful. 

“T. rex has fairly widely spaced teeth,” says Miller. “It would be eating mostly by swallowing things whole, and the result of that would probably be that it got a lot of bits of meat stuck in its mouth for long periods of time.” 

“Sue,” the most complete Tyrannosaurus Rex fossil ever found, on exhibit in great entrance hall of the Field Museum in Chicago. Image: Getty Images / Richard T. Nowitz

The team aimed to fashion a rotting meat smell to recreate this slightly unhygienic oral arrangement. The solution came from an unlikely source. 

“As it turns out, the way you can get that is there is a synthetic rotting corpse smell that is produced to train disaster response dogs.” 

The corpse stink was, at first, slightly too repulsive to unleash on the Field Museum’s unsuspecting visitors, so it was toned down slightly. 

What did a Late Cretaceous forest smell like?

Sue likely was too busy hunting to notice she was very much in need of a breath mint. But the massive dinosaur certainly would’ve been able to smell the world around her with great accuracy. So what did Sue’s forest world smell like?

While the fauna of this ancient world was different from ours, we can find approximations of many of these long-gone scents today. 

The other three scents Miller developed for the Field’s exhibit reflected the prehistoric forests T. rex once stalked across North America. In fact, the scents are more familiar than you might think. 

“By this point in time, 66 million years ago, flowering plants had pretty much taken over,” says Miller. To recreate the smell of the ancient forest, the team used three scents: ginger root, tulip poplar, and cypress.

The smells have been a part of Sue’s exhibit ever since, and have proved a hit with kids visiting the museum. 

This illustration shows the lush temperate rainforest that sprung up on Antarctica during the Cretaceous. Image: Alfred-Wegener-Institut / J. McKay / CC-BY 4.0 What did dinner smell like to T. rex?

The Field isn’t the only museum to send visitors’ noses back in time. The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis’s Dinosphere exhibit incorporates scents into its immersive world, which transports visitors back to the Late Cretaceous period between 68 and 66 million years ago. 

In part of this display, a kiosk asks visitors to choose between three scented containers and decide which one represents something a T. rex would want to eat. 

Melissa Pederson, an exhibit developer at the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, says that two scents were plants—magnolia and pine—which would be of little interest to the carnivorous T. rex. 

Pederson’s team wanted the third scent to mimic the dung of the duckbill dinosaur, Hadrosaurus. Pedersen says that the museum contacted a scent fabricator, who recommended that the best way to mimic the droppings of this large, plant-eating beast would be to use the scent excreted by a non-extinct, similarly large vegetarian. The team ended up with a jar of elephant dung scent. 

The jar’s odor wasn’t totally unpleasant, says Pederson. It’s “kind of a sweet scent,” she explains. 

Pederson says her museum’s scent experiments help immerse visitors in its exhibits. 

“It’s always the goal, in at least some capacity, to evoke emotion in our spaces.” 

Opening a window into a time long past, only to discover that some scents persist for millions of years, consistently draws a reaction from the kids and families exploring the museum. 

“In a lot of our spaces, the emotions we try to evoke are surprise and delight. We see a lot of that,” Pederson says.

In Ask Us Anything, Popular Science answers your most outlandish, mind-burning questions, from the everyday things you’ve always wondered to the bizarre things you never thought to ask. Have something you’ve always wanted to know? Ask us.

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Cats are famously obsessed with catnip, but a recent social media post from the Bronx Zoo in New York City highlights that it’s not just bossy domestic felines that take an interest in the plant. 

In the zoo’s video, a three-year-old female sand cat (Felis margarita) plays with a catnip-filled ball. Sand cats are the sole only species that live in the true desert. They can withstand both exceptional heat and cold, from 122 degrees Fahrenheit (50 degrees Celsius) to -13 degrees Fahrenheit (-25 degrees Celsius). They are found across northern Africa as well as southwest and central Asia.

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“The keepers added catnip to this ball to give the sand cats a novel item to stimulate them physically and mentally. Cats respond to a chemical in catnip called nepetalactone,” according to the post. “Its primary function is to repel insects from the plant. Many cats, though not all, are highly attracted to it, and it is safe and non-toxic for them to enjoy.”

