Popular Science

Just like some humans, animals can benefit from acupuncture, too. ZooTampa at Lowry Park in Tampa, Florida is using veterinary acupuncture to treat some of its animals with complex medical conditions. The patients that have received this treatment include a manatee (Trichechus manatus) named Sloth, a black-bellied whistling duck (Dendrocygna autumnalis) named Earl Grey, and a roseate spoonbill chick (Platalea ajaja).

According to the Mayo Clinic, acupuncture involves putting very thin needles through the skin at strategic points on your body, and is most commonly used to treat pain.

“Acupuncture has a wide range of applications that can be applied to some of our diverse animal cases here at the zoo,” Alex Mason, the staff veterinarian who is certified in veterinary acupuncture and leading the initiative, tells Popular Science. It “has been demonstrated to aid in healing responses by increasing blood flow and circulating stem cells, in addition to enhancing patient comfort through the body’s release of endogenous opioids like endorphins and serotonin, and can stimulate nerves to enhance function, in addition to other applications.”

The treatment provides an additional strategy in the face of potentially limited traditional treatment solutions, or when the team aims to increase the animal’s comfort, mobility and healing, Mason added in a statement emailed to Popular Science. Acupuncture is employed as a complementary therapy at ZooTampa, so it might be used in conjunction with standard veterinary medicine, physical therapy, and other treatments. 

Fourteen-year-old Earl Grey was treated with electroacupuncture after he had sudden weakness in his right leg. His caretakers were happy to see improvements after three sessions. The roseate spoonbill chick also received electroacupuncture for a leg injury, after which it regained normal limb function. 

Earl Grey began treatment after developing a weakness in his right leg. Image: ZooTampa.

Sloth the manatee, on the other hand, has facial nerve injury that impacts one of his nostrils and one of his eyes. He was treated with both acupuncture and electroacupuncture, with mild improvements. Chronic nerve injuries can be particularly hard to treat, and acupuncture provided a different course of action in the wake of limited traditional treatments. 

“Acupuncture uses thin needles placed into specific spots selected based on the intended treatment plan for the animal,” Mason says. “Electroacupuncture utilizes the same needles and points but connects the needles to an electrical current for stronger and longer lasting effects.”

The post Florida zoo treats a manatee, a duck, and a chick with acupuncture appeared first on Popular Science.

Wacken Open Air is widely considered the world’s heaviest of heavy metal music festivals for good reason. The annual event in northern Germany has drawn metalheads from around the world to the otherwise quiet town since 1990, and regularly features hundreds of the genre’s biggest acts. With upwards of 85,000 headbangers in attendance, the hub of extreme music also occasionally draws another, smaller contingent of visitors—cognitive scientists.

“We knew that suppressed anger has the greatest effect on intensifying pain experiences in patients with chronic pain,” Lydia Schneider, a neuroscience researcher formerly at Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, said in a statement. “That’s why we wanted to investigate whether the experience of pain changes—especially with a genre of music like heavy metal, which expresses quite a lot of unpleasant emotions, particularly anger.”

Schneider and her colleague Tom Fritz visited Wacken Open Air to offer concertgoers a challenge: see how long they could endure dipping their hand and forearm into ice water. Prior to the cold plunge, volunteers also recorded their heart rate and heart rate variability using an ECG monitor. Schneider and Fritz ultimately tested  122 volunteers during the festival, then compared their results against a control group of attendees who arrived prior to any bands taking the stage. 

The results weren’t what researchers expected. According to their study recently published in the journal Scientific Reports, participants didn’t find the pain less unpleasant after thrashing at the festival—but they did report it became easier to withstand the pain.

“On the contrary—the festivalgoers were actually able to endure the cold-induced pain for longer than the control group,” explained Schneider.

Instead of adjusting their pain sensitivity, the experiment suggests a correlation between aggressive or angry-sounding music and improved pain tolerance. The researchers say that beyond simply boosting attendees’ mosh pit endurance levels, their findings may prove useful in clinical and therapeutic settings,especially for patients struggling to process chronic pain.

“Music is often used to trigger positive feelings and induce relaxation—but when it comes to letting out one’s anger, you don’t necessarily want to listen to relaxing music,” Fritz added.

Wacken Open Air 2022 headliner Slipknot can probably attest to the findings. The band’s 2004 hit single “Duality” is about their lead vocalist’s migraines.

The post Heavy metal fans may handle pain better than others appeared first on Popular Science.

As summer begins to melt into the fall, internet-famous bald eagle Shadow and his new friend Kaydee continue to spend time together in Big Bear Valley. 

On Friday, August 21 Shadow appeared content while looking out over the lake. Kaydee was spotted towards the lower part of the tree, greeting the morning with song. She was spotted again on the forest’s twin pine trees, which is becoming a preferred perching spot, according to Friends of Big Bear Valley (FOBBV).

“Just as Kaydee is getting to know the area, Shadow is off enjoying the rest of his summer vacation,” FOBBV writes. “It’s been fun seeing him around the territory, and there is still time to spot him when he comes out from his well-deserved resting spots!”

By Sunday morning, the pair greeted each other with a song that echoed over the valley and Big Bear Lake. Kaydee also performed some “crop drops,” while checking out the habitat, and possibly eye on Shadow. 

A crop drop is a way for adult eagles to store food. Their stomach (or gizzard) is only about the size of a walnut. So they have a little crop at the bottom of their necks, which is sort of like a food storage container or doggie bag. According to FOBBV, adult eagles can store up to two pounds of food in their crop and these drops make sure that they can eat small amounts food and keep digesting throughout the day

Kaydee also appears to have found the camera, or at least a reflection on the lens. She tilted her head in curiosity, and this eagle appears to be a bit of a ham. The pair also spent some time rearranging sticks in the nest on Sunday afternoon.

Kaydee and Shadow took some time to rearrange some sticks. Image: Friends of Big Bear Valley.

Kaydee was also spotted on the nest early this morning, but flew away after a few minutes leaving some feathers behind. 

The purple band on her leg is the easiest way to tell if an eagle on the nest is Kaydee. Image: Friends of Big Bear Valley.

Viewers can follow Shadow and Kaydee and their journey via FOBBV’s livestream

Who is KD1 aka Kaydee?

Kaydee, formerly known as KD1, is a banded female bald eagle that has been spotted in Big Bear Valley following the death of Shadow’s former partner, Jackie. She was born in 2022, about 70 miles away from Big Bear Lake in the Prado Basin between Anaheim and Riverside, California. Coincidentally, her parents are also named Lucky and Ricky like Jackie’s parents, but they are a different eagle pair. 

Kaydee was banded as part of the Orange County Water District’s work to track the eagles born in the area. These bands help biologists track and monitor the birds over time. Kaydee currently has a black spot on her head, but it may not be permanent. It’s possible that not all of her white feathers have come in or it could be tree sap or dirt. She also has two small bands on her legs. One is a small metal band, while the other is a lavender band with “KD1” on it. 

Kaydee is almost five years old, so she is just about ready to mate. She was recently spotted on FOBBV’s livestream inspecting the nest and has also been seen hanging out near Shadow. Flying around Big Bear is completely normal behavior for young adult eagles at this time of year.

It is still too early to know if Shadow and Kaydee will mate. The full bald eagle nesting season lasts over six months, depending on when the fledged chicks leave the area. FOBBV tracks the nesting season beginning on September 1, and eggs are generally laid in January. 

Jackie and Shadow’s story

Jackie and Shadow became official in 2018. FOBBV’s nest cameras documented Jackie and Shadow’s life together, offering us a direct look into the brutality and beauty of nature. They successfully raised chicks in 2019 (Cookie and Simba) and 2022 (Spirit). The pair’s eggs failed to hatch in 2023 and 2024. In 2025, Jackie laid three eggs that all hatched in early March. However, a strong snowstorm dumped up to two feet of snow and battered the nest with strong wind and only two of the chicks (Sunny and Gizmo) survived.  

In January, Jackie laid two eggs in the nest, but ravens destroyed them. She later laid two more eggs that hatched in April and named Luna and Sandy. The name Sandy is in honor of FOBBV’s former executive director Sandy Steers who died from cancer in February. 

On July 17, Jackie was found injured on the ground near Dana Point Park, California. Cell phone video from a witness confirmed that she had an altercation with two other subadult eagles. She successfully fended off the other eagles by turning over and using her talons, but could not fly far away. 

She was transferred to the Ojai Raptor Center for care, where she was diagnosed with severe anemia. Her anemia worsened during the first week of August, the Ojai Raptor Center said that she was in unstable condition on August 9. Her packed cell volume (PCV) fell below percent, before rising to nine percent. 

Jackie died early in the morning on August 10. The necropsy did not reveal a single cause of death, and instead pointed to several factors including severe anemia, blood clots in her wing and one kidney, and liver and lung abnormalities.

The post Bald eagle Kaydee inspects camera, helps Shadow arrange sticks appeared first on Popular Science.

