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The Mysterious Origin of the St. Mark's Square Lion!
Keeping a watchful eye over what Napoleon knew as “the drawing room of Europe,” the winged lion of St. Mark’s Square in Venice, Italy, is a majestic sight. The origin of this iconic statue has been cloaked in mystery, but in September of 2024, a group of chemists, archaeologists, geologists, and art historians shed more light on this sculpture’s story.

Siberian Mammoth Statue Gets a Christmas Makeover
The Salekhard mammoth, ready for Christmas
Just below the Arctic Circle, a roadside mammoth statu...

Potential for Alien Life Found on Saturn Moon Enceladus
Enceladus' plumes may hold evidence of microbial life. (source: NASA)
A new potential source of a...

What is a Paleontologist?
Peter Larson and Sue Hendrickson alongside her T-Rex find. (source: Black Hills Institute of Geol...

The Mummified Baboon from the Land of Punt
Mummified baboon. (Source: The British Museum)
After the societal breakdown of the First Intermed...

Don’t Miss the Geminids Meteor Shower!
A composite shot of 2014's Geminids shower. (Source: NASA)
From November 19 to Christmas Eve, the...

New Island Erupts into the Japanese Archipelago
The island forming off Iōtō (Source: Japanese Self-Defense Forces)
Across its vast archipelago, J...

Listen to the New Beatles Song!
The Beatles' rooftop concert, their final live performance. (source: Apple Corps)
Over half a cen...

The Quakers, Benjamin Franklin, and the Jersey Devil
"Mephistopheles in the Sky" by Eugène Delacroix, 1828, a possible inspiration for the Jersey Devi...

The Real-Life Dracula Shed Tears of Blood
Vlad the Impaler
In searching for inspiration for his vampire count, Bram Stoker selected Vlad I...

Where Does the Werewolf Come From?
Antonietta Gonsalvus who had hypertrichosis, one possible origin of werewolf mythology
It is a co...

A Short History of Halloween
A wicker man, described by Julius Caesar in Commentaries on the Gallic War
Tracing Halloween’s or...

The Trilobite Diet
A digital reconstruction of the trilobite's gut contents
Trilobites hold a prized position in the...

Retrieved Asteroid Material Arrives on Earth!
The mission's capsule, having landed in Utah (NASA)
Yesterday on September 24, an asteroid touche...

The Ancient History of Man's Best Friend
Canis lupus familiaris
The relationship between dogs and humans stretches across thousands of yea...

The Animals That Thrive in Cities
A Red-crowned Parrot in Coahuila, Mexico
Conventional wisdom has it that urban centers are biolog...

The Best Way to Steal a Banana
A vervet monkey
Competition is the law of the land in the animal kingdom, but it is not the only ...

The Supercomputer Tackling the Climate Crisis
Geoengineering would change the atmosphere to reflect solar radiation
The National Center for At...

Nature’s Laboratories
Two tortoises on the Galápagos Islands. (Source: Magnum Photos)
Natural selection is a slow proce...

Turkey’s 22 Underground Cities
A staircase in Derinkuyu.
It was 1963, and a Turkish farmer had a strange problem: his chickens k...

Animals Took to the Streets During Covid Lockdowns
A band of mountain goats walking the streets of a Welsh town during a Covid lockdown. (Source: Ge...

Looking Back at Deep Blue
Part of Deep Blue on display. (Source: Smithsonian)
For all the talk of the current boom in arti...

The First Musical Instrument
The ancient archeological record is littered with tools and weapons, means of survival in the pal...

A New Theory of Humanity's Origins
Despite popular depictions, humanity likely didn't originate out of one population. (Source: Warn...

There’s Another Way to Count
Addition isn't the only way to count numbers.
Here’s a simple question: what number is halfway be...

Why is This Debunked Evolutionary Theory so Persistent?
The AAH suggests our ancestors were once partially aquatic. (Source: Renato Bender)
About five mi...

Revisiting the Black Sea Deluge Hypothesis
Noah's Ark on Mount Ararat by Simon de Myle.
Across many of the world’s religions, a story crops ...

A New Origin for Dragon Folklore?
An Edo period painting of a dragon from Japan.
At the bedrock of folklore studies is one underlyi...

Why Do Astronauts Live So Long?
Apollo 11's Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, pictured in 2017 for the 48th anniversary of the moo...

The Ocean Below Our Feet
The deep mantle diamond (Credit: Tingting Gu)Early science fiction narratives are replete with jo...

5 Tips for Hunting Meteorites
A recent meteor seen as a fireball over the English Channel. (Source: ABC)
2023 has already been ...

Can You Solve This Bioethics Dilemma?
A bust of Hippocrates, who the Hippocratic oath is ascribed to. (Source: Getty)
You’re working i...

The Secrets of an Empire Hiding in a Tree
The ruins of Hattusa, the Hittite capital city. (Source: Encyclopædia Britannica)
Written records...

The Kingdom Inside a Mummy
The Pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara, a part of the same complex as the embalming workshop. (Source:...

Humans and Dolphins Make a Great Fishing Team
A bottlenose dolphin, similar to the ones that aid fishermen in Brazil. (Source: Australian Geog...

Is a "Shadow Biosphere" Hiding on our Planet?
A tardigrade, a microscopic animal. If a shadow biosphere exists, it would be at this miniscule l...

Earth's Core is Slowing Down, But Don't Worry!
A visualization of the Earth's magnetic field, generated by the iron inner core. (Source: NASA)
3...