Catnip is part of the mint family. According to Jessica Moody, curator of primates and small mammals at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), not all felid species have the same sensitivity to the plant. Moody tells Popular Science that sex and age also impact the response on an individual level. Bronx Zoo (part of the WCS) animal keepers frequently employ catnip, officially called Nepeta cataria, as well as other scents to incite natural behaviors such as investigation and play. 

It’s clearly working with this particular feline, whose species the IUCN Red List categorizes as a species of least concern. However, “it is difficult given their low population density and harsh environment to track true wild populations,” Moody explains. “Primary threats to the survival of sand cats in the wild include habitat loss and a decline in prey caused by human disturbances like livestock grazing.” 

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Fractions are a difficult math concept for many children to learn, but pairing lessons with basketball may offer some help. After participating in an experimental workshop that combined education with shooting hoops, students in Denmark performed an average of 15 percent better in fraction tests than a control group that did not play basketball..

“I am convinced that sport and physical activity can open up mathematics for pupils who are not otherwise engaged by the subject,” explained University of Copenhagen sports exercise researcher Jacob Wienecke.Wienecke is also the co-author of an accompanying study on the fraction experiment published in the journal Educational Psychology Review.

The project involved over 300 students between ages 11 and 13, who attended a one hour, once-a-week meetup that tied fraction lessons to specific basketball drills. For example, teachers asked kids to throw 10 shots at a hoop, then determine the fraction of successful versus unsuccessful attempts. They then practiced converting those numbers into percentages.

The subject area improvements also went beyond fractions. Study participants also saw around five percent improvement in other math concepts after the workshop. And, of course, their skills on the court benefitted from the extra hoop time.

“Our research shows that you can easily invite other subjects into physical education and make it work,” said Wienecke“And it can actually make children experience that subject in a completely different way, while still preserving their motivation and enjoyment of learning.”

Who knows? By expanding similar programs to more school districts, future NBA Finals teams may also be filled with mathletes.

The post Basketball can make you better at math appeared first on Popular Science.

A rare type of meteorite discovered in Mali is revealing a multibillion-year tale of lunar catastrophes. With its unique composition, astronomers are beginning to better understand the processes that shaped not only the moon and Earth, but the solar system itself.

The study recently published in the journal Geology is nearly 10 years in the making and focuses on a meteorite classified as NWA 12593. Found in the west African nation in 2017, experts soon recognized the space rock as an especially unique specimen. NWA 12593 is one of only 53 known lunar breccia—a meteorite formed by the amalgamation of multiple moon fragments during separate impacts billions of years ago. 

“Breccias are similar to what you would see if you went and chipped out a chunk of concrete. You would see all these little rocks, and then they’re fused together by the cement,” Carolyn Crow, a planetary scientist at the University of Colorado Boulder and study co-author, said in a statement.

Electron backscatter diffraction data of NWA 12593. Credit: Geology

Crow and her colleagues used radiometric dating and chemical analysis on NWA 12593 to successfully identify evidence of three major impact events in the moon’s past. The earliest occurred around 3.5 billion years ago amid an era that also produced the first known fossil evidence of life on Earth. This collision was powerful enough to reduce the moon’s surface to molten rock similar to a lava flow.

The impact also created cubic zirconia, a mineral that only forms during extremely high temperatures. Known for its uses in jewelry, cubic zirconia doesn’t last in cold, uncontrolled temperatures. While the mineral disappeared as the lunar surface eventually solidified and cooled, researchers pinpointed lingering traces of its existence in NWA 12593.

The second impact event formed the breccia itself. In the aftermath of that meteor strike, slabs of lunar rock slammed into one another to create a mosaic of materials.

“The meteorite is fused together by the impact process. You get all these chunks of different kinds of rocks that the impact hit into,” explained Crow.

The third event explains how the lunar breccia reached Earth. At some point in the more recent past, yet another impact cracked off a piece of our moon itself and sent it hurtling towards the planet.

A portion of the meteorite’s story also aligns with a tumultuous chapter in Earth’s geological history. The 3.5-billion-year-old impact identified in the breccia occurred around the same time as known impacts on both Earth and the asteroid 4 Vesta, fourth-largest member of the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. This was a particularly chaotic time in the solar system, with planets still forming amid near-constant collisions Knowing this, further examination of NWA 12593 can help contextualize the history of Earth, the moon, and the wider cosmic neighborhood.