A set of carefully etched obsidian arrowheads stick out among other similar artifacts, but archaeologists in central Turkey have still amassed dozens of them over the last 40 years. Following excavation work at a site in Anatolia known as Tepecik-Çiftlik, researchers from France’s Aix Marseille Université have catalogued and described another 11 examples of the weapon tips in a recently published study in the journal PLOS One. But while 54 similar arrowheads—some crafted nearly 9,000 years ago—are now documented, a decisive explanation of their features still eludes their discoverers.

“It was very exciting to see similarities emerging across the different sites,” explained archaeologist and study co-author Alice Vinet. “At the same time, every arrowhead is unique: none of the incisions are exactly alike.”

Researchers have collected hundreds of arrowheads from central Anatolia that date back to the Late Neolithic era. Many of the tools were found in the remains of the village Tepecik-Çiftlik on Turkey’s Melendiz plain. Humans resided in the region between roughly 7,100 and 5,800 BCE, where they farmed, herded, and sometimes hunted. The plain is also located between two vast sources of obsidian, which was an indispensable resource at the time. Many ancient communities around the world often valued the volcanic glass for its glossiness and extremely sharp edges.

All 12 known incised obsidian arrowheads from Tepecik-Çiftlik. Credit: Vinet and Guilbeau

The strangely marked arrowheads were first described by archaeologist Kathryn Ataman in 1988, who examined 31 of them from a nearby location. At the time, Ataman theorized that each arrowhead’s incision represented a type of signature for each hunter that allowed them to claim their kills. Given that only a handful of similar examples have been found over the course of three decades, Vinet’s team and others now argue there simply aren’t enough incised arrowheads among the other unmarked variants to support the hypothesis.

In 2019, one of Vinet’s colleagues discovered yet another of the arrowheads. Reviewing it led Vinet’s team to finally understand which incision hints to examine when reviewing similar finds.

“Once we knew exactly what to look for, we were able to recognize the others,” she said.

Vinet’s 11 additional arrowheads bring the total number to 54, all of which were used within an estimated 1,000-year timeframe. Given their rarity, the archaeologists briefly wondered if the weapon tip incisions were actually simple accidents made during their crafting. They then analyzed each under a microscope, then attempted to recreate the etchings on their own.

They soon realized obsidian can’t scratch obsidian, meaning Neolithic artisans would have needed something much harder—such as the bits of flint also found at places like Tepecik-Çiftlik. Although they could finally make their obsidian arrowhead replicas using flint, the rock only accounts for about one percent of all the flakes found at these archaeological locations. While it was relatively easy to make the markings, some still required over 20 repetitions to complete them. This implies whoever made the incisions must have really wanted to do it. 

There is currently no apparent clear pattern to the designs. Some exist in the center of an arrowhead, while others are on the sides. And despite regional obsidian trade during the Neolithic expanding as far as the southern Levant, no similar arrowheads have been found outside central Anatolia. That said, some of the tools potentially suggest at least some broad motifs may be identifiable in the future. Until then, the curious discoveries remain striking—and completely confounding.

“It was very exciting to see similarities emerging across the different sites,” said Vinet. “At the same time, every arrowhead is unique: none of the incisions are exactly alike.”

The post Oddly etched Neolithic arrowheads baffle archaeologists in Turkey appeared first on Popular Science.

Europe’s brutal heatwaves have left the Danube River at historically low water levels. Over the last few weeks alone, residents in Serbia and Hungary discovered World War II artifacts like Nazi motorcycles and sunken ships that resurfaced after remaining submerged for decades.

Yet another historic relic has recently been uncovered—this time in Slovakia. But unlike the summer’s previous finds, this one required a bit more finesse to tackle. Near the town of Virt along the southern border with Hungary, a magnet fisherman snagged an unexploded British anti-ship mine weighing over 1,500 pounds—the largest of its kind ever defused in Slovakia.

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According to the finder’s social media post, archaeologists traced the device to a British Royal Air Force (RAF) operation that took place between April and October 1944. Darkly known as a “gardening” mission, these ventures involved RAF pilots depositing a total of 1,382 mines over 18 attacks along waterways in an attempt to stymie Nazi naval transport. Maritime traffic on the Danube subsequently fell 60–70 percent and sank dozens of ships. As Nazi forces redirected their supplies, the opening created an opportunity for Soviet troops to continue their march westward.

Much of the unexploded weaponry was never recovered in the years following WWII, allowing the Danube’s currents to slowly inter them under layers of sediment. While not a constant problem, any chance to remove one of these leftover mines is an opportunity to improve travel safety along the river. The process isn’t as simple as hauling the artifact out of the Danube muck. Local police detailed their efforts earlier this month, which involved coordination between the Fire and Rescue Corps as well as pyrotechnicians from Bratislava’s Institute of Criminology and Expertise.

After carefully removing the mine from the Danube, handlers then lowered it into a fire truck modified to include a sand bed in the rear to act as cushioning. Drivers next transported the weapon to a secure, unpopulated location where workers dug a 16-foot-deep pit. Officials placed the mine inside the ditch, buried it, and subsequently detonated the bomb through a controlled remote explosion.

Although the recent discoveries are dramatic, authorities advised locals against searching out similar finds. If they needed any proof, officials pointed to the mine’s detonation clip, which underscores just how dangerous these munitions have remained even after more than 80 years.

The post Fisherman finds live WWII mine at bottom of Danube River in Slovakia appeared first on Popular Science.

After a busy baby season, some of the raccoons at the New England Wildlife Center in Weymouth, Massachusetts were recently spotted having the time of their lives. The center recently renovated its outdoor raccoon enclosure, with a reinforced perimeter, better enrichment structures, and additional outdoor cameras. The cameras help staff keep an eye on the raccoons without going in in person—and they’ve recently captured “absolute chaos” at the wildlife center. A video shows a handful of raccoons wrestling, climbing, and playing.

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“Our outdoor camera captured just how active they are at night. They are play-wrestling with each other in the video,” Priya Patel, the center’s Wildlife Medical Director, tells Popular Science. “Our goal in rehab is to always keep them as wild as possible. The raccoons in this video are around 4-5 months old and some have been in our care since early May. They are living fully in our outdoor cage and developing more natural behaviors like becoming more nocturnal.”

For those of you wondering if more intimate nighttime activities are also taking place, Patel explains that raccoons don’t become sexually mature until they’re around 10 months old. By then,they will be returned to the wild. All the raccoons in the video are orphans, and most of them were discovered on their own without evidence of a mother being nearby. 

They came to the New England Wildlife Center in the spring or early summer, where staff have taken care of them since. Their care included vaccines for rabies, distemper, and parvovirus, and transitioning from formula to more solid food. The wildlife center raises young raccoons in large groups in order for them to bond with each other and not their human caretakers. Their outdoor enclosure also allows more distance from humans. 

“Spending time in outdoor enclosures is vital for the success of our patients. For orphans that were raised in care it acclimates them to being back out in the wild and they relearn how to deal with changing weather and temperatures. They learn how to find shade on hot days and then den together on colder rainy days,” Patel explains. “They also have more space to run and climb which builds their muscle strength. Their food is more scattered in outdoor cages and provided in puzzle boxes as enrichment so they develop foraging and problem solving skills.” 

Fortunately, it seems like the young raccoons are taking full advantage of their newly renovated outdoor enclosure. Might we suggest a live cam like our bear, beluga, and bald eagle friends? 

The post Baby raccoon wrestling shenanigans caught on wildlife center camera appeared first on Popular Science.

Picture this: You’re roaming Yellowstone National Park as the ground begins to rumble, pressure builds, and then…KA-BOOM! Goodbye to Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho.

The last Yellowstone explosion happened 661,000 years ago, but could it happen again? On our latest episode of Ask Us Anything, editors Sarah Durn and Annie Colbert explore the chances of Yellowstone’s supervolcano erupting today. Let’s just say you shouldn’t cancel your vacation. But that doesn’t mean nothing else is brewing underneath the national park.

Ask Us Anything answers your most outlandish, mind-burning questions—from the everyday things you’ve always wondered to the bizarre things you never thought to ask. So, yes, there’s a reason why most people are right handed and no, not all cats hate water and that’s okay. If you have a question for us, send us a note. Nothing is too silly or simple.

This episode is based on the Popular Science article “What would happen if Yellowstone’s ‘supervolcano’ erupted today?”

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Full Episode Transcript

Sarah Durn: Picture yourself walking through Yellowstone National Park, about 2.1 million years ago. There are no tourists. No boardwalks. No Old Faithful gift shop. Instead, mastodons and saber-toothed cats roam the landscape. And deep beneath their feet, something enormous is happening.

Magma is accumulating beneath the Earth’s crust. The ground is swelling. Earthquakes are rattling the landscape. Pressure is building underground.

Until—Yellowstone erupts in a SUPER VOLCANO, sending over 660 TRILLION gallons of rock, ash, and magma into the atmosphere – enough to cover the ENTIRE state of Rhode Island under nearly half a mile of debris.

The total output is roughly 6,000 times larger than Mount St. Helens’ famous 1980 eruption—and when it’s over, the ground collapses into an enormous crater, known as a caldera.

