WISPIT 2’s multi-ring natal disk hosts the birth of a gas giant: an outer 5 MJup planet is joined by a newly characterized inner candidate (~8–12 MJup). Pending follow-up confirmation, this would be the second system observed forming planets after PDS 70! 🧪 iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3...

Computer modeling suggests that smaller sauropods (Neuquensaurus, young Uberabatitan) could rear up more easily than their larger relatives who would have faced high femoral stress. This could have influenced feeding, defense, and/or courtship strategies! 🧪 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Snow flies are adapted to thrive in subzero conditions: they produce antifreeze proteins to combat ice formation, generate heat to maintain activity levels (∼1°C), and have an increased tolerance to the reactive oxygen species (ROS) that develop during cold exposure! 🧪 www.cell.com/current-biol...

Bayesian tip-dating links an 18 million year old Egyptian ape fossil (Masripithecus moghraensis) to modern hominoids, suggesting our origins may extend northward rather than being limited to East Africa! 🧪 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

@projectceti.bsky.social used drones to capture the first-ever footage of a sperm whale giving birth! Multiple female whales from different family groups helped the mother through her labor, making this the first documented "assisted birth" outside primates! 🧪 www.science.org/doi/full/10....

Honey bee waggle dances are not fixed signals for food locations. Instead, dancers modify their movements based on the size of their audience: as the number of followers decreases from high (left) to low (right), the precision of the dance signal also declines! 🧪 www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Paleontologists found a novel, nearly complete hornless rhino skeleton (Epiaceratherium itjilik, 23Mya) in Nunavut’s Haughton Crater suggesting that these ancient rhinos roamed the High Arctic and migrated from Europe to North America later than previously thought. 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Drone footage confirms that sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) sometimes ram each other with their heads. 19th-century sailors once reported similar strikes on ships leading to tales that subsequently inspired Melville's Moby-Dick! 🧪 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

3D infrared cameras tracked Aedes aegypti swarms and showed that these mosquitoes choose hosts by detecting visual cues and CO₂ rather than following each other. Dark clothing and exhaled breath are strong attractants that turn a person into a mosquito magnet! 🧪 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

DNA/isotopic data and indigenous records reveal how the hunter-gatherers of Argentina's Uspallata Valley transitioned to maize farming and overcame climate/disease challenges peacefully: relying on matrilineal kinship networks instead of violent conflict to survive! 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Scientists reconstructed oviraptor clutches using thermometer-containing resin eggs and found that these dinosaurs likely provided incubation using a mix of body heat and sunlight - a hybrid method not seen in modern birds! 🧪 www.frontiersin.org/journals/eco...

The bat ring attractor network contains head-direction cells that function like a global compass, ensuring consistent directional tuning that remains stable despite changes in terrain or celestial conditions! 🧪 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

A galaxy in front of a distant supernova (SN 2025wny, 10+ billion light years away) acts as a gravitational lens, creating multiple images of this exploding star that travel at different speeds. This property can be used to improve cosmic expansion measurements! 🧪 iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3...

This brain–computer interface decodes attempted finger movements from cortical activity and translates them into keystrokes at 22 words per minute, potentially transforming communication for individuals with ALS or spinal cord injury! 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

European hedgehogs have tiny middle‑ear bones and a ~1.7‑turn cochlea enabling broad frequency sensitivity (4-85kHz, peak at ~40kHz). Deploying ultrasonic repellents could help reduce vehicle collisions, the cause of 1 in 3 hedgehog deaths! 🧪 royalsocietypublishing.org/rsbl/article...

Dormant bumblebee queens can survive submerged beneath water for up to a week. A recent study reveals that these diapausing bees endure winter-like flooding by employing both anaerobic metabolism and underwater respiration! 🧪 royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...

A newly discovered Paleolophus fossil with an exceptionally preserved skull suggests rapid evolution of durophagy-related feeding traits in early lungfish and highlights a biogeographic link between Early Devonian China and North America (~410 million years ago)! 🧪 www.cell.com/current-biol...

Heterhelus beetles pollinate Japanese red elder but also lay eggs in its fruit. These plants abort and drop infested fruit allowing larvae to burrow underground for further development in a demonstration of stabilized nursery‑pollination mutualism! 🧪 nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Scientists created a whole-cell spatial/kinetic model of a simple bacterium's (JCVI-syn3A) cell cycle that simulates metabolism, growth, and division. Although some genes are placeholders, this model could help us better understand how molecules give rise to life! 🧪 www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Astronomers have detected a "chirp" from a supernova that accelerates over time. This signal results from the twisting of space-time by a spinning magnetar which, in turn, creates a wobble in its accretion disk - a phenomenon known as Lense-Thirring precession! 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Researchers have demonstrated that cryo-preserved slices of mouse hippocampus can recover electrophysiological function! Although "cryo-sleep" is still science fiction, this represents an exciting first step! 🧪 www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...

Mechanical tests on cadavers and live kinematics experiments demonstrate that cats reorient midair through sequential trunk rotation, with the flexible thoracic spine moving before the more rigid lumbar! 🧪 anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Wrinkle-like textures in ancient seabeds usually result from sunlight-loving microbes. However, recently discovered structures in Morocco were formed at depths devoid of sunlight, suggesting that chemosynthetic bacteria must have created them! 🧪 pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geology/...