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A pair of related human skeletons discovered in northwest Scotland are offering archaeologists a rare glimpse into Iron Age familial relationships and burial practices. And based on findings detailed in the journal Antiquity, at least some of those ancient funerary rituals involved brain removal and bone sharpening.

While researchers know a lot about the communities of Iron Age Britain (800 BCE–43 CE), not quite as much is known about the actual people who lived there. The region’s moist environmental conditions ensure that bodies decompose far more quickly than in other parts of the world. Northwest Scotland is a different situation, however. Burial practices inside stone cairns helped safeguard at least some skeletal remains from the elements.

“We knew that in the northwest of Scotland, including the Northern and Western Isles, the circulation and deposition of human remains were particularly prominent,” Laura Castells Navarro, a study co-author and University of York archaeologist, said in a statement.

The two individuals were most likely maternal second cousins. Credit: Rebecca Ellis Haken

Navarro’s team has spent years examining a pair of individuals excavated a few miles inland from the Norwegian Sea near Loch Borralie. Using osteology (the study of bones)as well as isotopic and DNA analysis, they successfully identified the pair as an adult female and a juvenile male who likely died between 50 BCE and 70 CE. This timeline places them at a pivotal era just before the Romans invaded southern and eastern Scotland in 79 CE.

Genetic material confirmed the individuals are most likely maternal second cousins, although their burial site is far from their original homes. Isotopic analysis indicates that they grew up about 50 miles southeast of Loch Borralie.Additional evidence indicates they share genes with people from Orkney (about 110 miles northeast of the loch) and Applecross, about140 miles to the southwest.

“More broadly, our research shows that prehistoric maritime communities periodically moved around the north coast and Northern Isles of Scotland, possibly in small groups”, said Castells Navarro, adding that this migration facilitated the spread of cultural traditions and rituals.

Some of those practices are dramatically visible in the adult woman’s remains. Scratches inside her cranium point to the removal of her brain, while long bones like the humeri, femur, and ulna were carved down to sharp points. Although the exact motivations for these practices are still difficult to discern, they illustrate complex societal belief structures and observances.

“The care with which she was reassembled and deposited in the cairn possibly suggests she commanded a level of reverence and respect by her community,” Castells Navarro said, adding the remains highlight Iron Age society’s “continued interaction between the living and the dead.”

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Part of Dungeons and Dragons’ enduring charm is the game’s seemingly infinite possibilities. Players may start on a quest to slay a villainous dragon, only to spend hours of their campaign helping a local village deal with a vengeful necromancer. But no matter where the story goes, everyone’s choices are influenced by rolling a lot of dice.

The roleplaying game is particularly famous for its reliance on the 20-sided die, but there are all types of sizes depending on the situation. That said, the situations when someone might need to toss a 120-sided variant are few and far between. However, a collective of game designers called The Mint Tin Guys decided to make just such an accessory available for D&D fans. But why stop there? All those sides deserve some decorative flourishes, so the team recently debuted a unique, aluminum-crafted D120 die highlighting all 118 elements currently listed on the Periodic Table of Elements.

Radioactive elements are also highlighted on the die. Credit: Chris Rossetti / Rampage Games

According to its creators, the elemental D120 is “perfect for tabletop RPGs, science classrooms, chemistry enthusiasts, or anyone who enjoys the fusion of geek culture and education.” It’s also a great way to bone up on the universe’s building blocks. Interested dice-throwers can head over to Etsy to snag one for about $150.

Two sides technically feature no elements. Credit: Chris Rossetti / Rampage Games

However, the designers took one small liberty.. At last count, the Periodic Table currently stands at 118 elements. The synthetically-created Oganesson was added to the reference table in 2002. With only 118 elements and a 120-sided die, two sides are essentially “wildcards,” but that adds to the overall charm. And with a 1-in-120 chance of landing on a non-element, the chances that you’ll encounter one of them often are pretty slim. Then again, anything is possible during a good D&D campaign.