Yellowstone would have two more giant, caldera-forming eruptions after that. The most recent happened about 631,000 years ago. Which raises a slightly terrifying question: When might Yellowstone erupt again? And if it does… what exactly would happen?

Welcome to Ask Us Anything from the editors of Popular Science, where we answer YOUR questions about our WEIRD world.

From “What are the most common sunscreen myths?” to “How fast would New York City fall apart without people?” No question is too offbeat or mundane.

I’m Sarah Durn, an editor at Popular Science.

Annie Colbert: And hello, I’m editor-in-chief, Annie Colbert.

SD: Here at PopSci, we’re always pondering quirky questions.

AC: And this week, we’re wondering: what would happen if another Yellowstone supervolcano erupted today?

Okay, Sarah, this is terrifying. So I need to know, how scared do we really have to be of a national park becoming a volcanic powder keg?

SD: Okay, so I have some good news.

AC: Ooh, I do love good news.

SD: Experts say a giant Yellowstone eruption probably will happen again someday.

AC: That does not sound like good news.

SD: The good news is the someday part. A major eruption likely won’t happen for thousands, potentially even millions of years. The magma beneath Yellowstone right now is mostly solid, which means it isn’t really capable of feeding a massive supervolcano eruption.

AC: Okay, so we can cancel the emergency volcano bunker?

SD: For now, but here’s where things get interesting. A giant eruption also isn’t necessarily the next volcanic event Yellowstone will experience.

AC: Oh, no.

SD: Oh, yes. Something like a massive superheated water explosion or even a slow-moving lava flow is much, much more likely. In fact, scientists say calling Yellowstone a supervolcano can be a little misleading because it makes it sound like every eruption has to be catastrophic.

AC: But I’m guessing we’re still gonna talk about the catastrophic version of events.

SD: Oh, absolutely, because while a giant eruption is incredibly unlikely anytime soon, scientists have studied what would happen if Yellowstone had another super eruption.

AC: And I’m gonna guess that the answer is not great.

SD: Not great.

That would be, you know, putting it mildly. And what happens wouldn’t necessarily stay anywhere near Yellowstone.

AC: Okay, now I need to know details. What would an eruption actually look like? How far would the damage spread? Would scientists know it was coming, and perhaps most importantly, would humanity survive?

SD: We will get into all of that.

AC: Ugh, cliffhanger.

SD: I know. I’m sorry. But before we dig into all of those harrowing questions, we wanna hear from you. What questions are erupting in your brain?

AC: If there’s something you’ve always wanted to know, you can submit your questions by clicking the Ask Us link at popsci.com/ask.

SD: Send us your questions.

AC: Yes, send them. All right. Coming up, we’ll dig into what’s actually happening underneath Yellowstone right now.

SD: And what would happen if one of the largest volcanic systems on earth really did blow.

AC: That’s after this quick break.

SD: Welcome back. Okay, Annie, before we get into what’s going on under Yellowstone National Park, I think we need to start with the basics. Can you explain to listeners what a volcano is? 

AC: Yes, absolutely. So very basically, a volcano is an opening in the Earth’s crust where magma, gases, and other material from inside Earth can escape.

And a little fun bonus fact, the word volcano actually comes from Vulcan, who is the ancient Roman god of fire. 

SD: Of course it does. Of course. Very dramatic, very appropriate. 

AC: And volcanoes are actually much more common than you might think. There’s around 1,350 potentially active volcanoes around the world.

SD: Whoa.

AC: And most of the volcanoes are concentrated around the edges of the Pacific Ocean in what’s known as the Ring of Fire.

SD: Another incredibly reassuring name.

AC: Yes, volcanologists really know how to name things. There are around 170 volcanoes in the US and its territories. Most are in places like Alaska and the Cascade Range in the Pacific Northwest, but Yellowstone is a little different.

SD: Very different because when you picture a volcano, you probably picture a mountain with a crater on top. Yellowstone, you know, doesn’t really look like that.

AC: Mm-hm.

SD: In fact, Yellowstone National Park doesn’t just sit on a volcano, much of the park is part of this enormous volcanic system called the Yellowstone Caldera.

AC: So when millions of people are wandering around Yellowstone looking at geyser and bison every year-

SD: They’re essentially walking around inside a volcanic crater.

AC: Very cool.

SD: Incredibly comforting.

AC: Yes.

SD: All of those famous Yellowstone features, Old Faithful, the hot springs, all that steaming water, are only possible because there’s an enormous heat source underground. So let’s do the scary hypothetical.

Let’s say Yellowstone really is about to have another giant super eruption.

AC: I’m almost scared I ask. What’s the first thing though that happens if Yellowstone erupts?

SD: Right. So long before the actual eruption, there’d be a huge amount of magma accumulating underground. Pressure would build, the Earth’s crust would begin to crack, and eventually magma would force its way through those cracks and erupt at the surface.

And then? Things would get very bad very quickly. Hmm. Huge columns of superheated ash and gas would shoot into the sky. Those eruption columns would actually collapse under their own weight, creating what are called pyroclastic flows. Which are basically avalanches of extremely hot ash, gas, and rock racing across the landscape.

AC: Mm.

SD: They would destroy trees, buildings, roads, pretty much everything in their path. The areas immediately surrounding Yellowstone, including parts of Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho, would be swept clean.

AC: So if you’re near Yellowstone, this is very, very bad.

SD: Oh, yeah, extremely, extremely bad. But the effects wouldn’t just stop at Yellowstone.

Ash would fall much, much farther away. Scientists have actually modeled this. Communities stretching from Missoula, Montana, all the way down to Albuquerque, New Mexico, could get coated in ash. 

AC: That is a huge area.

SD: Yeah, and it gets bigger. Michael Poland, the scientist in charge of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, told Popular Science that at least a few millimeters of ash could fall over much of the United States and parts of Canada.

AC: I mean, a few millimeters doesn’t sound like that much.

SD: It doesn’t, but volcanic ash is really, really nasty stuff. That amount of spread across such an enormous area could disrupt agriculture, contaminate water supplies, and cause problems for electrical grids. And then there’s what happens in the atmosphere.

AC: Oh, no.

SD: A giant eruption could blast huge amounts of ash and gas high into the atmosphere. Those particles could block some sunlight from reaching the Earth’s surface and cool the planet. We actually have a historical example of this on a much smaller scale. In 1815, Mount Tambora erupted in present-day Indonesia. It was the largest volcanic eruption in recorded human history.

AC: And this is the one that caused the year without summer, right?

SD: Exactly. Temperatures dropped, crops failed, there was widespread famine and disease. A Yellowstone super eruption would be a very different event, but scientists use eruptions like Tambora and climate models to understand what the global effects could look like.

And volcanologists like Poland say the effects from something on the scale of a Yellowstone super eruption could potentially last five to 10 years.

AC: Oh, okay, this all sounds really, really bad.

SD: Yeah.

AC: So are we talking about the end of humanity here?

SD: Surprisingly, no. Oh. It would be catastrophic. A lot of people could die, but Poland told Popular Science that no explosive volcanic eruption has ever been associated with a mass extinction, so humanity would survive.

AC: Hey, yay. It’s a little reassuring.

SD: On a very relative scale.

AC: Yes, extremely relative. So now that you’ve thoroughly terrified me, how likely is any of this to actually happen?

SD: Yeah, and this is the part I really want everyone to remember. Not very likely at all. Poland says the chance of a giant Yellowstone super eruption happening on a human timeline is about as close to zero as you can get.

AC: Okay. Can you explain? Because there is magma underneath Yellowstone.

SD: There is, but scientists say that magma is currently mostly solid. So even though we talk about a magma chamber, don’t picture some, you know, enormous underground lake of glowing liquid rock just waiting to explode.

AC: That is absolutely what I was picturing.

SD: I know, me too. But right now there simply isn’t enough liquid magma in Yellowstone to feed an enormous eruption. Poland gave this great analogy. Imagine the odds of getting struck by lightning are one in a million, but then imagine you’re standing outside and there isn’t a cloud anywhere in the sky. So

AC: Lightning exists, and it could strike me someday-

SD: But the conditions you need for it to happen right now just aren’t there.

That’s basically Yellowstone. Scientists think a major eruption probably will happen again eventually, but we could be talking thousands or potentially millions of years from now.

AC: So what should we actually be worried about at Yellowstone?

SD: Probably something much smaller. A hydrothermal explosion, basically superheated water erupting as steam and violently exploding is considered much more likely.

Those can create impressive craters and be extremely dangerous if you’re nearby, but they’re not gonna devastate all of North America. Yellowstone could also eventually have another lava flow, and those tend to be much slower-moving events. Basically, thick lava erupts from the ground and slowly creeps across the landscape over months or years.

In fact, lava flow eruptions are much more common at Yellowstone than enormous super eruptions. The last lava flow there happened about 70,000 years ago.

AC: Which makes super volcano sound a little misleading.

SD: Definitely. Poland actually isn’t a huge fan of the term for that reason. Calling Yellowstone a super volcano makes it sound like this thing that has two settings, peaceful national park and apocalypse.

