Scientists Stumbled Upon an Active Volcanic Eruption in a Mid-Ocean Ridge for the First Time Ever From a research submersible, scientists saw hardened lava, dead tube worms and orange flashes from an eruption in the East Pacific Rise Before the eruption, scientists saw a wide variety of ocean life around the Tica hydrothermal vent. Andrew Wozniak For the first time, scientists have witnessed an active seafloor volcanic eruption along a mid-ocean ridge. The team, exploring underwater from the research submersible Alvin, caught the rare sighting while on an expedition off Costa Rica to study the Tica hydrothermal vent. Deep sea hydrothermal vents like Tica are openings in the seafloor where heated, mineral-rich water is released into the ocean, allowing unique ecosystems to thrive around them. On April 28, the eastern Pacific waters near Tica looked just as scientists would expect: brimming with life. The team saw tube worms, mussels, crabs, fish and other animals swimming around the vent. But the next day, the landscape was barren. “My brain was trying to understand what was going on,” Andrew Wozniak, a chemical oceanographer at the University of Delaware who was on the submersible, tells Maya Wei-Haas at the New York Times. “Where did things go?” Before and After Eruption at Tica Hydrothermal Vent Watch on Eventually, Wozniak and his team noticed hardened lava covering dead tube worms and realized what they were witnessing. They were looking at the results of a volcanic eruption. In the distance, they spotted orange flashes of molten lava being released and hardening as they hit the cool water. “When we saw an orange shimmering glow in some of the cracks, it confirmed that a volcanic eruption had taken place and was still actually underway,” Alvin’s pilot, Kaitlyn Beardshear, says in a statement. After some time, though, they chose to end the dive and bring the submersible back up. “We have temperature limits to ensure the safety of the sub and its occupants,” Beardshear explains in the statement. “I kept a close eye on the temperature as we were traveling, and it kept climbing higher, until I decided it was a good idea to leave before we reached the limit.” Though the Alvin team had to cut their expedition short for safety reasons, they collected as much data as possible. They deployed scientific instruments and maneuvered bottles to gather samples for further research, says Sunita Shah Walter, a marine scientist at the University of Delaware, in the statement. “It doesn’t feel real at the moment, but to be able to observe what we saw and be able to collect samples is really mind-boggling,” adds Wozniak, chief scientist of the expedition, in the statement. “I’m so excited for my team, and I’m really excited to see what we can learn about what’s happening down there.” Underwater volcano explodes in the Pacific! Watch on Only two other underwater eruptions have been observed in real time before, and neither of those happened along an ocean ridge. But a staggering 80 percent of our planet’s volcanic and seismic activity happens on the ocean floor, making it a key target for research. Bill Chadwick, a volcanologist at Oregon State University who was not on the expedition, tells the New York Times that the sighting is a “super exciting first.” The Tica vent has been the subject of ongoing research since its discovery in 1991, when Dan Fornari, a marine geologist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and his team witnessed the aftermath of an eruption on another Alvin dive. The team will continue to monitor the vent remotely in an effort to uncover more information about deep-sea volcanism. Geologists will examine high-resolution maps of the site to determine where exactly the eruption occurred, while chemists study how the vent’s hydrothermal fluids changed before and after the eruption and biologists trace how life returns to the area. “All of this has to do with understanding this holistic system that is Earth and ocean,” adds Fornari, who was not on the current expedition, to the New York Times. “It’s so intertwined, and it’s both complex and beautiful.” Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

New Research DNA Links Modern Picuris Pueblo Tribe to Ancestors Who Lived in Chaco Canyon Hundreds of Years Ago Tribal leaders partnered with scientists to confirm their connection to the archaeological site in New Mexico Pueblo Bonito is one of the largest "great houses" constructed by the Chacoan people at Chaco Canyon. National Park Service Members of the Picuris Pueblo tribe in New Mexico have always known they were descendants of the historical inhabitants of Chaco Canyon. Now, they have the data to prove it. Working with scientists, tribal leaders have established a genetic link between themselves and the Chacoan people who flourished between 850 and 1150 C.E.Nature, the tribe hopes to have more influence over the future of Chaco Canyon and the surrounding region. “We steered this ship in the hopes that using technology in the Western way—that they would now listen,” Craig Quanchello, the tribe’s lieutenant governor, said at a news conference, as reported by Reuters’ Will Dunham. “This is something that we’ve always known—who we are. Our elders [have] always known we’ve been here, and [we] come to find out that everything we felt and knew [was] just validated.” For the study, researchers sequenced