About a decade ago, Brigham Young University paleontologists stumbled upon thousands of fossils at the Saints and Sinners quarry, an ancient, dried-up water hole, in northeastern Utah. Since there were too many to extract at the site, the team, led by Brooks Britt, cut the slabs of sandstone in which the bones were preserved and took them to the laboratory. Over the years, they have identified the remains of several late Triassic inhabitants, including several sphenosuchians - small crocodile-like creatures – and two carnivorous dinosaurs. However, the most exciting discovery was that of a new species of pterosaur that dates back over 200 million years, when supercontinent Pangea was still intact....

Naomi Osaka was just two years old when Serena Williams beat the world’s highest-ranked women’s tennis player, Martina Hingis, to win her first US Open title in 1999. Since then, Naomi has watched her idol conquer the tennis world with 22 more Grand Slams, the four most important annual tennis events – the Australian Open, Roland Garros, Wimbledon, and the US Open. On Saturday, September 8, the now 20-year-old Naomi stunned the world by winning the 2018 Women’s US Open Singles Championship, stopping Serena’s quest to achieve her 24th Grand Slam title and tying with Australia's Margaret Court for the all-time record. Naomi’s first Grand Slam victory was particularly sweet given that she is the first Japanese tennis player to achieve this honor....

Just when we think we have discovered, and mastered, every shape in the world, comes the scutoid. The three-dimensional prism-like struture has been hiding in plain sight in all living creatures including humans. While not visible to the naked eye, scutoids, the shape skin cells take as they bend, twist, or turn, are everywhere – in your armpits, elbows, organs, and even all over your face....

The “Ediacaran biota,” a common name given to a large group of over 200 types of fossils that have been found across the world, have baffled scientists for decades. Over the years, researchers have debated whether the strange-looking organisms were fungi, algae, or just ancient animals that had failed to evolve. Now, some experts believe they have proof that the mysterious creatures were indeed animals, probably one of the first ones on Earth....

Approximately 4.6 billion years ago, our solar system was a cloud of dust and gas known as the solar nebula. As gravity caused the material to collapse in on itself, it spun faster and faster and eventually flattened into a disk. Researchers believe that most of the material accumulated in the center, to form the sun, while the rest clumped together, creating protoplanets – balls of gas, dust, and rocks, about the size of Mercury or Mars. Over the years, some of the protoplanets collided to form our eight planets, while the rest continue to whirl around the sun as asteroids or rocky debris. However, the one thing scientists are not sure is the process by which the planets came together. Now, a 4.565 billion-year-old space rock, the oldest igneous meteorite ever discovered, may provide clues to this age-old mystery....

Those of you born post-2001 are accustomed to the strict air travel rules that forbid taking even water past security gates. However, airports were not always like that. Seventeen years ago, passengers were not only allowed to carry on board all liquids, but also “dangerous” items such as baseball bats, box cutters, darts, knitting needles, scissors, and even four-inch blades. That changed on September 11, 2001, when members of the Islamic extremist organization Al Qaeda used airplanes as weapons to carry out the deadliest terrorist attacks on American soil in U.S. history....

While elite athletes like Simone Biles and McKayla Maroney make it look easy, gymnastics is one of the hardest sports on the planet – both physically and mentally. It is, therefore, not surprising to hear that most gymnasts retire in their late teens or early 20’s. But don’t tell that to Oksana Chusovitina. The veteran gymnast, who has been in the limelight since winning her first major competition – the USSR’s junior national championships – at age 13, is still going strong at the ripe “old” age of 43!...

John Sidney McCain III, a decorated war hero and one of the most respected American politicians in recent memory, died on Saturday, August 25, 2018, at his ranch in Sedona, Arizona. The senator, who was just days away from celebrating his 82nd birthday, was admired for his ability to put aside political party differences aside and do what he believed was best for the country....

Florida residents are no strangers to harmful algal blooms (HABs), or “red tides.” The natural phenomena, which occurs along the state’s Gulf Coast annually, is the result of excessive growth of microalgae Karenia Brevis. The single-celled organisms, which are only visible through a microscope, are dangerous because they release brevetoxin – a nerve toxin, that attacks the nervous systems of animals with often fatal results....

Think the prices at your neighborhood coffee shop are a little steep? Then you might want to avoid visiting the South American country of Venezuela, where the cost of a cup of coffee has risen more than tenfold, from a “reasonable” 190,000 bolivars in April 2018, to over 2 million bolivars in August 2018. What’s worse is that if the July 26, 2018 report from the International Monetary Fund forecasting a 1,000,000 percent annual inflation rate is correct, the caffeine fix could set the country’s residents back an astounding 5 million bolivars per cup by September! Welcome to Venezuela’s hyperinflated economy!...

Just a few decades ago, humans were the only species believed to be smart enough to grasp the concept of zero — the idea that nothing can be counted as something. While a select group of animals, including dolphins, primates, and a few birds, have since been added to the list, experts have always maintained that only “intelligent” species are capable of processing the difficult concept. Now, researchers from Melbourne’s RMIT University and France’s Université de Toulouse assert that honeybees, which like all insects are considered to be at the low end of the cognitive spectrum, also understand the abstract mathematical notion of nothing....