AC: Nothing in between.

SD: Exactly. When in reality, Yellowstone is this incredibly complicated and active volcanic system that can do lots of different things, and scientists are watching it constantly. The Yellowstone Volcano Observatory uses things like seismic stations to track earthquakes and instruments that monitor heat coming out of the volcanic system.

AC: So we would know if a giant eruption was coming.

SD: Yeah, most likely. Scientists think they’d probably see warning signs weeks to months in advance. So Yellowstone isn’t a giant bomb that could suddenly explode beneath everyone’s feet without warning.

AC: Okay, I feel considerably better than I did six minutes ago.

SD: That was the goal. Yellowstone could erupt again, a giant eruption could be catastrophic, but right now there’s no evidence that anything like that is on the horizon,

AC: So maybe don’t cancel the Yellowstone vacation.

SD: Definitely not.

AC: And if you wanna learn more about what would happen if Yellowstone did erupt, you can check out the full story on Popular Science. We will link it in the show notes.

SD: Read it. It’s super interesting. Now, we have to take a quick break, but when we come back, we’ll talk about the volcanic activity that has been happening in Yellowstone just in the last few months. Wait, what? I know, I know. It’s gonna be okay. That’s coming up after this quick break.

AC: Welcome back.

SD: So, Annie, after spending this entire episode telling you Yellowstone probably isn’t going to erupt anytime soon, Yellowstone has actually been doing some pretty weird stuff lately.

AC: Sarah.

SD: I know, but I promise this is not a forget-everything-we-just-said situation. Earlier this year, scientists detected a giant bulge forming along the northern edge of the Yellowstone caldera.

AC: How giant is giant?

SD: About 19 miles across.

AC: That sounds concerning.

SD: I know. It does. The ground had risen about an inch from July 2025 to February of this year. But scientists say this kind of swelling or uplift isn’t particularly concerning at Yellowstone. It’s happened before. Researchers think this one could be caused by magma moving around about nine miles underground.

AC: So the giant bulge is not Yellowstone’s supervolcano waking up?

SD: No, no. In fact, 2025 was actually a relatively quiet year for Yellowstone earthquakes, so there we go. But then in June 2026, Yellowstone gave scientists another surprise.

AC: Of course it did.

SD: Remember those hydrothermal explosions we talked about earlier?

AC: Yes, the much more likely alternative to the super eruption.

SD: Exactly. On June 13, a small hydrothermal explosion happened at Biscuit Basin. Super heated underground water suddenly found a path to the surface, flashed into steam, and exploded out of the ground.

AC: Oof. Was anyone hurt? 

SD: Thankfully, no. Biscuit Basin was already closed because there had been a bigger hydrothermal explosion there in 2024.

AC: Mm.

SD: But here’s the really cool part. A couple days later, geologists came back and discovered that the landscape had changed. A brand-new pool of vigorously boiling water about 21 feet by 17 feet had formed in a spot where scientists had literally been walking just two days earlier.

AC: Ah. All right, Yellowstone, we get it. You’re alive.

SD: It’s alive.

AC: It’s alive.

SD: So maybe that’s the real takeaway from this episode. Yellowstone is absolutely active. It’s moving, it’s bubbling. Occasionally, it even explodes.

AC: Just probably not in the civilization-ending way.

SD: Exactly. So enjoy Old Faithful. Respect the boiling water.

AC: And maybe don’t lose sleep over the supervolcano just yet.

SD: Exactly.

AC: And that’s it for this episode. But don’t worry, we’ve got more episodes of Ask Us Anything live in our feed right now. Follow or subscribe to Ask Us Anything by Popular Science wherever you enjoy your podcasts. And if you like our show, leave a rating and a review.

SD: We care what you think. Our producer is Alan Haburchak. This week’s episode was based on stories written for Popular Science by Nidhi Sharma and Andrew Paul.

AC: Thank you, team, and thanks everyone for listening.

SD: And one more time, if you want something you’ve always wondered about explained on a future episode, go to popsci.com/ask and click the Ask Us link. Keep those questions coming.

Keep ’em coming. Until next time, may your magma stay underground.

AC: Your hydrothermal explosions stay far, far away…

SD: And your national parks remain decidedly un-apocalyptic.

The post How likely is a Yellowstone ‘supervolcano’ eruption today? appeared first on Popular Science.

Welcome to the jungle, Lielaphis slashi. The newly discovered snake is named after Saul Hudson aka Slash, Guns N’ Roses’ lead guitarist. The snake’s named translates to “Slash’s groundsnake” in English, and honors his lifelong love of reptiles and support for museums and zoos. 

“As a long time herpephile, I am extremely honored and humbled to have Lielaphis slashi from New Guinea named after me. It is really exciting, I never would have imagined this moment would arrive,” Slash said in an email to Popular Science.

The discovery is particular exciting for Sara Ruane, the Associate Curator of Herpetology at the Field Museum in Chicago and senior author of a paper describing the species published the journal Zootaxa. 

“Guns N’ Roses has been one of my favorite bands since I was in first grade, and by fifth grade, I had already told my teacher that I wanted to be a herpetologist—a scientist who studies reptiles—when I grew up,” said Ruane. “So when I was twelve years old and got my copy of Reptiles Magazine in the mail and it had a picture of Slash holding his pet reticulated python on the cover, I thought, ‘This guy is so cool.’”

Slash and Sara Ruane at the Field Museum, with Sara’s copy of Reptiles Magazine featuring Slash on the cover. Image: Sara Ruane.

The 28-inch-long, reddish-brown snake was discovered in the forests of New Guinea. The landmass  just north of Australia is the second-largest island in the world, after Greenland. It’s divided between the countries of Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, and the dense tropical forests that cover the island are a bevy of biodiversity that have not been well-studied.

While conducting field work one night in 2006, Chris Austin, a study co-author and herpetologist at Louisiana State University (LSU), spotted an unfamiliar snake.

“These New Guinea groundsnakes are nocturnal, so the best way to find them is at night. They are typically found just after sunset at the base of large trees where they are looking for something to eat,” said Austin, who is also the curator of herpetology at the Louisiana State University Museum of Natural Science. “When working at night in New Guinea you need to be very careful as there are several highly venomous species that look very similar to the non-venomous groundsnakes.”

After completing her doctorate In 2016, Ruane worked with Austin at LSU. The pair teamed up to research the poorly known snakes of New Guinea and have been collaborating ever since.

Based on the snake’s appearance alone, it was not clear that the team was looking at a new species. A laboratory analysis made it clear that something was different about this particular reptile.

“Using multiple cutting-edge genetic analyses, we found that L. slashi is genetically distinct from other similar snakes in the same genus,” says Tianqi Huang, a study co-author and post-doctoral researcher at the Field Museum. “The combination of physical characteristics, like differences in numbers of scales when compared with other species, and the genetic evidence is what led us to realize that it is an entirely new species. We also used ecological modeling to show that L. slashi’s preferred habitat is different from similar snakes.”

Lielaphis slashi is not venomous and does not pose any threat to humans. Image: Chris Austin.

The team still has a lot to learn about Slash’s groundsnake, since they are difficult to observe in the wild and can slither away undetected. However, there are some clues based on its anatomy. 

“Snakes in this genus often have large teeth in the back of their mouths, which New Guinea groundsnakes may use to grab on to and eat small, slippery-scaled lizards and the eggs of other reptiles; this snake isn’t grasping and squeezing its prey like a boa constrictor,” said Ruane. 

Importantly, it does not produce any venom that could seriously harm a person. And as for the snake’s famous name, Ruane thought back to that magazine article.

“I reread his interview, and he talked about how much he loves museums and zoos and natural history, and about how when he was a kid, he’d go outside and look for snakes—it was all stuff that I really related to, and it made me think that he’d be a great person to name a new species after,” said Ruane.

Slash’s groundsnake won’t hurt humans, but human activity could spell disaster for this snake and other creatures in New Guinea. Their habitats are under threat from farming and mining, but describing new species like this can help conservation efforts. 

“That’s part of why describing the species that live there is important. Every species should be recognized in order for us to better understand how ecosystems work, how everything fits into the environment,” said Ruane. “We can’t conserve animals or other living things that we don’t know about.”

The post New snake species named in honor of Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash appeared first on Popular Science.

It’s difficult to imagine anything of consequence occurring within a millionth of a second, but one of the most pivotal moments in cosmic history occurred in that miniscule time.. Physicists believe the earliest form of matter in the universe—known as quark-gluon plasma—arrived in this brief blip in time following the big bang about 13.8 billion years ago. This incredibly dense, hot state of matter existed at a moment when the nascent universe was so hot that it prevented the formation of protons and neutrons. As the cosmos cooled and expanded, the free-floating quarks and gluons started binding together to create the building blocks of all matter, including all those necessary atomic protons and neutrons.

