Dec 23rd, 2025 - Follow Earth on Google Young star systems, like nearby Fomalhaut, are messy places. Rocks slam together and icy bodies shatter. Dust fills the space where solid objects once moved quietly along. This chaos is how planets are built, but it usually plays out far from view and over very long stretches of time. That is why Fomalhaut has scientists buzzing. In just 20 years, astronomers have seen the dusty aftermath of two massive space collisions around this star. These events are rare, according to long-standing models. Seeing two impacts so close together raises a simple question: Are we very ... [Read More]

Dec 22nd, 2025 - These giant monuments are 1,000 years older than Stonehenge and share an interesting connection with water. Scattered across Armenia's highest mountains are giant carved stones that seem wildly out of place. Some stand taller than a two-storey building, yet none of these mysterious vishaps or dragon stones sit near known archaeological sites such as ancient villages.  Archaeologists have struggled to explain why, 6,000 years ago, people dragged these giant monuments into frozen, harsh, high-altitude terrain—often above 2,700 meters—where snow limits human activity to just a ... [Read More]

Dec 22nd, 2025 - A single week completely changed their lives. The millions of mice used in labs are extremely important for medical research. But for them, life is almost always miserable. Imagine spending your entire life in a shoebox-sized cell, with stagnant air, fluorescent lights, and almost nowhere to move (not to even mention the procedures themselves). This is the reality for laboratory mice in biomedical research . Unsurprisingly, their mind suffers terribly. Researchers thought anxiety was a permanent problem in this context. But when postdoctoral researcher Matthew Zipple took a cage of these ... [Read More]

Dec 22nd, 2025 - Excavations reveal the microscopic enemies plaguing Roman soldiers at Hadrian's Wall. History loves to romanticize the Romans. We see them as the "good" empire — organized, clean, and civilized. They brought us aqueducts, heated floors, and sanitation. But if you zoom in on their nasty business, a different reality squirms into view. Quite literally. Researchers recently did exactly that. They zoomed in on Roman poop and found a trio of intestinal miseries: roundworm, whipworm, and Giardia duodenalis . At the Roman fort of Vindolanda , just south of Hadrian's Wall, the Romans fought ... [Read More]

Dec 22nd, 2025 - Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... SeaWorld Orlando officials announced the death Sunday of a 50-year-old killer whale named Katina. "Her health had begun to significantly decline as she entered her geriatric years," the theme park posted on its social media. "Over the last several weeks, our animal care and medical teams have worked around the clock to closely monitor her declining health and as her condition worsened, the decision was made to prioritize her comfort and welfare." The post stated Katina was known for a habit of sticking her tongue out and enjoyed the "speed swim" ... [Read More]

Dec 22nd, 2025 - On a beach in Patagonia, 40,000 pairs of Magellanic penguins have been running their annual breeding operation like they own the place. Then the pumas came back, looked around, and treated it like a seasonal pop-up buffet. tracking pumas in Argentina's Monte León National Park suggests this penguin-heavy diet is doing something else, too. It's making one of the most famously solitary big cats tolerate each other way more than expected, at least near the colony. This all comes with a backstory. Ranchers pushed pumas out of parts of Patagonia in the 20th century. Monte León ... [Read More]

Dec 22nd, 2025 - An analysis of the expansion of cracks in the Thwaites Glacier over the past 20 years suggests that a total collapse could be only a matter of time. Known as the "Doomsday Glacier," the Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica is one of the most rapidly changing glaciers on Earth, and its future evolution is one of the biggest unknowns when it comes to predicting global sea level rise. The eastern ice shelf of the Thwaites Glacier is supported at its northern end by a ridge of the ocean floor. However, over the past two decades, cracks in the upper reaches of the glacier have increased rapidly, ... [Read More]

Dec 22nd, 2025 - A wildlife charity has declared 2025 "the Year of the Blooming Octopus" after record numbers were spotted off the south-west coast of England. In its annual marine review the Wildlife Trusts says octopus numbers were this summer at their highest level since 1950. Warmer winters, which are linked to climate change, are thought to be responsible for the population spike, which is known as a "bloom". The charity's findings are backed up by official figures which show that more than 1,200 tonnes of octopus was caught by fishermen in UK waters in the summer of 2025. It's a dramatic increase on ... [Read More]