NASA’s ambitious mission to “touch” the Sun got underway at 3:31 a.m. EST on August 12 with the launch of the Parker Solar Probe from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Within six weeks, the spacecraft, which is currently traveling at 39,500 miles per hour, will conduct the first of seven flybys of Venus and use the planet’s gravitational pull to catapult itself closer to the Sun. The process, known as gravity assist, is instrumental in the probe’s mission to reach our fiery star....

While whales are known to grieve the loss of their loved ones, the recent story of an orca mom clinging to her dead calf for over two weeks demonstrates unprecedented evidence of the strength of the species’ familial bonds. The heart-wrenching saga began on July 24, 2018, after a female calf born to J35, aka Tahlequah — a member of the endangered Southern Residents Killer Whales (SRKW) pod — died 30 minutes after birth. Instead of letting the carcass sink into the ocean, the grieving mother began carrying the lifeless body by balancing it on her forehead or nudging it along the water surface with her nose....

Iron Man fans rejoice! The flight suit that transforms Tony Stark into a superhero is now a reality! Called Daedalus Mark 1, after the mythical Greek craftsman most famous for the feather wings he, and his son Icarus, used to escape from the kingdom of Crete, it is the brainchild of British inventor Richard Browning....

The most noticeable difference between the modern human face and that of the hunter-gatherers, who lived on Earth over 200,000 years ago, is the forehead. While we now have flat, smooth foreheads with visible eyebrows, our ancestors sported a pronounced brow ridge. Experts have always believed that the thick rim, and the evolution to the beautiful tufts of facial hair, served a physiological function. Now, a team of scientists from UK’s University of York and Portugal’s Universidade do Algarve suggest the distinct facial features help with our social relationships....

Researchers have always maintained that Triassic dinosaurs were small, chicken-sized critters, and that it was not until the Jurassic period — about 180-million years ago — that massive herbivorous sauropods, like the Diplodocus and Brachiosaurus, emerged. However, the discovery of a new dinosaur species in Argentina suggests that the animals achieved gigantism during the late Triassic period, about 30 million years earlier than previously believed....

Large predators are increasingly appearing in unexpected places — alligators in saltwater marshes, killer whales in rivers, and mountain lions far away from the closest mountain. Experts hypothesize that as successful conservation efforts increase the local populations of these predators, they are moving beyond their usual habitats in search of food. However, Brian Silliman, professor of marine conservation biology at Duke University has a different theory. He believes the animals are recolonizing habitats they lived and hunted in for centuries — before human activity pushed them to the brink of extinction, and long before researchers began studying them....

Archeologists had always assumed that our early ancestors began baking about 10,000 years ago, after they gave up their nomadic way of life and became farmers. The scientists hypothesized that the abundant grain harvests inspired ancient humans to mill the crop into flour and make bread. However, the discovery of the charred remains of a flatbread that dates back over 14,000 years seems to indicate humans began baking long before their transition to an agricultural-based life....

Every now and again, Mother Nature reveals a delightful surprise in the form of something unusual and remarkable. One such extraordinary occurrence is the recent discovery of an extremely rare hybrid between a melon-headed whale and a rough-toothed dolphin. The mammal was first sighted in August 2017 by a group of researchers on a two-week expedition to document marine life off the coast of Kauai, Hawaii....

There are numerous meteor showers throughout the year. However, few are as popular, or as reliable, as the Perseids. The celestial show, which occurs when Earth passes through the path of Comet Swift-Tuttle, usually starts in mid-July and continues until the last week of August. This year, the best time to view the event will be between August 11 to 13, when our planet traverses through the densest comet dust and the meteors are the brightest and most frequent....

Though wildfires are a common occurrence during California’s hot, dry summers, the state’s biggest fires don’t usually strike until August. However, this year, the season started early, in February, with the Pleasant Fire that took about six weeks to contain and scorched over 2,000 acres. Since then, there have been over 20 blazes across the state. However, none have been as terrifying as the Carr Fire that is currently wreaking havoc in Northern California’s Shasta County....

When two German hikers stumbled upon a dead body buried in ice in the Italian Otzal Alps in 1991, they had no idea that the pristine remains were those of a male who had inhabited Earth almost 5,300 years ago. Named Ötzi after the mountains where he had lain for thousands of years, the Iceman is Europe’s oldest-known natural human mummy....

Stargazers, get ready to witness the longest total lunar eclipse of the 21st Century. On July 27, our moon will transform into a red orb for 1 hour, 42 minutes, and 57 seconds! The entire event, from the moment Earth’s shadow starts to fall upon the moon’s edge to the time when the bright full moon emerges, will take almost 4 hours. In comparison, this century’s shortest total lunar eclipse, which occurred on April 4, 2015, lasted a mere 4 minutes and 48 seconds, with a total duration of 1 hour and 40 minutes....

When it comes to brain power, bottlenose dolphins are second only to humans. The highly social animals are known to teach one another to tail walk, to help fellow dolphins in distress, and to even carefully prepare their food instead of instantly devouring it like most animals. Now, a new study indicates that male bottlenose dolphins maintain unique whistles, or ‘names,’ to enable them to recognize friends and rivals within their social group....