There’s a problem with the theory, however. Researchers have long thought plasma is only created from collisions between atoms with extremely heavy nuclei such as lead. To explore the conundrum, a team at the Switzerland’s University of Copenhagen and the CERN facility decided to recreate their own “little” big bangs by smashing together elements at nearly the speed of light. Their results recently published in the journal Physical Review Letters signal a major breakthrough in quantum physics—one that indicates a primordial quark-gluon plasma soup is actually possible with lighter ingredients.

An illustration of the collisions between neon-20 and oxygen-16 at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. Credit: CERN

“A precise understanding of nuclear structure helps us understand the strong force,” You Zou, a study co-author and physicist now at the University of Maryland, said in a statement. “But instead of carefully investigating nuclei at low energies, we smash them together at the highest energies we can create and can now read their shape from the imprint they leave behind.”

In this case, Zou and colleagues examined the aftermath generated by firing the smaller nuclei oxygen-16 and neon-20 at each other. While the team can’t observe the collision itself because the interaction happens so incomprehensibly fast, they can study the particles and the shape they form not long afterwards. Study co-author and Neils Bohr Institute physicist Emil Gorm Dahlbæk Nielsen likens the situation to the properties—and absence—of light.

“It is a bit like shining light on an object and seeing its shadow. You cannot see the object directly, but its shadow reveals its shape,” he said. “In the same way, the movement of the particles reveals the geometric shape of the atomic nuclei that was present at the beginning of the collision.”

Physicists now know that a collision between two oxygen nuclei generates a more rounded particle pattern, while crashing neon nuclei together creates a pattern more reminiscent of a bowling pin. But while these smashed atomic components reveal that it actually is possible to create quark-gluon plasma using lighter elements, it doesn’t mean oxygen or neon nuclei were present so soon after the big bang. That said, we are still one step closer to discovering the actual culprits. The next phase will yet again involve smashing atomic nuclei—this time using even lighter candidates like helium-4.

For Zhou, it’s i compelling that a single experiment can help physicists learn about atomic nuclei structures while simultaneously recreating some of the universe’s earliest moments.

“These two things turn out to be much more closely connected than one might initially think,” he said.

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If you’ve followed explore.org’s livestream of the bears at Katmai National Park and Preserve in Alaska this summer, you’ve probably noticed a big bear nicknamed Bucky Dent who is great at catching fish. Officially designated as Bear 164, this roughly seven-year-old adult male is so good at catching fish, he invented a new way to find them as a young subadult bear. Today, the cameras spotted Bucky Dent catching a salmon that looked pretty determined to swim away. 

Cameras also spotted him doing a “tango,” or weaving in and out of the water with Bear 909, while searching for fish. Bucky and 909 are often spotted searching for salmon together, and don’t seem to mind close fishing quarters.

Bucky first appeared in the area in 2019 and rangers do not know the identity of  his parents. In 2021, he struggled to find a good fishing spot since as a subadult bear with lots of competition. So to find salmon, he invented a new fishing method. He stood at the deepest plunge pool under the cascade of Brooks Falls. Here, he could catch fish that welled up from the pool below, jumping up through the air, or falling from the falls above. No other bear has used this technique. Now that Bucky Dent ranks among the largest bears, he can fish wherever he wants. 

In 2022, rangers gave Bucky his official number (164). One way to tell 164 apart from the other bears in the area is the dark vertical indentation on his upper muzzle (or snout). This indentation is where the nickname Bucky Dent comes from, although it is a bit of an homage to the famous New York Yankee. He also has bright blonde oval-shaped ears, and his fur appears dark blonde to medium brown depending on the lighting.

Now that August has arrived, the salmon have reached their spawning grounds and have  spread out in the Brooks River. Since the fish dispersed, Bucky Dent and the other bears must also spread out. While they look for more salmon to eat, they will also explore the region’s streams, and take advantage of other food sources like berries.

Later in August, the salmon will begin to weaken and die after spawning. Once the fish weaken, the bears will have an easier time catching them again. By September and into October, more bears will return to the lower Brooks River, just in time for the big Fat Bear Week competition October 2 to October 8. An adult male bear like Bucky Dent can go from roughly 700 pounds when the season begins to over 1,200 pounds by the fall.

You can still catch them from time to time on explore.org’s live cameras and should see them more often as we get closer to September.

The post Meet Bucky Dent, one of Katmai’s most innovative bears appeared first on Popular Science.

The desert is a harsh environment, even if you’re equipped with the latest tools, protective clothing, and resources. But 15,000 years ago, a group of hunter-gatherers known as the Natufian culture living in the southern Levant did more than eke out an existence. Unlike other prehistoric communities, Natufians abandoned nomadic life across present-day Jordan, Palestine, and Israel for smaller, permanent settlements before they even developed agriculture.

A major key to their survival? They weren’t picky eaters. Based on ancient bones discovered in the Nahal Me’arot Nature Reserve on Mount Carmel, Natufian diets were heavy on lizards, snakes, and other desert reptiles. The evidence is laid out in a recent study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“We were then able to distinguish reptile remains that died naturally at the site or were preyed upon by mammals and birds from those that served as food for humans,” Maayan Lev, study co-author and an archaeologist at Germany’s Kiel University, said in a statement.

Lead author Maayan Lev (right) with colleagues during the excavations on Mount Carmel. Credit: Reuven Yeshurun

Lev’s team is focused on the el-wad Terrace, a 20-layer archaeological site that contains multiple human settlements, with the oldest beginning about 15,000 years ago. Researchers have identified thousands of snakes and lizards in this geological record, many of which became meals for local predators. But microscopic skeletal details also revealed a decent percentage of these reptiles didn’t only succumb to the food chain. Cut marks and scrapes made by flint knives at consistent locations on the bones indicate local humans butchered many of them for meals.

The choices weren’t simply whatever Natufians could catch. A large portion of the prepared reptiles included the large whip snake (Dolichophis jugularis) and the eastern Montpellier snake (Malpolon insignitus). Indirect signs also suggest the proto-Neolithic community also dined on the European glass lizard (Pseudopus apodus), which featured tough scales that necessitated a completely different type of butchering. According to Lev, these selections were likely intentional.

“Our hypothesis is that the Natufian people preferred to catch reptiles that were relatively large, relatively slow and not dangerous,” she said. 

This made the glass lizard a particularly attractive target, but comparatively harmless snakes would also do in a pinch. “Venomous snakes such as vipers, on the other hand, were rarely caught,” added Lev.

Apart from widening archaeologists’ understanding of the Natufian palette, the findings highlight how humanity’s resourcefulness and adaptive abilities stretch back thousands of years. Even before permanent communities became commonplace around the world, some groups were already learning to thrive in seemingly inhospitable conditions.

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NASA engineers have confirmed they can’t spare the historic Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory from a fiery demise, despite their best efforts. In July, mission specialists partnering with Katalyst Space Technologies launched the Link spacecraft with the hopes of capturing the orbital telescope and boosting it into a higher orbit. However,numerous complications forced the team to finally abandon the rescue attempt.

“This is not the outcome we were working toward, but it does not change why this mission was worth attempting,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said in a statement.

Deployed in 2004, the Swift Observatory spent over two decades gazing into some of the universe’s most powerful explosions. In 2022, the orbital space telescope even glimpsed the most luminous eruption ever seen—a gamma ray burst dubbed the BOAT (Brightest of all Time). But after years of unprecedented contributions to astronomy, the forces governing the cosmos are finally taking their toll as Earth’s gravitational pull slowly drags the telescope closer towards a point of no return. Meanwhile, increased solar wind activity hastened its orbital decay. NASA shut off Swift’s scientific instruments earlier this year in an attempt to delay the end, but Swift still remained on track to burn up amid an atmospheric re-entry within a few months.

Mission specialists were still determined to mount a last-ditch rescue effort. Over just nine months, engineers at Katalyst Space Technologies designed and built a three-armed spacecraft dubbed Link that would delicately capture Swift, then use thrusters to slowly boost the observatory back to its original orbital altitude(around 373 miles above Earth). If successful, the efforts would grant Swift years of additional life. 

Unfortunately, the endeavor began to unravel a few weeks into Link’s journey, when the spacecraft accidentally entered into an uncontrollable spin. Engineers eventually stabilized it to some extent, but multiple persistent problems made it difficult to properly position the craft in orbit.

“We knew this was a high-risk, high-reward mission—a first-of-its kind attempt, developed on an unprecedented timeline driven by the sun’s activity,” said NASA Astrophysics Division director Shawn Domagal-Goldman.

Based on current calculations, Swift is now expected to begin its atmospheric re-entry no earlier than October. It is not currently known where it will begin its final descent, although it isn’t expected to pose any threat to people back home.

In the meantime, the mission is far from dead. NASA and Katalyst will continue to guide Link as best they can towards Swift to learn as much as possible for future, similar rendezvous attempts. These may even include a mission to pull off a similar orbital boost to the famous Hubble Space Telescope. After 36 years in service, the historic observatory is also suffering from a decaying orbit made worse by intense solar activity.

“We were all hoping for more science from Swift,” said Domagal-Goldman. “But we knew the takeaways from this mission would be worthwhile either way, and we have gained so much through the series of accomplishments up to this point.”