the DNA of 13 present-day members of the tribe. They compared that genetic material to DNA from 16 Picuris Pueblo individuals who lived between 500 and 700 years ago, as well as ancient and modern DNA from other Indigenous populations and remains found in Chaco Canyon. The data showed a genetic link between the modern Picuris Pueblo people, their ancestors and the inhabitants of Chaco Canyon. “We have it on their terms, with the science talk,” said Quanchello, as reported by the Washington Post’s Carolyn Johnson. “It not only runs through our land, through our veins, but now through science.” The Picuris Pueblo is a federally recognized, 300-person tribe based in northern New Mexico. The tribe’s oral histories, artifacts and cultural practices link them with Chaco Canyon, a regional hub for the ancestral Pueblo people. The archaeological site, which is located roughly 170 miles west of the Picuris Pueblo, is a UNESCO World Heritage site and national historical park. However, as government officials debated the future of oil and gas drilling in Chaco Canyon, the Picuris Pueblo felt “overlooked and erased,” said Quanchello, as reported by Reuters. They wondered if scientific proof of their connection to Chaco Canyon would give them more of a voice in discussions about the region. Tribal leaders reached out to researchers for help. Historically, some research on Indigenous communities has been conducted without proper consent and with little involvement of tribal members. For example, for a 2017 paper, scientists sequenced DNA from remains found in Chaco Canyon without consulting Native American groups with ties to the site. But the new study was guided by tribal leaders. They were free to end the project at any time and got to decide whether the paper would be published. They also signed off on the use of genetic data from the controversial 2017 paper. “We were pretty twisted up about using these data, because we knew how controversial they were,” co-author Mike Adler, an anthropologist at Southern Methodist University, said at the news conference, as reported by Live Science’s Margaret Osborne. “When we brought this up to the tribal council, it was a very simple response: ‘That’s not your call. That’s our call. You should use these data, because it’s an avenue to better our understanding of our own past.’” Experts say the partnership could serve as a model for research related to Indigenous communities moving forward. There’s still room for improvement: For example, the tribal members could have participated directly in data collection, as Deborah Bolnick, an anthropological geneticist at the University of Connecticut who wasn’t involved in the research, tells the Washington Post. But the study is a “big step in the right direction,” Katrina Claw, a Navajo genomicist at the University of Colorado Anschutz who wasn’t involved with the research, tells Nature News’ Ewen Callaway. The findings don’t suggest the Picuris Pueblo is the only tribe with genetic ties to Chaco Canyon. Other tribes also have ancestral connections with the site, and the new paper doesn’t refute those. “This was us speaking on behalf of us, not anybody else,” Quanchello tells Science’s Maya Wei-Haas. However, it may help fill in some of the gaps around the history of Chaco Canyon. Starting around 850 C.E., the Chacoan people built and inhabited more than 200 “great houses”—structures made of stone and timber with hundreds of rooms—in what is now western New Mexico. But in 1150 C.E., they began to abandon those settlements. Archaeologists have long debated why they left, as well as where they went and what happened to them. They may have “downsized and moved to where they could make their own, smaller social networks” with decentralized political systems and fluid social classes, says David Hurst Thomas, an archaeologist with the American Museum of Natural History who wasn’t involved with the research, to Science News’ Bruce Bower. The new study suggests at least some of the Chacoan people—the Picuris’ ancestors—remained in the region, where they have maintained a population through to the present day. “It’s super important that we don’t talk about Chaco in the category of ‘lost civilizations,’ like the Egyptian pyramids or Stonehenge,” Paul Reed, an archaeologist with Archaeology Southwest who wasn’t involved with the study, tells the Associated Press’ Christina Larson. “[That narrative] is particularly damaging in this instance because it disenfranchises the Pueblo people who live all around the canyon to this day.” Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

