Jessica Boddy

Earther

Read an Excerpt from Poached, a Thrilling Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Black Market Wildlife Trade

The world of illegal wildlife trade is devastating, but it’s also thriving. A desire for things like alternative medicines, meat, and trophies fuels the mass killing of countless endangered species, threatening their existence. In her new book, Poached: Inside the Dark World of Wildlife Trafficking, science journalist Rachel Love Nuwer investigates this world, talking to … Continued

ScienceHealth

The Best Way to Apply Sunscreen to Your Face, Revealed by a UV Camera

I am a bit of a sunscreen fanatic. My morning and midday sunscreen applications are ritualistic in nature, and I love trying out new products that claim to shield my precious skin from harmful ultraviolet rays. Luckily for me (and unluckily for my wallet), there are a menagerie of sunscreen products on the market these … Continued

ScienceHealth

Study Links a Happy, Peaceful Mind to Sweet Dreams

I tend to have very vivid dreams. I recently dreamed that I hit a home run at Wrigley Field as a member of my favorite baseball team, the Chicago Cubs, for example. But I also dreamed the clown from It came to haunt me at the top of every hour as I roamed a crowded casino. … Continued

ScienceAnimals

Goats Do Not Like Your Grumpy Face

It turns out goats really do know that you’re trouble when you walk in. These domestic animals can distinguish human facial expressions, and prefer a pleasant smile to a disgruntled frown, according to new research. “This is the first evidence that shows goats are capable of visually discriminating facial expressions of a very different species, … Continued

ScienceAnimals

Genetic Testing Reveals Shelters Often Label Dogs With the Wrong Breeds

When adopting a new canine family member at a shelter, many people choose a dog based on the breed or breeds labelled on its cage. But new research using genetic testing shows that shelters don’t always correctly label dogs, meaning the pointer you just adopted could actually be more of a labrador. This has implications … Continued

ScienceAnimals

Blue-and-Yellow Macaws Turn Pink to Communicate, but What Are They Saying?

Do you ever get so excited about something that your whole face starts to turn red? Well, it seems that blue-and-yellow macaws do the same thing, according to new research—though the exact reason they go red in the face is still unknown. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to those who handle parrots regularly, but … Continued

Tech News

Your Brain Tries to Change Focus Four Times per Second, Study Finds

By the time you’re finished reading this sentence, your brain will have rapidly assessed your surroundings 14 times to see if you should focus on something else. At least, that’s what new research suggests. This is a departure from the way we typically think our brains hold attention—neuroscientists have suggested that neurons fire in a … Continued

ScienceAnimals

Misidentified Fossils Could Rewrite the History of Lemurs on Madagascar   

A leading theory of recent decades is that lemurs colonized Madagascar around 50 million years ago. As they dispersed throughout the island and made homes in its tropical rainforests, those ancestral lemurs evolved into the menagerie of species we see today. It’s certainly a romantic idea, but it might also be false, according to new … Continued

ScienceHealth

The Psychedelic Drug DMT Can Simulate a Near-Death Experience, Study Suggests

Not everyone who is close to death—or thinks they are, at least—has a “near-death experience.” But those who do often hallucinate that they leave their bodies, meet otherworldly beings, see bright flashes and tunnels of light, and more. Those who take the psychedelic drug dimethyltryptamine, or DMT— a compound found in the hallucinogenic Amazonian brew … Continued

ScienceAnimals

The Asteroid That Killed the Dinosaurs Also Jumbled Shark Evolution

More than 500 different shark species roam Earth’s oceans: from zippy little cookie-cutter sharks, to the iconic great white, to nightmarish goblin sharks, to 25-foot-long, filter-feeding basking sharks. And it seems that the current equilibrium of shark species we see today arose after the Cretaceous–Paleogene mass extinction event 66 million years ago, according to new … Continued