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An expressive little orange-tailed marsh dart damselfly (Ceriagrion cerinorubellum) peering through a hole in a leaf is the winner of the 2026 BMC Ecology and Evolution and BMC Zoology image competition.

Since 2023, the annual competition highlights the beauty and diversity of life on Earth, while celebrating the researchers working to understand and protect the natural world. The judges selected an overall winning image and a runner-up, in addition to winners and runners-up in three categories: Relationships in Nature, Protecting Our Planet, and Research in Action. 

Browse through all of the winners in the gallery below. (Click to expand images to full screen.)

Overall winner: “Window to the Wetlands,” by Sritam Kumar Sethy The photo taken in eastern India shows an expressive marsh dart damselfly. Image: Sritam Kumar Sethy.

An orange-tailed marsh dart damselfly (Ceriagrion cerinorubellum) is framed by a hole in a leaf in a freshwater wetland in the state of Odisha, India. Berhampur University, Odisha student Sritam Kumar Sethy took the photo and says it “offers a glimpse into the often-overlooked world of freshwater biodiversity.”

Damselflies are critical predators in wetland ecosystems, and are an indicator of ecosystem health. Since they rely on both aquatic and terrestrial habitats, they can be particularly sensitive to the effects of pollution, habitat loss, and climate change.

“It is hard not to smile at this beautifully composed and vivid image, in which the damselfly seems to display a remarkable sense of character and presence,” BMC Ecology and Evolution Senior Editorial Board Member David Ferrier said in a statement

Jennifer Harman, Editor of BMC Ecology and Evolution and BMC Zoology, added that the photo “highlights the importance of wetlands, which support a remarkable diversity of species yet are among the world’s most threatened and rapidly disappearing habitats.”

Overall runner-up: “Space for Frogs” by Ryan Wagner Northern red-legged frogs are native to western North America. Image: Ryan Wagner.

Two students working in the field on a dark, rainy night near Portland, Oregon are attaching a radio transmitter to a northern red-legged frog (Rana aurora). Ryan Wagner of Washington State University took the photograph, which demonstrates how technology is helping scientists better understand animal movement and habitat use, which could lead to safer environments for at-risk species. Northern red-legged frogs are a medium sized frog that are considered a species of concern.

Relationships in Nature winner: “Giant Cuttlefish in Breeding Battle,” by Victor Huertas Giant Australian cuttlefish come together every year from May to August to spawn. Image: Victor Huertas.

Two male giant Australian cuttlefish (Ascarosepion apama) compete for a female’s attention during their annual spawning aggregation in the Upper Spencer Gulf in South Australia. The aggregation occurs every year from May to August. The photo taken by Victor Huertas from Australia’s James Cook University shows how tens of thousands of cuttlefish use their skin’s natural pigmentation to vie for mating rights.

David Ferrier describes the image as showing “both the intimacy and intensity of a complex and highly competitive mating display.”

Relationships in Nature runner-up: “Go Away,” by Alwin Hardenbol Mobbing like this is a common anti-predator behavior. Image: Alwin Hardenbol. 

Alwin Hardenbol of the Natural Resources Institute Finland showed noisy friarbirds (Philemon corniculatus) mobbing a brown goshawk (Tachyspiza fasciata) in Australia. 

BMC Ecology and Evolution Senior Editorial Board Member Christy Hipsley says that the image  of this common anti-predator behavior in birds is “like charcoal smudges on white paper.”

Research in Action winner: “Intertidal Education” by Liam Brennan Shallow waters off of Canada’s eastern coast male a perfect classroom. Image: Liam Brennan.

Undergraduate students in New Brunswick, Canada investigate the local fish population living in shallow coastal waters by moonlight. University of New Brunswick professor Liam Brennan snapped the photo. 

Edward Narayan, Senior Editorial Board Member for BMC Zoology, says that giving undergraduate students opportunities like this for research projects can, “transform classroom science into action to support crucial ecological and environmental monitoring research.”

Research in Action runner-up: “Everglades Monitoring” by Brandon Güell Florida’s Everglades are a very unique ecosystem. Image: Brandon Güell.

Brandon Güell from Florida International University’s entry shows researchers monitoring aquatic life in the Everglades National Park in southern Florida. The unique ecosystem is home to many animals including invasive Burmese pythons (Python bivittatus). The team’s research is part of a long-term effort to assess how ecosystem restoration projects are progressing.

Protecting Our Planet winner: “A Bridge Between Past and Present” by Allen Tian The western end of Canada’s St. Lawrence Seaway. Image: Allen Tian.

This creative drone shot of Long Sault Parkway at the western end of the St. Lawrence Seaway in Canada was taken by Allen Tian, a researcher at Queen’s University in Ontario. The stereographic photograph shows the environmental disruption that is caused by past dam construction, along with the ecological recovery that can follow conservation efforts.

Tian took the photo during his biodiversity research on the seaway, using environmental DNA sampling and drone surveys to monitor the ecosystem’s health, without disturbing any of the resident wildlife.

Protecting Our Planet runner-up: “Tide, turtle, and trust!” by Abhijeet Bayani Olive ridley sea turtles get their name from the color of their shells. Image: Abhijeet Bayani.

Abhijeet Bayani of MES Abasaheb Garware College in India, celebrates community-led conservation efforts along India’s west coast in this photograph. An olive ridley sea turtle hatchling (Lepidochelys olivacea) is being escorted to the sea by locals who protected her nest. Olive ridley sea turtles are on the small side and have heart-shaped shells. 

Highly commended images In “Manatees,” Florida manatees (Trichechus manatus latirostris) drink from a freshwater source in Everglades National Park. Image: Brandon Güell.
“Into the Bear’s Realm” shows a  researcher sheltering in a Himalayan cave while searching for evidence of an endangered Himalayan brown bear (Ursus arctos isabellinus) den. Image: Vineet Kumar. In “Barking Up the Right Tree,” a researcher is perched high above the forest floor while monitoring tree bark microbial communities in the Northern Territory, Australia. Image: Luke Jeffrey.

Congratulations to all of the participants!

The post 11 stunning images celebrating Earth’s life—and the scientists who study it appeared first on Popular Science.

Inside almost every known galaxy lurks a supermassive black hole, and our home Milky Way galaxy is no exception. Located about 26,000 light-years from Earth, Sagittarius A* anchors millions of stars and their planets with its incomprehensibly gargantuan gravitational pull. But after reviewing recent observations made by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers discovered that some material can exist closer to a galactic black hole than previously believed. Despite existing just 0.55 light-years from Sagittarius A*, the ancient star known as IRS 3 is shooting out immense stellar winds while surrounded by oxygen-rich dust and even water.

“Galactic centers are among the most extreme environments, so understanding whether stars can continue enriching their surroundings there is an important question,” said Florian Peißker, an astronomer at Germany’s University of Cologne and the co-author of a paper on the discovery published today in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.

This image showcases the location of the highly evolved star IRS 3, which is located just 0.55 light-years from Sagittarius A*, the Milky Way galaxy’s central supermassive black hole. The images show a progressinvely closer view of the region using ground- and space-based data. An international team of astronomers have discovered that dust and water can form and survive surprisingly close to this supermassive black hole. The observations reveal that the evolved star IRS 3 continues to enrich its surroundings with newly formed material despite the intense radiation environment around Sagittarius A*. Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/E. Slawik/M. Zamani, ESO/S. Guisard, NASA/JPL-Caltech/S. Stolovy (Spitzer Science Center/Caltech), F. Peißker, J. Lu

Stellar deaths are vital parts of the galactic life cycle. As a star begins to die, it sheds waves of gas into space that later form the foundations of cosmic dust. In turn, this space dust becomes the building blocks for planets and other celestial objects. The star at the center of our galaxy’s black hole, IRS 3, is a perfect example of these interactions. After 72 million years of existence, IRS 3 has entered its asymptotic giant branch phase, making it bright, cool, and about six times the sun’s mass. Astronomers have long known IRS 3 should hypothetically emit gas along its stellar winds, but they were unsure if that was even possible given its proximity to Sagittarius A*.

Previous data indicated IRS 3’s large dust envelope implied that the star was rich in carbon, but JWST has supplied evidence to the contrary. Using its Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), researchers detected two strong signatures that align with silicate dust made from oxygen and silicon. This means that IRS 3 possesses a lot of oxygen as it nears the end of its life.

The team used advanced simulation models to test how radiated light might move through different types of surrounding cosmic dust envelopes. The astronomers then used those models to build a theoretical structure of IRS 3’s actual envelope. They now believe the elderly star is surrounded by a layered shell of cosmic dust spanning about 0.15 light-years in every direction. Temperatures near the star hover around 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit, while the outer layers average about -280 Fahrenheit. For the first time, researchers also noted clear signs of water within the envelope of a star like IRS 3.

European Space Agency (ESA) astronomer Macarena Garcia Marin described the discovery as “especially exciting,” because it indicates foundational molecular material like water can still exist in intensely hostile, irradiated environments.

“This tells us that even close to a supermassive black hole, stars can continue contributing material back into their surroundings,” she added.

