Science Blog Editorial Team

Earth & Environment

The Late Ordovician extinction 443 million years ago struck in two pulses driven by opposite climate extremes

The Late Ordovician extinction, close to the Ordovician-Silurian boundary about 443 million years ago, is usually read as a two-part marine crisis rather than a single blow.

Jul 13, 2026

Earth & Environment

A high-altitude Pyrenees cave records recurrent use from the early fifth millennium BC, including 23 hearths and probably malachite…

There is no road. There has never been a road. The Freser Valley in the eastern Pyrenees is protected wilderness now, and it was, in every meaningful sense, wilderness five and a half thousand years ago.

Jul 13, 2026

Earth & Environment

About 60 wild Wollemi pines survive in closely guarded canyon sites after the species was rediscovered in 1994

In September 1994, a New South Wales National Parks officer named David Noble was doing what he did most weekends — canyoning in the Blue Mountains, the vast, rugged wilderness of sandstone gorges that stretch inland from Sydney.

Jul 13, 2026

Brain & Behavior

In the late 1960s, Walter Mischel and his colleagues at Stanford offered preschoolers a choice between one treat immediately or a larger…

The marshmallow test became famous because it seemed to offer a clean story about childhood self-control.

Jul 13, 2026

Brain & Behavior

In 2023, roughly one in four American adults reported eating every meal alone on the previous day

Eating alone is not automatically lonely. A quiet breakfast can be a relief. A solo lunch can be practical.

Jul 13, 2026

Space

A spacecraft called DART was deliberately crashed into an asteroid in 2022 to test whether humanity could deflect one, and it worked

The Double Asteroid Redirection Test was designed to answer a practical question in planetary defense: if a dangerous asteroid were found early enough, could a spacecraft change its path by hitting it?

Jul 13, 2026

Brain & Behavior

Marine biologist Wallace J. Nichols spent roughly a decade interviewing surfers, sailors, swimmers, scientists and others about their…

The phrase "blue mind" has a way of sounding more scientific than it strictly is.

Jul 13, 2026

Brain & Behavior

Small studies have found lower short-term stress markers after forest walks, but lasting effects remain uncertain

Some small studies report lower cortisol and other short-term stress markers after time in forests. They do not establish lasting clinical benefits or a treatment effect.

Jul 12, 2026

Earth & Environment

Roughly five and a half million years ago the Mediterranean dried up almost entirely, and when the Atlantic finally broke back through at…

The Mediterranean looks permanent because human history is short. Rome, Alexandria, Athens, Carthage and Istanbul all belong to a sea that seems older than memory.

Jul 12, 2026

Science

A 2022 study detected an average of 1.6 micrograms of plastic per millilitre in blood from 22 volunteers

A 2022 Dutch study detected plastic in 17 of 22 blood samples, averaging 1.6 micrograms per millilitre across the small cohort. Detection does not establish population prevalence, accumulation or clinical harm.

Jul 12, 2026

Life

In 1938, a South African fisherman hauled up a fish that scientists believed had been extinct for 65 million years

The coelacanth story is often told as if a fossil came back to life. The more interesting version is quieter: the fish had never left.

Jul 12, 2026

Health

A University of Basel study found that around the full moon, participants took longer to fall asleep, slept less deeply and produced less…

The full moon has been blamed for sleeplessness for centuries, usually with more folklore than evidence behind it.

Jul 12, 2026

Physics

Bananas are naturally slightly radioactive because they are rich in potassium, and the dose is so measurable that scientists half-jokingly…

Every banana contains potassium-40, a radioactive isotope with a 1.25-billion-year half-life. Health physicist Gary Mansfield turned that into a teaching tool — the banana equivalent dose — to explain why most radiation numbers in the news are smaller than they sound.

Jul 12, 2026

Health

Columbia researchers combed through 9,000 patient records and found a link between the most prescribed antidepressants and faster-failing…

A chemical messenger best known for shaping mood may also help decide when a diseased heart valve fails.

Jul 12, 2026