The post Giant 120-sided ‘Dungeons and Dragons’ dice highlights every element appeared first on Popular Science.

Archaeologists in Germany say a uniquely shaped ceramic vessel discovered inside a castle was potentially used for much more than simple distillations. According to the Saxony State Office for Archaeology, the over 1.5-foot-tall jug’s origins are “presumably” tied to medieval alchemy. But before anyone conjures images of magical rituals, experts say it’s far more likely the container’s creators intended the vessel for more grounded research trying to turn dull metals into gold.

Located in southern Saxony, Germany, Gnandstein Castle’s earliest iteration was built during the 13th century to overlook the Wyhra Valley. Generations of modifications eventually transformed the fortification into a manor, although many medieval architectural elements are still visible throughout the former residence. Gnandstein Castle received around a decade of renovations between 1994 and 2004, during which archeologists scoured the grounds for important historical relics.

More recent construction efforts took place in a previously demolished, 2,400-square-foot portion of the grounds. There, archaeologists found remnants of early modern brick paving and floor tiles dating to the early 16th century. But one additional artifact was particularly interesting—a glazed ceramic vessel with a rounded body, tapered neck, and three feet on the bottom, allowing it to stand upright. Its overall shape and design strongly suggest prolonged, controlled usage instead of storing liquids like wine or cooking oils.

Archaeologists suspect that the container was part of a larger distillation setup. Similar items from the era held liquid that was then heated from flames underneath it. After placing a rounded cap over the neck, vapors would transport up the neck and condense in the cooler top known as a helm or head. Final results frequently included plant extracts, mineral oils, medicines, and alcohol.

The Saxony State Office noted the artifact closely aligns to equipment used in “alchemical and proto-chemical practice” during the 15th and 16th centuries. Popular culture often depicts medieval alchemy as mystical pseudoscience, but a great deal of it actually forms the basis for present-day chemistry, pharmacy, and laboratory research. The ceramic relic itself supports this, as its creator likely chose the material knowing that metal containers sometimes release toxic or contaminating substances during various hot or acidic preparations. The Saxony region also had strong ties to mining and metallurgy around that time, further suggesting alchemical influences.

Unfortunately, the team cautioned that the object’s true use remains unclear. Researchers didn’t find any residual material inside the vessel, so there currently is no way of knowing what it once held. Despite the mystery, it’s now clear someone in Gnandstein Castle hoped to distill something—and possessed the equipment to accomplish it.

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Today, NASA announced the four Artemis III astronauts and one backup crew member for the 2027 test flight. NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik will serve as the commander, alongside mission specialists Andre Douglas and Frank Rubio (also with NASA). European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Luca Parmitano will serve as the mission’s pilot. 

Parmitano was selected to the ESA astronaut corps in May 2009 and is also a colonel and test pilot for the Italian Air Force. He is the first ESA astronaut assigned to an Artemis mission and immediately pointed to his family as motivation. 

“I am honored by the role that I have been given,” Parmitano said during the press conference. “The rocket figuratively and literally is NASA. I am grateful that NASA is allowing me to be part of this incredible group of people and this crew and for letting me fly. But we wouldn’t be going anywhere without fuel and the fuel that lets everything move is right here–Maia, Sarah, Marta, and my extended family here in the crowd. You are the energy that feeds my soul and your love is the spark that ignites every passion.”

ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano shared this photo with NASA astronauts Andrew Morgan and Christina Koch as a throwback to the capture of HTV 8 in July 2019. Image: ESA/NASA.

Parmitano has already proven that he possesses coolness under pressure. On July 16, 2013, he nearly drowned during a space walk, after data about a previous spacesuit did not make its way up the International Space Station’s chain of command. Water chemistry issues caused a leak in the spacesuit’s cooling system. 

The issue started near the end of a spacewalk on July 9. At the time, the crew concluded that the water came from Parmitano’s drink bag. That initial assessment was incorrect. The leak occurred due to contamination build up that blocked a filter. The blockage allowed water to go into a line that feeds air to the astronaut’s helmet.