The post Our galaxy’s supermassive black hole actually doesn’t devour everything appeared first on Popular Science.

A nearly 2,550-pound, experimental maglev train car in China recently has beat its own short-distance acceleration world record for the third time in six months. But while it reached 0 to 497 miles in 5.3 seconds, don’t expect to climb aboard something similar to the Donghu Laboratory vehicle anytime soon. Instead, its uses may align more with advanced rocketry and military capabilities.

Maglev trains are,unfortunately, nowhere to be found in the United States.They’ve remained a major form of transportation for decades across China, Japan, and parts of Europe. The rides safely ferry passengers at upwards of 200 mph with a specialized system of magnetic coils that generate alternating electromagnetic fields. Once engaged, the magnetic currents both levitate and rapidly accelerate the train forward towards its next stop, allowing it to bypass the friction constraints of standard locomotive travel.

The world’s fastest commercial maglev train is the Fuxing rail in China, which reaches a top speed of 217 mph while averaging 197 mph along its 635-mile-long track. However, Donghu Laboratory is experimenting with immensely more power systems. Their first public run of the test vehicle in June 2025 reached about 404 mph in 7.1 seconds, establishing the first world record for short-distance maglev acceleration. That July, engineers boosted the top speed to 433 mph before doing so again to 496 mph in November. These trials confirmed multiple new underlying technological advances including high-power energy delivery, levitation control, positioning, electromagnetic propulsion, and emergency braking.

Precision is at a major premium to safely reach these acceleration benchmarks. A 2,550-pound train car is hefty at rest, meaning incredible amounts of force and energy are required to shove it to such high speeds within a matter of seconds. The experimental train is comparatively lightweight at those velocities, which means track deviations are limited to within only 0.5 millimeters. Control systems must also ensure similarly accurate positioning to keep the vehicle within its operating parameters.

These speeds (and their accompanying 2.9 G’s of acceleration) may never be experienced on a standard maglev commuter ride, however. Given overall infrastructure costs, energy requirements, and safety concerns, engineers imagine similar technologies will instead find uses for rocketry and military aircraft. For example, adapting the system to rapidly accelerate cargo rockets, drones, and other planes ahead of takeoff could dramatically reduce onboard fuel requirements. Other maglev systems could wind up in industrial transport systems and elevators.

While aircraft-speed ground transportation may not be imminent, today’s maglev rails remain plenty fast, economical, and safe. For now, most people in the U.S. would still settle for at least one traditional bullet train route.

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The World War II submarine USS Silversides is currently receiving its first dry dock preservation work in over 50 years. The thorough review of the famed piece of World War II naval history is often a largely routine effort, but workers recently discovered something entirely unexpected while inspecting the sub: a flood valve stamped with the word “Trigger” alongside the serial number L-792-228.

The component itself is mundane, but its context is remarkable. According to historians, the valve is likely the only surviving piece of the USS Trigger, a similar Gato-class submarine with a much more tragic fate than the Silversides.

Named after the unnervingly toothy triggerfish, the Trigger launched from California’s Mare Island Navy Yard on October 22, 1941. Although initially slated to participate in the Battle of Midway, the sub ran aground northeast of the island before returning to Pearl Harbor on June 9, 1942. The Trigger went on to complete 11 patrols before meeting her fate during the 12th outing. On March 28, 1945, nearby U.S. vessels in the East China Sea overheard Japanese planes and vessels engage in a two-hour attack on a fellow submarine that included a barrage of depth charges. Postwar Japanese records also reported that an aircraft located and bombed a U.S. sub on the same date, followed by eyewitness confirmation of a large oil slick indicative of a successful sinking. After not arriving at Midway Island by May 1, officials reported the Trigger as presumed lost, and her name was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on July 11.

The Silversides deployed two months before the Trigger, so it’s unclear why the surviving submarine ended up with a flood valve initially intended for the latter vessel—although their components are presumably interchangeable given that both are Gato-class subs. Regardless of the explanation, the discovery serves as a poignant reminder that while many ships and their crews ultimately returned home following WW2, many did not.

The Silversides has been the centerpiece of its own museum in Muskegon, Michigan since 1987. The nearly 312-foot-long Gato-class submarine is now across Lake Michigan for its facelift in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. The $3.5 million dry docking project will finish in October, ensuring the historic submarine remains seaworthy for at least another 15–20 years upon returning to its museum.

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The six-foot long, 100-pound, and thunderously loud lake sturgeon (Acipenser fulvescens) skulking around the Great Lakes may live upwards of 200 to 300 years. A new study published in the Journal of Fish Biology from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Michigan State University puts them among North America’s oldest freshwater fish and brings their lifespan up to one of the poster fish for longevity, the Greenland shark (Somniosus microcephalus).

“Scientists have long recognized that lake sturgeon are among North America’s longest-lived freshwater fish,” Scott Colborne, assistant professor in Michigan State University’s Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, tells MSU Today. “But the new study suggests they may live far longer than previously appreciated. These fish are a living connection to history.”

For context, here a few of the historical events that some lake sturgeon swimming today may have been alive for:

• The Seven Years’ War (1756 to 1763, also called the French and Indian War)
• The Boston Tea Party (1773)
• Lewis and Clark expedition (1804-1806)
• Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Minnesota all becoming states
• First railroad train in Wisconsin travels from Milwaukee to Waukesha (1851)
• The Great Chicago Fire (1871)
• The Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal opens (1900)
• The sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald (1975)

Scientists typically estimate a lake sturgeon’s age by counting growth rings in fin spines. However, since these rings are increasingly difficult to interpret in older fish, researchers thought they may be underestimating the age of the oldest individuals.

To test this, Colborne and his team dove into one of the largest long-term datasets ever assembled for lake sturgeon. They analyzed the growth records from tagged sturgeon that had been measured repeatedly over several years, and developed a much more accurate picture of how slowly these ancient fish continue to grow over the course of their lives. They also applied the same mathematical models that estimate Greenland shark’s lifespan.

The data shows that many live for 200 years, with some getting close to 300. 

Beyond adding another animal to the long-life club, these findings have important conservation implications. Since lake sturgeon mature slowly and reproduce infrequently, it can take decades to replace their population numbers. Better estimates of how long they live can help scientists more accurately understand their survival, population recovery, and how long-term harvest and habitat restoration efforts are working.  

According to the team, it also shows the value of long-term conservation. University researchers, tribal nations, and state partners have spent decades protecting, tagging, and monitoring lake sturgeon across the Great Lakes.

The Alpena Fish and Wildlife Conservation Office crew caught this 240 pound, 6 foot 10 inch female lake sturgeon in the Detroit River in January 2024. She is estimated to be more than 100 years old! After processing, this beauty was quickly released back into the river. Image: Jason Fischer/USFWS.

While discussing the research with a tribal community member, Colborne learned that some Indigenous communities had long believed that lake sturgeon could live as long as 400 years.

“That was one of those goosebump moments,” Colborne said. “Here we were using modern analytical approaches, and they were pointing us toward something that Indigenous communities had long understood—that these fish live incredibly long lives.”

Additional work is needed to better understand the biology behind their longevity and also may prompt scientists to revisit how they estimate the ages of long-lived fish.

“Because of their life history, sturgeon are very resilient and adaptable animals,” Colborn said. “If we give them the opportunity to survive, they’ll figure it out. There’s a reason these fish have been around for millions of years.”

The post 300-year-old sturgeon are swimming around the Great Lakes appeared first on Popular Science.

Take a deep breath and count to ten. That’s the classic advice for dealing with a situation that makes you angry. But recently, some people have been resorting to a different tactic: rage workouts. Activities include slamming tires with a sledgehammer and pummeling a punching bag with your fists. 

Channeling your rage into an activity that helps you get fit seems like a win-win. But “rage workouts are not supported by science,” says Dr. Brad Bushman, a professor of communication at The Ohio State University whose research focuses on human aggression and violence. 

“Exercise has many well-known benefits for physical and mental health,” says Dr. Sophie L. Kjærvik, a postdoctoral fellow at the Norwegian Center for Violence and Traumatic Stress Studies. “But if your goal is to cool down when you’re angry, vigorous exercise is not the best choice.” 

Exercise may fuel rage

In 2024, Kjærvik and Bushman published a review that pooled 154 studies with more than 10,000 participants. The review compared activities that calm the body down, such as deep breathing, meditation, and yoga, with activities that ramp it up, like jogging, cycling, or hitting a punching bag.

They found that calming activities reliably reduced anger and aggression, and this held true across genders, ages, and cultures. Activities that raise heart rate and alertness, by contrast, were overall ineffective at reducing anger—and in some cases appeared to make it worse.

That’s because the body responds very differently to each type of activity. When you’re angry, your body is in “fight-or-flight” mode. “Your heart rate goes up, your muscles tense, and adrenaline is released,” says Kjærvik. 

Kickboxing when you’re angry might keep your nervous system in fight or flight mode. Video: Intermediate Combo of The Day | Kickboxing Combo, @FightCamp

Activities such as deep breathing, mindfulness, meditation, progressive muscle relaxation, and slow-flow yoga “slow your heart rate, reduce tension, and help bring your body out of the fight-or-flight state that accompanies anger,” she explains. 