The Antscan initiative has successfully digitized 2,193 ant specimens using high-throughput synchrotron X-ray microtomography, offering unprecedented access to ant morphology data! 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) has mapped our galaxy's Central Molecular Zone (CMZ). This is the largest ALMA image ever obtained and showcases 650 light-years of intricate cold gas filaments near the Milky Way's supermassive black hole! 🧪 arxiv.org/abs/2602.20340

Combined imaging and chemical analyses of 85 Mesolithic (6000 BCE) pot shards demonstrate that European fisher‑hunter‑gatherers ate a more diverse diet than previously thought reflecting plant-based food choices that were highly selective! 🧪 journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

A <1 year old, ~90cm pachycephalosaur was recently discovered in Saskatchewan's Maastrichtian Frenchman Formation. Its back legs are proportionally longer than an adult's which suggests that they grew more slowly compared to the rest of its body as it matured! 🧪 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Chimpanzees can distinguish crystals from ordinary stones, showing a preference for transparent surfaces and regular geometric forms. The study authors suggest this demonstrates a shared preference with quartz-collecting hominins of the Pleistocene! 🧪 www.frontiersin.org/journals/psy...

@uwaterloo.ca astronomers have discovered the most distant jellyfish galaxy (ESO 137-001). Its tentacle-like trail of hot gas and stars suggests that the early universe was more violent than previously thought! 🧪 iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3...

The first South American tektite strewn field has been discovered and spans 900 km across three Brazilian states (Minas Gerais, Bahi, Piauí). These glassy fragments formed when an asteroid impacted Earth 6.3 million years ago! 🧪 pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geology/...

Sea urchin spines demonstrate mechano-electrical transduction, enabling them to sense the water currents moving around them. Their tapered spines have a structural gradient that enhances response potential up to 1,000 times more than vision in the same species! 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Triceratops had unique rostral anatomy with oversized nasal passages that likely helped to regulate body temperature and may have contained heat-exchange structures (respiratory turbinates) similar to those found in modern birds and mammals! 🧪 anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Rediscovered fossils reveal two post‑Permian predators: the chunky‑jawed Erythrobatrachus and the needle‑snouted Aphaneramma. These fossils demonstrate that early tetrapods not only survived but likely flourished after this mass extinction event. 🧪 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

40,000 year old Aurignacian artifacts carry complex, intentional sign sequences that are comparable in statistical complexity to early proto-cuneiform writing, which wasn't developed for another 35,000 years! 🧪 www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Sneakers squeak on the basketball court due to stick-slip oscillations at the interface between shoe and floor. This phenomenon is now well understood, enabling the authors of this study to creatively harness it for music production! 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Temnothorax kinomurai is a newly identified ant species consisting solely of queens - there are no workers or males. These social parasites take over the nests of other ant species and reproduce without mating! 🧪 www.cell.com/current-biol...

A horse's whinny is produced through the combination of two distinct vocalizations: a low frequency from the vocal folds and a higher whistle with aerodynamic origins! 🧪 www.cell.com/current-biol...

The bouba-kiki effect describes how most people intuitively pair the sound "bouba" with curves and "kiki" with spikes. Newborn chicks exhibit the same bias which suggests a deep‑rooted neural mechanism for this phenomenon that is independent of language! 🧪 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Cleaner wrasse rapidly recognize themselves in mirrors, suggesting a level of self-awareness. These fish also use reflections to track drifting food, a behavior analogous to dolphins playing with mirror‑reflected bubbles. 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

New evidence from the James Webb Space Telescope confirms that a "runaway" black hole escaped from its host galaxy and left a trail of young stars scattered in its wake! 🧪 iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3...

The newly discovered Spinosaurus mirabilis possessed a unique scimitar-shaped cranial crest which suggests that this dinosaur was a wading shoreline predator rather than being a fully aquatic hunter! 🧪 www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1...

1,114 new tectonic ridges have been mapped on the Moon's surface, indicating that the Moon continues to contract as it seismically reshapes itself! 🧪 iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3...

Our earliest vertebrate ancestors (Myllokunmingia) may have navigated the ancient world using four eyes instead of two. The remnants of these two extra eyes likely evolved into the melatonin regulating pineal gland of modern animals! 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Life swiftly rebounded after the Chicxulub impact (66 million years ago) such that new species emerged within 2,000 years of this mass extinction event! 🧪 pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geology/...

The Ketton mosaic was not inspired by Homer's Iliad but instead by a lesser-known tragedy by Aeschylus. This suggests that Roman Britain was more interconnected with the broader ancient world than previously thought! 🧪 dx.doi.org/10.1017/S006...

Elephant trunks can both rip down trees and gently pluck peanuts because their trunk whiskers contain a stiffness gradient, allowing them to sense fine contours and adjust their grip strength accordingly! 🧪 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Twelve years ago, the massive star M31‑2014‑DS1 brightened then gradually faded away. This behavior is consistent with a failed supernova where the star's outer layers fall back before collapsing into a black hole! 🧪 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

@ethz.ch researchers built a miniature stingray-bot that swims through liquids using ultrasound and microbubbles. It can be swallowed and travel the digestive tract to release therapeutics internally! 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Tyrannoroter heberti is a recently discovered football-sized microsaur from the Late Carboniferous period (~307 million years ago) whose specialized teeth suggest that plant-eating evolved far earlier on land than previously thought! 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

NASA's Juno mission reports that Jupiter is slightly smaller and flatter than previously thought! 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...