“When the water reached my face, it spread over my nose and up into my nostrils in an instant. I was almost blinded, I couldn’t hear anything and I couldn’t breathe through my nose,” Parmitano wrote in a March 2026 commentary on the event published in New Scientist. “I already knew I needed to reach the airlock and get back inside the International Space Station. The key question: how long did I have before the water reached my mouth and I couldn’t breathe at all?”

In a report released several months later, investigators said that ISS management should not have given the go ahead for the July 16 spacewalk following the incident on July 9. The report also criticized management for not immediately stopping the dangerous task as soon as Parmitano reported water in his helmet. The report ultimately included 49 recommendations to help prevent a similar incident.

Artemis III will undertake a series of challenging tests in Earth orbit in 2027. These tests are essential for Artemis IV in 2028, the first planned crewed mission to the lunar South Pole.

The agency’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket will propel the Orion spacecraft and its crew from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center into low Earth orbit. After Orion systems checkout, the spacecraft will demonstrate rendezvous and test docking capabilities for the first time. It will use test versions from one, or both, American commercial human landing systems in development by Blue Origin and SpaceX. 

“This highly choreographed mission includes a dramatic multi-launch campaign of the world’s most powerful rockets, testing integrated hardware between Orion and the landers, including system interfaces, software, propulsion, and communications,” NASA writes. 

The Artemis III crew poses for an official portrait (from left: Andre Douglas, Luca Parmitano, Randy Bresnik, Frank Rubio). Image: NASA/Bill Stafford.

“Artemis III will push the boundaries of spacecraft operations in orbit. Luca’s assignment as pilot reflects the depth of European expertise in human spaceflight and draws on his extensive operational experience in high-pressure situations,” ESA’s director general Josef Aschbacher said in a statement. 

“At the same time, ESA’s European Service Module will once again provide the critical capabilities that power Orion, demonstrating Europe’s enduring role at the very heart of the Artemis program. The news out of Houston today is a powerful recognition of ESA’s role in enabling humanity’s return to the Moon – and a key advancement in our partnership with NASA. Europeans can take pride in being part of this exciting journey.”

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Evolution is responsible for Earth’s stunningly diverse spectrum of life, but that wasn’t always the case. In fact, the earliest eras of living organisms were comparatively boring. The earliest known animals date back about 635 million years (during the Ediacaran Period), yet they look remarkably similar to their descendents 96 million years later at the dawn of the Cambrian.

Why did evolution remain so stable for so long? It might be simply because Earth’s first creatures simply weren’t having much sex.

“Life was pretty nice during the Ediacaran, so the need for sex was rather limited,” Emily Mitchell, a paleozoologist at the University of Cambridge, explained in a statement. “There was relatively little competition, so there was no real pressure to change anything.”

Along with her colleague Andrea Manica, Mitchell recently combined spatial analysis and laser scanning with machine learning to analyze 574-million-year-old fossils excavated from southernmost Newfoundland’s Mistaken Point. Their findings, published today in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution, show that the earliest animals’ reliance on asexual reproduction kept things largely uniform, and reduced the struggle for resources.

Fossils of Fractofusus, an animal from the Ediacaran period. Credit: Emily Mitchell

They offered Fractofusus as a prime example. At over 6.5 feet tall, the fern-like creatures dwarfed most of their oceanic relatives and likely lacked organs or mouths. They also absorbed food from the surrounding water while remaining anchored in place, reproducing through clones distributed by stolons or runners like present-day strawberry plants.

“If you’re connected to your neighbor by these runners, then you’re sharing nutrients and you don’t need to compete with them,” said Manica.

From there, the team constructed a machine learning model to approximate how Fractofusus and its fellow Ediacaran animals possibly behaved through varying reproductive strategies. The program’s neural network then identified simulations that aligned with known fossil record diversity patterns. Known as Approximate Bayesian Computation let them basically travel back in time to estimate how animals proliferated and squared off for limited resources.

They now believe the Ediacaran Period’s overall tranquility (and sexlessness) began to get complicated as species gradually migrated from deep waters to shallower regions. Once there, ancient animals endured new stressors like temperature swings, nutrient deficits, tides, and even storms. Life then adapted to face these increased threats—and left behind more fossils. The story they tell indicates that environmental stress often precedes a rise in sexual reproduction versus other methods of procreation. 