Watch for Cicadas: Billions From Brood XIV Will Soon Emerge After 17 Years Underground The insects from this group were last seen in 2008 and will appear across the eastern U.S. for a brief, dramatic frenzy of mating and dying A Brood XIV cicada in 2008, the last time this group of the insects emerged Bill Uhrich / MediaNews Group / Reading Eagle via Getty Images The cicadas are coming. Billions of the insects from Brood XIV are emerging from Tennessee to Georgia to Massachusetts this spring after spending the last 17 years hiding underground as nymphs. You might remember last year’s dual cicada emergence, but this one involves a different brood. Some cicadas emerge annually, while others emerge at 13- or 17-year intervals. Brood XIV has been around for a long time—all other 17-year broods branched off from it. “Brood XIV is the same brood that was first recorded in 1634 by the pilgrims in the Plymouth colony,” explains Gene Kritsky, an entomologist at Mount St. Joseph University, to Jason Bittel at National Geographic. “And there it is, still emerging in Plymouth.” Once above ground, the so-called periodical cicadas get rowdy fast. The nymphs molt out of their exoskeletons, turn into winged adults and start their loud, chirping mating call. They mate, lay their eggs and quickly die off. But things get gory for the many cicadas that are unlucky enough to be infected by the deadly fungal parasite Massospora cicadina. The fungus produces drugs that suppress cicadas’ appetites and essentially puppeteer them to mate, even as their genitals fall off, so that it can spread its spores. “It’s sex, drugs and zombies,” says John Cooley, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Connecticut, to Mindy Weisberger at Scientific American. “Nature is stranger than any science fiction that’s ever been written.” After the brood’s offspring hatch, they’ll crawl back underground for the next 17 years. And the cycle will continue. The emergence isn’t all sex and death. Periodical cicadas actually play an important role in the local ecosystem. Their emergence tunnels aerate the soil, and they serve as food for many species. Their carcasses are useful, too. The dead cicadas’ bodies provide nitrogen and other nutrients to the soil as they decompose. The native insects are not pests, scientists say. “They don’t swarm,” says Kritsky to Jeffrey Kluger at Swarms are usually directed, coordinated movements of individual [insects] in a particular area. They’re lousy flyers. They’re flying around, but they’re really not doing much, just going from tree to tree. They don’t carry disease. They don’t bite. They won’t carry away your pets.” “In pediatric journals you read about people being harmed by cicadas,” adds Cooley to TIME. “But it was always something stupid, like riding down the road on a motorcycle without a helmet and one hits them in the eye.” If you come across a cicada that you think is part of Brood XIV, you can upload photos of the insect to an app called Cicada Safari. This helps scientists like Kritsky with their work to understand the animal’s patterns. “I’ve got a team of parataxonomists verifying every individual photograph,” he says to National Geographic. They will confirm that the insect is a periodical cicada and add it to a map that helps scientists track cicadas and their emergence cycles. Kritsky received 128,000 photographs last year, and he’s hoping to see the same amount of participation this time around. Even if you don’t spot something as gruesome as a fungus-infected zombie cicada, the size of the emergence alone is impressive. “Everybody loves a spectacle,” Cooley tells Scientific American. “And if these aren’t a spectacle, I don’t know what is.” Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

Cool Finds Locals Thought These Shipwrecks Had Belonged to Pirates. They Turned Out to Be 300-Year-Old Danish Slave Ships The two vessels had been trafficking hundreds of enslaved Africans when a navigational error led them astray. They sank off the coast of Costa Rica in the 18th century Marine archeologist Andreas Kallmeyer Bloch documents the shipwreck. John Fhær Engedal Nissen / The National Museum of Denmark Archaeologists have confirmed that two shipwrecks off the coast of Costa Rica are the remains of the Fridericus Quartus and Christianus Quintus, two Danish slave ships that have been missing since they sank in the 18th century. Located in shallow waters near Costa Rica’s Cahuita National Park, the wrecks were long thought to belong to pirate ships, according to local legend. Instead, researchers investigating the ships’ timbers and cargoes last month confirmed that they sank while carrying around 690 enslaved Africans. “The analyses are very convincing, and we no longer have any doubts that these are the wrecks of the two Danish slave ships,” David Gregory, a marine archaeologist from the National Museum of Denmark, says in a statement. The archaeologists used dendrochronology—the study of tree rings—to establish that the timbers of the ship were harvested from oak trees sometime between 1690 and 1695. They also found that the oak trees were located in the western Baltic Sea, a region that includes northeastern Germany, southern Sweden and Denmark. Gregory notes that one set of timbers was “charred and sooty from a fire. This fits perfectly with the historical accounts stating that one of the ships burnt,” per the statement. The ships’ cargoes also helped the researchers confirm their Danish origin. A stash of yellow bricks matched the color and measurements of Flensburg bricks, a variety that was manufactured from Danish clay and exported to build forts and sugar plantations in Danish colonies. Chemical analysis of the bricks revealed that the clay came from one of two production sites on the Flensburg Fjord.The archaeologists confirmed that a series of Dutch-made clay pipes found aboard the ships were produced just before the shipwrecks took place in 1710. As the statement notes, clay pipes were “rarely used for more than five years.” Although locals had long been aware of the shipwrecks, they were first documented in the 1970s, per the Tico Times. After archaeology students from