Sparse, spindly scales and a waxy membrane coating are behind the insect’s transparency. Most butterflies sport colorful, eye-catching patterns on their wings. But some species, like the glasswing butterfly, use mostly transparent wings to hide in plain sight. To figure out how these Central American butterflies go incognito, researchers put the wings of glasswing butterflies […]

Does it keep them up later? The summer solstice, which marks the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, happens Sunday (June 20) at 11:32 p.m. EDT (Monday, June 21 at 03:32 UTC). This event happens when Earth’s tilt toward the sun is at its maximum and the sun points directly over the […]

Knock-on effects could transform the Amazon rainforest into savannah As climate change continues to heat the planet, ice sheets and ocean currents could destabilize each other, leading to a climate domino effect impacting 40% of the world’s population, according to new research. And these effects could be seen at way lower temperatures than previously thought. […]

Let’s dive into the science of our home galaxy, the Milky Way. The Milky Way is a barred spiral galaxy, one of hundreds of billions in the observable universe. It’s also our home. Like other galaxies, the Milky Way is an isolated collection of stars and other material bound together by their common gravity. In […]

A burning container ship dumped tons of plastic debris onto Sri Lanka’s beaches. A burning container ship dumped tons of plastic debris onto Sri Lanka’s beaches, prompting a widespread environmental disaster, according to recent news reports. The ship, the X-Press Pearl, had sailed to Sri Lanka from India and was anchored near Colombo on May […]

Gold veins thicker than your arm finally get a geological explanation. Why did some gold prospectors strike it rich with a bonanza gold vein, while others came up empty-handed? The credit may go to nanoparticles. New research reveals that high-grade veins of gold contain clusters of gold nanoparticles, which is important because it explains how […]

Her nickname is “Fernanda.” A giant tortoise in the Galápagos Islands that was thought to have gone extinct over a century ago just came out of hiding. Researchers discovered the female tortoise on the Galápagos’ Fernandina Island during a joint expedition carried out by the Galápagos National Park Directorate and the Galápagos Conservancy in 2019, […]

A colony of wild African green monkeys living near the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport finally gets an origin story. Much-beloved wild African monkeys that live near the Fort Lauderdale airport are the descendants of a bunch of zoo escapees from 1948. Local lore long held that the monkeys (Chlorocebus sabaeus) may have descended from a […]