Tech News

Scientists Just Measured the Drought that May Have Brought Down the Ancient Maya

The ancient Maya were an innovative people. They constructed intricate cities throughout the tropical lowlands of the Yucatán Peninsula, communicated using one of the world’s first written languages, and created two calendar systems by studying the stars. But despite their achievements, the thriving Mayan civilization mysteriously collapsed sometime between the eighth and ninth centuries. We … Continued

ScienceAnimals

The World’s Largest King Penguin Colony Is Catastrophically Shrinking—and We Don’t Know Why

The last time scientists visited Ile aux Cochons in 1982, an island that is part of an archipelago in the southern Indian Ocean, the king penguin population was booming. Over 500,000 breeding pairs (around 2 million penguins total) huddled together there, making the island the largest king penguin colony in the world. But new research … Continued

Tech News

The ‘Scutoid’ Is Geometry’s Newest Shape, and It Could Be All Over Your Body

Scientists have just defined a new shape called the scutoid (SCOO-toid) while studying epithelial cells, the building blocks of embryos that eventually end up forming our skin and lining our organs and blood vessels. They think the scutoid shape is extremely efficient at keeping cells tightly-packed and organized in the literal twists and turns of … Continued

ScienceHealth

Why Your SPF 15 Sunscreen Probably Isn’t Enough to Protect You From the Sun

Are you always careful to apply sunscreen before a day outdoors, but find yourself getting burned anyway? It might be due to your application technique. Dermatologists say that most people don’t put on a thick enough layer sunscreen, and new research—in which scientists put varying amounts of sunscreen on volunteers’ butts—shows how those thin applications … Continued

ScienceHealth

What Is Fungal Acne and Why Do So Many People Suddenly Think They Have It?

Have you ever had a breakout that wouldn’t go away for weeks, maybe even months, no matter which products you threw at it? Did it consist of a lot of small bumps? Was it a little itchy? What you had might not have been real acne at all, but a condition known as pityrosporum folliculitis. … Continued

ScienceAnimals

New ‘Amazing Dragon’ Dinosaur Species Discovered in China

The gigantic, long-necked sauropods are an iconic group of dinosaurs—and it seems scientists have just discovered a new one. Paleontologists were able to define the new species, known as Lingwulong shenqi, using seven to 10 partial skeletons from four separate dig sites in China. Lingwulong belonged to the diplodocid family, the researchers write in their … Continued

ScienceAnimals

Giant Dinosaur Foot Identified 20 Years After Being Unearthed in Wyoming

The Black Hills mountain range, which stretches from South Dakota to Wyoming, is known for its lush forests, scenic waterfalls, and dense, intricate cave systems. But 150 million years ago, humongous, long-necked dinosaurs called sauropods roamed there—and scientists just identified one of their colossal, fossilized feet. The nearly complete foot fossil, made up of 13 … Continued

ScienceSpace

Astronomers Found 10 New Moons Circling Jupiter

Scientists announced that they have discovered 10 previously unknown moons orbiting Jupiter. This brings the gaseous behemoth’s total moon count up to 79. The team, led by astronomer Scott Sheppard, first spotted some of the new moons while looking for exceptionally distant objects at the brim of our Solar System, beyond Pluto, using the Blanco … Continued

ScienceAnimals

Horses Make This Funny Sound When They’re Happy

When horses are happy, they snort, according to new research published today in PLoS One. The finding could help improve treatment of these domesticated animals, the authors say. The snorts are just as cute as I had hoped. Take a listen: The research comes from scientists at the University of Rennes in France, who noticed … Continued

Tech News

Spiders, Poison, and Boiling Water: The Best (and Worst) Ways to Kill Cockroaches

A few weeks ago, I was enjoying one of my favorite activities: reading an enthralling piece of fiction before bed. This time it was Pachinko by Min Jin Lee. Just as I was being transported to 20th-century Japan, I heard a loud, fluttering sound near my window. I saw some movement and assumed a moth … Continued