“When that happens, we can see a massive increase in dispersal distances as animals attempt to colonize new areas due to an increase in competition,” said Mitchell.

These shifting trends eventually ushered in what’s known as the Ediacaran “second wave” of animal evolution, which further amplified millions of years later during the Cambrian era, as animals started physically moving through their environments.

“If you’re suddenly in an environment where you’re essentially getting killed a couple of times per year, then that changes everything,” Mitchell explained.

The post Sex jumpstarted Earth’s animal biodiversity appeared first on Popular Science.

A treasure trove of prehistoric squirrel poop is painting a picture of a lost world. Some of the oldest DNA ever discovered and sequenced lies deep inside these ancient rodent droppings. That fossilized poop (or coprolite) is full of 700,000-year-old environmental DNA from numerous plants, insects, microbes, and large mammals that once lived in Canada’s Yukon, many of which are long gone. A study published today in the journal Nature Communications describes the findings.

Researchers analyzed permafrost samples collected from ground squirrel burrows that span several glacial periods and can remain frozen and sealed for thousands of years. Image: Government of Yukon.
A rodent time capsule

Arctic ground squirrels (Urocitellus parryii) are still alive today. They are widely found within Beringia, a region spanning the Yukon in Canada and Alaska in the United States. They are opportunistic feeders that eat a wide variety of plants, fungi, and insects. They will also eat meat, including dead flesh, whale meat, and even other rodents. They can also hibernate for up to seven months. Their wide diet and long-term hibernation in frozen burrows have helped create a detailed biological record of their environment.

“I’ve been describing them as acting a bit like tiny Arctic pack rats,” Tyler Murchie, a study co-author and McMaster University biomolecular archaeologist, tells Popular Science. “These squirrels are interesting both because of what they collected from the environment and because of their own evolutionary histories and how they adapted to the far north during previous glacial periods.”

The proof is in the poop

In the study, Murchie and his team analyzed 13 Arctic ground squirrel coprolite samples from the central Yukon. This research took place on the territory of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nation and was conducted with permission. 

Compared to bones or sediments, fossilized feces like these coprolites are not used as often for DNA analysis since they can degrade more easily. However, the ground squirrel burrows in Arctic regions can remain frozen and sealed for thousands of years, preserving genetic material in the poop. The ground squirrel burrows here span several glacial periods, and the organic material inside can remain frozen and sealed for thousands of years. The samples in this study date back 30,000 to approximately 700,000 years ago and the biomolecules from ancient animals can be preserved in the coprolites.  

“Ancient squirrel poop was one of those ideas that sounded a bit ridiculous at first,” says Murchie. “Scott [Cocker, a study co-author] and I did it initially in part for fun and out of curiosity, not knowing what to expect. But scientifically, it made a lot of sense that these sorts of remains would be really information dense given how dense the burrows can be with macro-remains and given that they’ve been frozen continually for millenia. The squirrels were basically collecting pieces of the landscape and storing them in frozen burrows.”

To tell that something is coprolite, context matters. The scientists didn’t find a random poop pellet here or there, but found the droppings as part of a greater burrow system. 

“They are small pellets, roughly rabbit-dropping sized, and they look like dried or fossilized fecal pellets rather than random sediment clumps or plant fragments,” Murchie explains. “When you’re working with them though, they very much seem like frozen poop. When we subsample them and go to digest a portion to extract DNA, it smells like poop. So the organics are all still in there.”

Inside of these DNA samples they not only found smaller organisms like plants and microbes, but larger animals—woolly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius), American cheetahs (Miracinonyx), horses (Equus), steppe bison (Bison priscus), and more. The team was able to reconstruct 18 mitochondrial genomes from the poop samples, including 12 ground squirrels, one hare, two bison, and three horses.

An artist’s reconstruction of Pleistocene Yukon, showing Arctic ground squirrels scavenging meat and foraging on plants within the mammoth-steppe ecosystem. Ancient DNA from their preserved burrows and faeces reveals this complex food web—where even small rodents fed on megafauna like mammoths. Image: Mercedes Minck/Hakai Institute. A humbling timeline

The team also found a previously unknown genetic diversity among Arctic ground squirrels, including one lineage that dates back 700,000 years. While this squirrel does not live in the Yukon, its relatives can be found in western Siberia.