Conversely, “doing intense exercise can keep your body in that heightened state rather than helping it calm down.”

The type of exercise matters 

The picture that emerged from Kjærvik and Bushman’s review wasn’t completely black and white, however.  

“Interestingly, not all exercise had the same effect,” Kjærvik notes. “Ball sports seemed to help reduce anger, possibly because they are fun, social, and distracting. Jogging, meanwhile, was associated with higher levels of anger. This may be because jogging increases physical arousal while also providing an opportunity to keep thinking about whatever triggered the anger.”

An earlier study backs up the idea that the kind of workout matters. After making volunteers feel angry by giving them negative, unfair, and harsh feedback during four table tennis tasks, researchers asked some to do a rowing workout and others to do a martial-arts-style combat routine. 

Only the rowing group became less angry; people who did combat exercise stayed fired up. The researchers think that movements that look like fighting may keep aggressive feelings high, while non-fighting movements like rowing help those feelings calm down.

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Don’t expect superhuman strength when you’re angry

Whenever the fictional scientist Bruce Banner lost his temper, he would turn into the incredibly strong (and incredibly green) Hulk. There’s a small kernel of truth in this pop culture trope, but don’t overestimate the boost to your athletic performance.

“Anger triggers the body’s fight-or-flight response, releasing adrenaline and making you feel more energized,” Kjærvik explains. “It can also reduce your perception of fatigue for a short time. However, this doesn’t mean that anger gives you ‘superhuman strength.’ Rather, it may help you push closer to your normal physical limit for a brief period.”  

Bottom line

“You should definitely exercise. It is good for your heart,” Bushman says. “But it is an ineffective means of managing anger. It will prolong or perhaps even increase angry feelings and aggressive impulses.” 

But the next time you reach boiling point, choose a calming activity like deep breathing or gentle yoga to regain your composure, and save the hard workout for when you’re less furious.

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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Hikers exploring the coastal forest on a tropical island near Okinawa, Japan, would be forgiven for thinking that Balanophora fungosa is a simple mushroom. They have dark caps and grow along the forest floor, but these are no harmless fungi—they’re parasitic plants that get their nutrients from the roots of nearby plants. Each yeasty-smelling B. fungosa produces up to one million tiny seeds covered in a dry fruit, but scientists had no idea how these seeds were dispersed. 

“Many people assumed that they simply fall by gravity and are carried away by the wind, but the humid and windless forest floor makes this seem rather implausible,” explained Kobe University botanist Suetsugu Kenji. 

Suetsugu’s earlier research found that ants, crickets, and cockroaches can disperse the plant’s fruits, but there were some caveats. Only the fruits that were firmly attached to the plants were visited by insects with strong mandibles, while the easily detachable fruits were visited by smaller invertebrates. He suspected that ants would be the main disperser, since B. fungosa has dull colors, a yeasty smell, and easily detachable fruits for ants. 

Balanophora fungosa has dull colors, a yeasty scent and easily detachable fruits, so Kobe University botanist Suetsugu Kenji suspected the dispersers to be ants. But when he covered the plants with nets that let through ants but not larger animals, he found that the plant’s fruits were no longer picked up. Image: Suetsugu Kenji

However, when Suetsugu covered the plants with nets that allow ants to pass through but not larger animals, he noticed that the fruits were not picked up. He set up a time-lapse camera, hoping to catch a disperser in the act. And he did. 

To his surprise, the main disperser is a land hermit crab named Coenobita brevimanus. According to his new study published today in the journal Ecology, the crabs scraped off the fruits with their pincers, and could even remove a plant’s entire fruit overnight. Some of the fruits then attach to the crabs’ bodies, and were observed carrying the fruit several feet away from the plants.

Some of the tiny seeds within the fruit also survive passage through the crabs’ digestive tract. These crabs can travel up to 328 feet, and are likely spreading these seeds far and wide through their poop.

“I was excited to find this because these animals have usually been regarded as omnivores, scavengers or seed predators rather than potential plant partners,” said Suetsugu. 

He added that this is the first empirical evidence that hermit crabs are both external and internal seed dispersers, since they can carry seeds with them on their bodies, and ingest the fruit and excrete the seeds. 

Suetsugu also found that the hermit crabs appear to actively seek out the mature plants, since they were not spotted around immature plants. This indicates that the crustaceans were probably attracted by the mature plants’ scent. That yeasty aroma is likely a direct advertisement to the local invertebrates, who feed on almost anything they can snatch up with their pincers.

“When it comes to seed dispersal, large vertebrates have received most of the attention, but small-bodied invertebrates are often overlooked,” Suetsugu explained. “Nevertheless, they may also help maintain seed movement, especially on islands, in fragmented habitats, and on shaded forest floors.”

The post Hermit crab poop spreads a parasitic plant’s seeds appeared first on Popular Science.

The La Mojana field systems in Colombia’s wetlands are some of the largest examples of monumental ancient engineering in South America. Encompassing an area about as large as Grand Canyon National Park, the network of canals and raised farming ridges are so vast that they’re even visible from airplanes. Archaeologists and historians have long assumed such complex and intricate endeavors must have required oversight from rigidly structured authorities,but new evidence suggests otherwise.

Instead of a centralized chiefdom commanding their citizens to build the field systems, an international research team now believes the hydraulic agricultural arrangement was designed, built, and maintained by local family cooperatives. What’s more, they likely achieved their goals much faster than expected. Their findings, published today in the journal Communications Sustainability, may not only correct the historical narrative—the strategies could help mitigate the region’s ongoing water management crisis.

“These field systems are so impressive that people have assumed they were achieved by hierarchical chiefdoms. Our data tells a very different story,” Jasmine Vieri, an archaeologist at the University of Cambridge and study co-author, explained in a statement.

Ancient water management

This farming system relied on raised fields that could amass huge amounts of water in permanent reservoirs during the rainy seasons, then redirect the stores to fields via canals during drier times of the year. Apart from ensuring reliable water access, the system may have also helped nearby communities trap fish. Construction began during the first centuries BCE,and local pre-Hispanic communities continued to rely on these field networks until about the 11th century CE. It’s not clear why the methods fell out of favor, but one theory is that populations gradually moved from the lowlands into higher altitude areas. 

The fields arose at a time when the Mayans and other larger Mesoamerican and Andean cultures were already organizing themselves into larger states. But while previous artifacts like ceramics and gold work found in La Mojana have suggested the existence of smaller, formative chiefdom societies in the region, Vieri’s team noted that there simply is no other evidence to support the more structured oversight theory.

The raised fields were used for roughly 1,000 years. Credit: Sebastián Schrimpff / Museo del Oro / Banco de la República A team of 800

For their new survey of the ancient waterways, archaeologists reviewed satellite imagery of a roughly 1,235 acre section of the field systems near the town of San Marcos in northern Colombia. Vieri and colleagues assessed the volume and dimensions of 1,600 ridges and 63 raised housing platforms inside this area, noting that the earliest ridges were about 4.6 feet high.

Researchers at the Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History (ICANH) and Spain’s University of Santiago de Compostela then calculated the labor and social structures needed to construct such a system. Factors included how much earth was moved, local geological information, the era’s technology, population size, and indigenous working traditions. 

Using an estimated population of 1,600 people living inside the 1,235 acres, the team adopted a conservative estimate of 800 workers engaged in the project. The actual number may have been much larger, since ethnographic data shows adults and children routinely helped with subsistence farming.

The results of their calculation models indicate that cooperative families could have easily built these field networks without guidance or pressure from higher authorities. It also was feasible in a much shorter span of time than many experts thought.

“We are confident that one of these canal-ridge systems could have been built in less than two months, around half of a dry season,” said Vieri. “That’s a far lower labor investment than has been previously assumed, and manageable through cooperation.”

ICANH archaeologists seen recording an excavated section of a pre-Hispanic canal-ridge formation Credit: ICANH Building from the past

These conservation strategies are still relevant today. The study’s authors cite the Colombian government’s recent water management attempts, which primarily involve installing dykes to block water flow and prevent natural flooding. The region’s Caregato dyke has breached multiple times since 2021, damaging towns and ecosystems while also fostering periods of intense drought. Adopting these ancient field systems may avoid similar outcomes, and they don’t even require centralized governance to realize them.

“Policymakers have shown interest in these ancient systems, but lacked data. Our study is the first to show that these sustainable solutions can be organized locally and collectively,” said study author and ICANH archaeologist Fernando Montejo Gaitán. “Local people may need resources from the state, but not necessarily state intervention.”

Beyond helping people today, the new reassessment returns autonomy to indigenous populations that present-day scholars frequently underestimate.

“Arguments for centralized, top-down planning, unsupported by data, risk obscuring the agency of indigenous pre-Hispanic populations,” argued study co-author and University of Cambridge archaeologist Marcos Martinon-Torres. “Pre-Hispanic societies were inventive and cooperative, they worked with nature rather than trying to obstruct it.”

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