A female Aldabra giant tortoise named Abuh who had escaped from a Japanese zoo earlier this month has been found just a few steps away from the facility. Which got us wondering: Just how far could a 121 pound tortoise travel in 16 days?

Each year, our civilization pours around eight million tons of plastic into the ocean, a portion of which ends up in the bellies of fish, and by consequence, our dinner plates. New research suggests that at least one species of fish isn’t ingesting this plastic debris by chance—they’re actually attracted to the smell.

On October 14, 2014, our Sun let out a great big burp, a coronal mass ejection that swept through the Solar System at an incredibly fortuitous angle. Several spacecraft (and one intrepid Martian rover) detected the solar blast, resulting in an unprecedented experiment that stretched all the way from Venus to outer…

In 1845, Sir John Franklin led two British Royal Navy ships on an ill-fated expedition through the Northwest Passage—a famous and hazardous corridor connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. None of the crew members returned, spawning a mystery that has endured for more than 150 years. A new analysis explores the…

With the civil war in Yemen now having entered into its third year, the beleaguered Middle Eastern nation is having to contend with the devastating impacts of conflict, including disease. An alarming report from the World Health Organization estimates that some 500,000 Yemenis have contracted cholera since April of…

Filmmaker and photographer Geoffrey Whitman was sitting on his back porch yesterday when he noticed a group of wasps picking away at a dead dragonfly. Smartly, he pulled out his camera to document this rarely seen insectoid feast in all its gruesome glory.

In a classic case of adding insult to injury, workers at the beleaguered Fukushima nuclear power plant have uncovered what appears to be an undetonated bomb dating back to the Second World War.

Data visualization artist Neil Halloran has a knack for turning incomprehensibly large and complex data sets into content that’s both coherent and engrossing. In his latest project, the filmmaker uses his skills to convey the unthinkable: the total number of deaths caused by an all-out nuclear war.

Researchers from MIT have developed a wireless, artificially intelligent sensor that can detect the various stages of sleep, including rapid eye movement—the sleep stage associated with dreaming. The non-invasive system could change the way clinicians diagnose sleep disorders and other health complications.

Last month, NASA’s Curiosity rover captured some of the most remarkable images of Martian clouds we’ve ever seen. Now rare, these Earth-like cirrus clouds are a glimpse into the Red Planet’s distant past.

Conservators with Antarctic Heritage Trust have uncovered a perfectly preserved fruitcake that dates back to Robert Falcon Scott’s ill-fated Terra Nova expedition, which began in 1910.

Distinctive zig-zag etchings on a prehistoric human bone found at Gough’s Cave in England suggests that Ice Age cannibals consumed human flesh not purely for the nutritional value, but as part of a sophisticated funeral practice.

Four years after six specimens were discovered in Argentina, scientists have finally given a name to what is now considered the largest animal to ever have walked the Earth. Say hello to Patagotitan mayorum—a Cretaceous-era dinosaur that weighed an astonishing 152,000 pounds.

Jellyfish-like salp are amazing swimmers, converting their gelatinous bodies into efficient undersea propulsion systems. But these tiny creatures can move even faster and further when banding together to create long, snake-like chains. Researchers have finally figured out how this unusual configuration makes salp even…

A US company has sold nearly five tons of genetically-engineered Atlantic salmon fillets in Canada, marking the world’s first sale of GM fish for human consumption. Skeptics of the futuristic food are crying foul, citing ecological and health concerns, but government scientists say folks eating the modified fish have…

We typically think of evolution as an agonizingly gradual process, but there are occasions when nature compels species to move at a quicker pace. By studying a population of lizards both before and after a particularly severe cold snap, scientists have documented natural selection in fast motion, where the surviving…