East Carolina University discovered the Flensburg bricks in 2015, the shipwrecks sparked renewed academic interest. “It’s been a long process, and I’ve come close to giving up along the way, but this is undoubtedly the craziest archaeological excavation I’ve yet been part of,” Andreas Kallmeyer Bloch, a marine archaeologist and curator at the Danish National Museum, says in the statement. The discovery offers significant insight into both Danish and Costa Rican history—as well as the stories of slavery that entangle them. The Fridericus Quartus and Christianus Quintus departed Copenhagen in December 1708. They stopped in Ghana, where they picked up hundreds of enslaved Africans and began sailing across the Atlantic Ocean to the island of St. Thomas. A “horrible” navigational error led the ships far past their destination and into shallow waters off Costa Rica, where they ran aground on reefs, as Bloch tells CNN’s Amarachi Orie. By some accounts, mutiny swelled among the ships’ crews. One ship caught fire, and the other was likewise abandoned when its anchor cable was cut. Of the nearly 700 enslaved Africans whom the Danish brought to Costa Rica, roughly 100 were recaptured and sent to work on cacao plantations in nearby Matina, per the Tico Times. Marine archaeologist David Gregory documents and samples Flensburg bricks. John Fhær Engedal Nissen / The National Museum of Denmark These new findings suggest that nearly 600 Africans were left on the beaches of Costa Rica, contributing to an Afro-Costa Rican population in the region “100 years before it was registered in official history,” Maria Suarez Toro, a journalist, activist and founder of the underwater archaeology-focused Ambassadors of the Sea Community Diving Center, tells CNN. The archaeologists hope their research can provide the local population with a more comprehensive understanding of their heritage, which has long been obscured by the tragedies of the slave trade. For instance, Celia Ortiz, a resident of Cartago, Costa Rica, can trace her ancestry back to Miguel Maroto, one of the enslaved men aboard the Danish ships, according to CNN. For Ortiz and her 103-year-old mother, learning the true history of their ancestry “brought new light to our lives.” Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

Who Created This Peculiar Painting of a Drooling Dragon? Nobody Knows—but a Museum Just Bought It for $20 Million Painted around 1510, the mysterious altarpiece by an unknown artist features unusual details, including a slobbering dragon and an angel playing the mouth harp The Virgin and Child with Saints Louis and Margaret, circa 1510 The National Gallery, London London’s National Gallery recently purchased an enigmatic artwork called The Virgin and Child With Saints Louis and Margaret for $20 million. Despite the painting’s high price tag, there is no consensus among experts about who painted the altarpiece, where it was commissioned or even what country the artist was from. Last exhibited in 1960, The Virgin and Child With Saints Louis and Margaret is a mysterious painting that the National Gallery has had its eye on “for decades,” Gabriele Finaldi, the director of the museum, tells the Art Newspaper’s Martin Bailey. The gallery purchased the painting earlier this year as part of its bicentenary celebration. The work will go on public display starting on May 10, 2025. Museum officials hope that prolonged viewing will help move scholars closer to a consensus about the details of this expensive painting’s provenance and creator. The National Gallery in London The National Gallery, London The first clues about the altarpiece’s origins come from the wooden panel it’s painted on. The gallery used dendrochronology to date the wood to around 1483. The wood is Baltic oak, frequently used in the Low Countries. (French artists of the era used locally sourced wood.) The altarpiece was first documented in 1602 at the Premonstratensian Abbey of Drongen in Ghent, Belgium, according to a statement from the National Gallery. Experts don’t know if that was the painting’s original location, but some of its subject matter suggests that it could have been. Consider the characters in the painting: the Virgin, baby Jesus, St. Margaret, St. Louis, two angels and a dragon. Although St. Louis is the French king Louis IX, he was revered among the Premonstratensians for allowing the Catholic order to use the fleur-de-lis—a symbol of French royalty—in their coat of arms. Another detail relating to St. Louis helped art historians narrow down the date even more. While the dendrochronology sets an early limit at 1483, the design of the chain worn by St. Louis was modified in 1516, meaning that the altarpiece was likely painted before that date. “A dating of about 1510 seems appropriate on stylistic grounds,” the National Gallery says in the statement. It suggests that the painting’s “plasticity, monumentality” and lighting are reminiscent of French painter Jean Hey, while its “composition and versatile execution” reveal artistic debts to Jan van Eyck and Hugo van der Goes of the Netherlandish tradition. But beyond these stylistic similarities, The Virgin and Child With Saints Louis and Margaret is truly one-of-a-kind. Emma Capron, a curator at the museum who was responsible for the acquisition, describes the altarpiece as “wildly inventive” and “full of iconographical oddities,” per the