16+ hour, 41+ min ago   (820+ words) The explanation seemed obvious: overwhelming heat, and fragile bodies unable to withstand it. But detailed studies after the disaster showed temperature alone could not explain the pattern of deaths. Two neighboring districts, both enduring the same thermometer reading, could see…...

17+ hour, 55+ min ago   (284+ words) Following this cataclysm, the volcano didn’t just call it quits. It began to rebuild itself, first underwater, later rising above the waves as a small island named Anak Krakatau—meaning ‘Child of Krakatau’ in Indonesian, which sounds way less menacing....

21+ hour, 31+ min ago   (433+ words) The Namib’s landscape could easily belong in a science fiction movie — endless dunes, otherworldly colors, and now, a centuries-old ship resting miles from the sea. In the heart of this barren expanse, researchers recently examined a large wooden hull that…...

1+ day, 21+ hour ago   (344+ words) When the fossil was first spotted on Seymour Island in 2011, no one knew what it was. The structure was flattened and paper-thin, unlike the rigid shells typically preserved in the fossil record. For years, it resisted classification. Nearly a decade…...

3+ day, 22+ hour ago   (205+ words) Gathering that archive required decades of field collection across terrain reachable only by boat or on horseback. By compiling these extensive rock-formation records, the team created spatial maps tracking how vegetation moved, thinned, and died out across different latitudes over…...

4+ day, 21+ hour ago   (596+ words) Their visibility, however, has made them a major focus of scientific attention. Mammals are among the most closely studied organisms on the planet, and also among the most at risk. According to the international inventory that tracks species’ conservation status,…...

5+ day, 22+ hour ago   (430+ words) The whole case for the largest marine reptile ever described rests on fragments of a single bone from one side of one jaw. Recovering the rest took until October 2022. What emerged was a surangular, a curved bone that forms the…...

5+ day, 22+ hour ago   (445+ words) The 96 percent figure is real, and it was measured on 3D-printed model coral in a backyard swimming pool. Evan Budz was on a camping trip in Ontario when he watched a snapping turtle move through the water. What struck him…...

6+ day, 21+ hour ago   (391+ words) The Futura Team represents the pulse of Futura’s editorial department, bringing together a collective expertise dedicated to the dissemination of scientific knowledge. Rather than the work of a single author, every article published under this signature is the result of…...

6+ day, 22+ hour ago   (428+ words) The stone defeated a rock saw, a drill and a sledgehammer, and that resistance was the first real clue to what it was. In May 2015, a prospector named David Hole was sweeping a metal detector through open box-ironbark forest about…...