ScienceAnimals

Surprising Experiment Suggests Wolf Puppies Can Play Fetch

Scientists in Sweden have shown that some wolf pups, like dogs, are capable of playing fetch with humans. It’s an unexpected result, one that suggests the ancestors of dogs were primed for domestication. A new study published in iScience presents evidence showing that some wolf pups, with a bit of encouragement, will retrieve a tossed … Continued

ScienceAnimals

Newly Sequenced Giant Squid Genome Raises as Many Questions as It Answers

One the most intriguing and mysterious creatures on the planet—the giant squid—has finally had its genome fully sequenced. But while the genome is helping to explain many of its distinguishing features, including its large size and big brain, we still have much to learn about this near-mythical beast. “A genome is a first step for … Continued

ScienceAnimals

Cat Parasite Makes Mice Less Fearful, but Not Just of Cats, Study Finds

The relationship between a notorious parasite spread by cats and the mice it infects might be more complex than we thought, according to new research out this week. It suggests that mice infected with Toxoplasma gondii aren’t just less afraid of cats—they’re more mellowed out in general. Toxoplasma gondii, more plainly known as toxo, has … Continued

ScienceArchaeology

Free-Diving Neanderthals Gathered Tools From the Seafloor

New evidence suggests Neanderthals gathered clam shells and volcanic rock from the bottom of the Mediterranean, which they fashioned into tools. The work is yet more evidence that Neanderthals often ventured into the water, and it adds to the body of research showing that they were nothing like the unintelligent, uncoordinated clods they’ve long been … Continued

ScienceSpace

NASA Contest to Name Mars Rover Narrows to 155 Student Entries

Judges working for NASA have narrowed the list of possible names for the space agency’s new Mars rover to 155 student entries—different names that include everything from Dusty and Dreamer to Tenacity and Little Tinker. Whichever student wins the grand prize will get an invitation to see the new Mars rover launch into space at … Continued

ScienceHealth

A Man’s Worm Infection Left Him with a ‘Stony Hard’ Testicle

There’s no good place for parasitic worms to wreak havoc in the human body, but doctors in India say their 80-year-old patient developed a particularly unfortunate case. The man’s worm infection left him with a massively swollen, calcified right testicle. According to the paper, published earlier this month in BMJ Reports, the man had visited … Continued

ScienceSpace

Interstellar Stardust Found Inside Australian Meteorite Is a Staggering 7 Billion Years Old

A meteorite that crashed into Australia back in 1969 contains stardust dating back some 7 billion years, predating the formation of Earth by 2.5 billion years. The remarkable discovery offers a snapshot of the conditions that existed long before our solar system came into existence. Ancient grains found inside the Murchison meteorite have been dated … Continued

ScienceHealth

New Poll About Vaccines Is a Huge Bummer

Many Americans have lost faith in the importance of vaccines over the past two decades, while more than half are unsure or wrongly believe that they can cause autism. At least, those are the somber conclusions of a new Gallup poll released Tuesday. Even worse is that parents of children under 18 have grown more … Continued

SciencePhysics

Has Hubble Detected Rogue Clumps of Dark Matter?

Scientists using the Hubble Space Telescope have discovered evidence of small clumps of dark matter warping the light from distant quasars. Regular matter seems to form only a small part of the universe—much more of the matter seems to be “dark” stuff that influences regular matter via gravity but can’t be detected directly. The most … Continued

ScienceHealth

Investigation Finds Widespread Rule-Breaking in Reporting of U.S. Clinical Trials

Universities, drug companies, and government agencies are breaking the law and not turning in their science homework, according to a new report out Monday. It shows that many of these entities aren’t reporting the results of their research to the government’s database of clinical trials as legally mandated, while the government has done little to … Continued

ScienceHealth

A 4-Year-Old Girl’s Sudden Blindness Is a Tragic Reminder of Why Everyone Should Get the Flu Shot

A 4-year-old Iowa girl’s tragic bout with the flu should remind everyone why getting vaccinated is so important. Her family says that the unvaccinated girl’s infection led to serious neurological complications that have left her blind, perhaps permanently. According to CNN, Jade DeLucia became sick with the flu right before Christmas. Though DeLucia appeared to … Continued

ScienceHealth

A New Machine Keeps Livers Alive Outside the Human Body for an Entire Week

A new system is capable of maintaining a human liver outside the body for seven days, during which time the damaged organ can be repaired and prepared for transplantation. At best, conventional technologies can sustain a liver outside the body for around 24 hours, but the new perfusion machine, developed by scientists from University Hospital … Continued

ScienceSpace

SpaceX’s First Private Billionaire Passenger Launches Search for Girlfriend to Take on Trip Around the Moon

When SpaceX revealed the name of its first private passenger to fly around the moon, Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, it wasn’t that much of a surprise. Being a billionaire helps when paying for the ticket, after all. However, Maezawa appears determined to control the narrative of his trip, and he wants one thing to be … Continued

SciencePhysics

A New Study Claims to Disprove Dark Energy—but Cosmologists Aren’t Convinced

It would be really, really exciting if a single observation could completely overturn astrophysicists’ current understanding of the universe. But that hasn’t happened yet, at least with regards to dark energy. This week, a press release proclaimed that “new evidence shows that the key assumption made in the discovery of dark energy is in error,” … Continued

ScienceHealth

Americans’ Body Temperature Has Been Dropping Since the 19th Century, Study Finds

A new study has found evidence that the average blood temperature of people in the U.S. has lowered over the past century and a half—probably because we’re in better health. The authors of the new study, published in the journal eLife, looked at the medical records of Americans, including Civil War veterans, from three periods … Continued

ScienceArchaeology

Viking Runes Warned of a Climate Catastrophe, New Research Suggests

An updated interpretation of the famous Rök runestone suggests Vikings were preoccupied by the threat of a climate calamity. The Rök runestone was completed and upraised in what is now Östergötland, Sweden, around 800 CE, and it was long thought to describe a series of battles. Given that the poem inscribed on the rune was … Continued

SciencePhysics

A Major New Particle Collider Is Coming to New York

The U.S. Department of Energy has decided on the final location of a major upcoming American particle collider: Brookhaven National Lab on Long Island in New York. The Electron Ion Collider (EIC) is a proposed particle accelerator that will slam electrons into the nuclei of heavy atoms, with the goal of better understanding nuclear structure … Continued

ScienceAnimals

Dead Alligators Dropped to the Bottom of the Sea Make for a Rare and Delicious Meal

An experiment to see how deep-sea creatures might react to the presence of an uncommon food source—alligator carcasses—has resulted in some fascinating new science. As many of you will recall, Gizmodo covered some of this research in April of last year. The marine biologists responsible for the experiment have finally published their long-awaited results in … Continued

ScienceSpace

Astronomers Are Increasingly Worried About How Satellite Megaconstellations Will Disrupt Science

Organizers of an American Astronomical Society conference in Hawaii held a special session to discuss the ways in which satellite megaconstellations, such as the one currently being built by SpaceX, are poised to disrupt telescopic observations. The astronomers also proposed potential solutions to this emerging problem. The special session, titled “Challenges to Astronomy from Satellites,” … Continued

ScienceHealth

The Mystery Virus in China Might Be an Undiscovered Cousin of SARS, Scientists Say

Scientists in China think they’ve made a break in the case of a mystery disease that’s caused pneumonia in dozens of people. In several patients, they’ve found a virus never before discovered—albeit one related to the viruses responsible for causing SARS and other respiratory illnesses. On Thursday, the state-run news agency Xinhua reported on the … Continued