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An extremely rare purple-red diamond came from the Argyle volcano and mine in Western Australia, source of almost all of the world's pink diamonds.
science

Wonder Is Everywhere: Lincoln’s Crooked Bowtie, the Mystery of Pink Diamonds, and More From Around the Web

Get a peek into what we’re obsessed with right now.
April White September 29, 2023
Scientists estimate there are some 4,000 bees native to the United States alone—but many of them are struggling to survive in our warming, pesticide-ridden world.
libraries

To Save America's Native Bees, the Oregon Bee Project Is Mapping Every Single One

The project aims to make a complete 'bee atlas,' detailing every single local pollinator.
Kate Raphael September 22, 2023
haunted

Podcast: The Fear Lab

Ever wondered why our brains crave a good scare?
The Podcast Team September 21, 2023
Geneva, Switzerland

Musée d'Histoire des Sciences (Museum of History of Science)

A treasure trove of scientific instruments from the 17th and 18th centuries.
Researchers in an inflatable boat prepare to tag a bull shark they have flipped on its back, inducing tonic immobility. Science cannot yet explain why many species seem to go into a trance in this position.
science

To Track Bull Sharks, First Hit Their Snooze Button

For these researchers in Southern Africa, tagging the apex predators starts with putting them in trancelike tonic immobility.
Ryan Truscott September 20, 2023
science

Podcast: The Ark of Citrus

A sweet archive of almost biblical proportions can be found at the University of California, Riverside.
The Podcast Team September 20, 2023
dinosaurs

Wonder Is Everywhere: A Message in an Egg Carton, Millions of Confused Bees, and More From Around the Web

Get a peek into what we’re obsessed with right now.
April White September 15, 2023
The pekapeka-tou-poto, found only in New Zealand, is also known as the lesser short-tailed bat.
science

The Race to Save the Pekapeka-Tou-Poto, New Zealand's Unique Bat

For scientists, monitoring the feisty, endangered burrowing bat includes moments of "actual madness."
Monica Evans September 14, 2023
NIST physicists Steve Jefferts (foreground) and Tom Heavner with the NIST-F2 cesium fountain atomic clock
science

Podcast: The Atomic Clock

The one clock that sets them all.
The Podcast Team September 14, 2023
Berlin, Germany

Archenhold Observatory

This public observatory is home to the "celestial cannon," the longest pointable telescope in the world.
science

The Chernobyl Disaster Created an Unexpected Predator Paradise

In a corner of Belarus, wolves and lynx thrive as a new and surprising ecosystem evolves in the wake of disaster.
Wojciech Mikołuszko August 30, 2023
The eruption of a volcano on Spain’s La Palma island took a toll on nearby fish.
volcanoes

Volcanoes Kill Fish In Many Gruesome Ways

From bubbly eyeballs to internal bleeding, eruptions can have deadly consequences for marine animals.
Chris Baraniuk August 28, 2023
Cape Town, South Africa

Heart of Cape Town Museum

The first successful human heart transplant is depicted through wax figures at the hospital where it the surgery took place.
Spotted skunks perform impressive handstands to appear twice their size and ward off would-be predators.
science

10 Tales of the World’s Quirkiest Animals

A celebration of curious, overlooked, and misunderstood creatures.
April White August 25, 2023
Of the 151 species they studied, all of them, including this tree frog, <em>Dendropsophus rhodopeplus</em> (shown under blue light), displayed some level of fluorescence.
science

Biologists Threw a Fluorescent Frog Rave in the Amazon, for Science

Turns out many of the frogs glow, maybe to communicate.
Roxanne Hoorn August 22, 2023
Potsdam, Germany

Michelson Interferometer

The site of the original experiment that would be used to disprove the theory of luminiferous ether.
The Cyberia Cafe in London, 1995. Internet cafes are now vanishingly rare.
science

Wonder Is Everywhere: The Last Internet Cafes, a Totem Pole Mystery, and More From Around the Web

Get a peek into what we’re obsessed with right now.
April White August 18, 2023
Hyenas and crocodiles dined on a waterside carcass together, caught via camera trap.
science

You Never Know Who Will Turn Up at an Elephant Carcass

Researchers in Kenya spied some unexpected guests at these “carrion bonanzas”
Roxanne Hoorn August 16, 2023