Jessica Boddy

Scientists often need to perform some difficult feats for research, like getting close enough to an elusive, yet enormous whale to get a biopsy of its skin. One researcher built a drone to help.

Scientists think young koalas eat their mothers’ poop to get their incredible microbiomes. But antibiotic treatment (for koala chlaymdia) harms this practice.

Every year, little black-and-white birds called pied flycatchers make the lengthy trek from sub-saharan Africa to northern Europe to feast on caterpillars, claim a nest, and have babies. This typically goes off without a hitch, and the birds return to Africa a few months later, offspring in tow. But recently, some flycatchers have arrived to find their nesting sites occupied by haughty, territorial great tits. And those birds don’t just chase flycatchers away—they brutally attack them, kill them…

Sometimes, especially with clothes made from synthetic fibers, unpleasant odors linger even after multiple washes. Why do gym clothes stink so badly?

In a distant arm of the Milky Way—3,700 light-years from Earth, to be exact—a massive, glowing plume of dust and gas takes the shape of a bird in flight. Polka-dotted with baby stars, this aptly-named Seagull Nebula is a point of interest not just for birdwatchers, but for astronomers studying stellar birth. The European Southern Observatory recently used their Very Large Telescope in Chile’s Atacama Desert to get a closer look.

Two types of evenly distributed rock suggest that Ryugu was born from a cataclysmic event of some sort. But where’s all its dust?

NASA just revealed a new view of the Pillars of Creation. By using infrared light to craft the image instead of visible light, scientists were able to reveal baby stars that were hidden behind the gaseous, spectral columns.

Two-dimensional food can make you actually hungry, because our brains didn’t evolve in a world of pictures.

Tie your shoes a little too snug in the morning, and, by lunchtime, that uncomfortable feeling will be nearly gone. Sensations—smells, sights, feelings—that stay stagnant for too long tend to fade away. The same goes for this blue dot fixed in its green milieu. Stare it down for 15 seconds and it vanishes. Blink and it comes back.

Clamor comes in many packages, from abstract waveforms to countless spoken words in thousands of languages to mathematically complex values like the decibel. With such cryptic disguises, it’s no surprise that noise plays tricks on us. Reveal the truth with this trio of matching games.

In this maze, three distinct routes, each originating from a different entryway, will guide you to the middle. Can you traverse them all?

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced on Tuesday that the 2020 Nobel Prize in physics will be shared by three astrophysicists: Andrea Ghez at UCLA, Reinhard Genzel of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany, and Oxford University’s Roger Penrose. The award acknowledges their pioneering work in our understanding of black holes, particularly the one sitting at the center of our own galaxy. These supermassive objects devour everything that comes too close, includi…

Back in April, the Hubble Space Telescope celebrated its 30th birthday. It blasted off from Florida aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery in 1990 and changed the way we view the skies forever. In the decades sense, the telescope has scoped out local moons, distant planets, and far-off galaxies. To celebrate the 30-year milestone, NASA released 30 new images of dazzling nebulae, star clusters, and galaxies. The best part: they’re all objects you can spot from your backyard with a telescope—some you…

Cleaning is a common (and productive) way to cope with stress—which we all have plenty of this year. These tools will help you out.

Hoping to reap some of the health benefits of meditation—or just looking for the best way to relax? Find out how mindfulness and meditation can improve your physical and mental wellbeing and how to get started.

The Valles Marineris canyon on Mars is the largest canyon in the Solar System. These breathtaking close-up images, recently released by the University of Arizona, put the stats into perspective. And they’re not just pretty—they’ll help us better understand how this gigantic chasm formed.

To ring in the new year, NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) dropped six captivating images of galaxies smashing into one another.

Depending on how good of a friend they are, get them started with a Nintendo Switch, some classic games, or a fun-as-heck accessory.