“There’s something humbling in the timescale. Some of these samples are older than our species. Homo sapiens in our modern anatomical form are usually placed at around 300,000 years ago, and our oldest sample is roughly 700,000 years old,” says Murchie. “So these squirrels were living, collecting, eating, caching, and leaving behind these tiny biological archives long before humans like us existed.”

The team acknowledges that some of the DNA may have been picked up from the coprolite’s surface at a later time and species identification may be affected by incomplete genetic reference databases for animals that lived so long ago. However, these findings show that permafrost coprolites can be part of a high-resolution snapshot of prehistoric environments and complement more typical findings like bones and teeth. 

“Science is sometimes at its best when it takes something ordinary, weird, or even funny, and shows that it contains a much larger story,” says Murchie. “In this case, squirrel poop can turn out to be a window into deep time, climate change, extinction, evolution, and ecosystems that no longer exist.”

The post To reconstruct an ancient ecosystem, the proof is in the squirrel poop appeared first on Popular Science.

It sounds like a scene out of a horror movie. Dozens of headless human skeletons resting in a single grave. First discovered in 2022, this Neolithic burial site near the present-day town of Vráble, Slovakia, raises significantly more questions than it answers. Was this the site of a grisly massacre 7,000 years ago? Were the individuals sacrificed? Is it the result of some kind of plague?

A new study published in the journal Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society points to a more skillful removal of skulls as part of an unknown ritual, instead of a violent decapitation by an enemy. 

The large Neolithic settlement at Vráble is one of the most important excavation sites of the Linear Pottery culture (LBK) in Central Europe. The LBK first arose around 5500 BCE and lasted until roughly 4500 BCE. Archaeologists consider the LBK one of Europe’s earliest farming cultures that moved along the transition from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to more settled agricultural communities.

Researchers from Kiel University in Germany and the Slovakian Academy of Sciences in Nitra have been investigating the region since 2012. The site is made up of the outlines of over 300 former houses in three neighborhoods. The settlement existed for several centuries between roughly 5250 and 4950 BCE. One of the neighborhoods was surrounded by a ditch that archaeologists believe served as a border. 

After finding sporadic human remains in early digs, the team found the remains of at least 78 individuals at the entrance to the settlement. The skeletons were not in any discernible order and 77 of them lacked a head. The team only found one skeleton of a child with a preserved skull. The initial evidence suggests that not a lot of time passed between death and interment. 

The mass deposition at the ditch. Below: photos; above: a tracing of the skeletons in various colours. Most of the individuals are found to the far left, where the ditch ends and the entrance to the settlement was located. Image: Katharina Fuchs, Agnes Heitmann, Nils Müller-Scheeßel, Till Kühl.

“The features clearly exhibit an intentional manipulation of the bodies,” Dr. Katharina Fuchs, a study co-author and biological anthropologist at Kiel University, said in a statement. “First analyses suggest, above all, that violent ‘decapitations’ were not conducted here, but rather skilful removals of the skulls.”

The meaning behind this skull-removing practice is still up for debate. One thought is that the heads may have been stored separately. This burial practice has not been verified at Vráble, but did occur in other cultures. However, the details of the practices differ greatly between peoples. 

The team believes that this arrangement of body parts may have been one part of a more complex and meaningful practice.

“We must assume that these practices were embedded in completely different contexts of meaning than those of modern societies,” added study co-author and archeologist Martin Furholt. “This is what makes an interpretation of them so challenging.”

Multiple researchers are currently sorting the recovered bones to determine the age at the time of death and biological sexes, and analyzing the cutting marks in more detail. Future studies on the possible impacts of violence and forensic investigations into the decomposition processes are also underway. Additional isotope and DNA analyses should also open a window into the origins, diet, and kinship ties of the Neolithic individuals buried at Vráble.

“But the first results already show that Vráble is an exceptional excavation site,” said Furholt. “It provides us with the keys for the discussion of fundamental questions, for example, how were death and the body understood in the Neolithic and what role did the associated practices play in the social fabric of early farming societies?”

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