Art Newspaper. Start with the dragon and its bizarre dog-like face, exaggerated fangs and dripping drool. According to tradition, Satan, disguised as a dragon, swallowed St. Margaret whole. His stomach rejected her and there she appears in the painting, kneeling in prayer, totally unfazed by the event.hymn by the English composer Walter Frye but now identified as musical gibberish. The other angel plucks her mouth harp, “a sound hardly associated with celestial harmony,” as the National Gallery says in the statement. With Old Testament references hidden in the columns’ capitals, as well as solemn details like a goldfinch and the nails of the crucifixion interspersed throughout, it’s easy to lose sight of the centerpiece of the painting: baby Jesus and the Virgin “draped in blazing sports-car red,” as Richard Whiddington writes for Artnet. These elements mix humor and gravity into a rich, dynamic scene on a wooden panel that’s roughly four feet tall. In the 1950s, art historian Denys Sutton described the altarpiece as “one of those delectable items that defies the ingenuity of scholars,” per the Art Newspaper. Decades later, its mysteries remain. Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

For Mountain Gorillas, Being Social Comes With Both Benefits and Drawbacks, Study Suggests A new analysis of wild gorillas in Rwanda indicates the effects of different social styles are dependent on context Scientists analyzed more than 20 years of data on 164 wild mountain gorillas living in Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda. Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund Being social has upsides and downsides for mountain gorillas, according to a new paper that scientists say may help explain why some humans have more friends than others. In the work published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers describe the complicated interplay between the primates’ social lives and their health. For the study, the team analyzed more than 20 years of data on 164 wild mountain gorillas (Gorilla beringei beringei) living in Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda. The gorillas live in groups of roughly 12 individuals, including a single dominant male. But group size varies—some are smaller, some are larger. In addition, the gorillas had different social tendencies. Some were gentle and calm, for example, while others were more aggressive. In humans and other social mammals, past research has linked strong interpersonal relationships with better health and longevity. But the recent study suggests having lots of friends comes with both pros and cons, at least for gorillas. “Our study shows this isn’t a straightforward case of more and stronger social ties always being better,” says study co-author Sam Ellis, an animal behavior scholar at the University of Exeter in England, in a statement. “In some situations, social traits that we’ve previously thought of as maladaptive can have important benefits.” For instance, males with strong and stable social bonds were less likely to get injured in fights, but they were more likely to become ill, the researchers found. Among females, social bonds tended to decrease illness overall, but this varied by group size. In smaller groups, social female gorillas didn’t often get sick, but they had fewer offspring. Friendly females that lived in larger groups had more offspring but also tended to become ill more often.Being around more gorillas likely increases an individual’s risk of contracting a contagious disease. But the researchers suspect the explanation behind these trends may be more complicated than that: Males that live in larger groups, for example, might be using up more energy by defending their females and offspring, which could be weakening their immune systems. Whatever the reasons, the findings suggest there’s no one-size-fits-all level of sociability for optimal health in mountain gorillas. Each primate might have its own ideal amount of integration and social bonds, determined by individual age, sex, offspring and context. Gorillas with different interaction styles “can be successful in different ways,” says lead author Robin Morrison, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Zurich in Switzerland, to the Guardian’s Steven Morris. “This paper highlights the incredible value of long-term studies to furthering our understanding of the evolution of sociality and how the benefits or costs of sociality can vary considerably across different environments,” says study co-author Tara Stoinski, president and CEO of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, in the statement. Essentially, the consequences of an individual’s interaction style are “highly context dependent,” as the researchers write in the paper. The same might be true for humans. The authors suggest their findings could help explain why humans and other social mammals have evolved different social strategies and preferences. “Why are some people very social and others aren’t?” Morrison says to the Guardian. “It’s not as straightforward as saying ‘always be as social as possible.’ Actually, some individuals can do very well by having sort of a smaller number of close friends.” Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

The Ornate Sword That Napoleon Commissioned During His Rise to Power Is Heading to Auction Prior to his final defeat at the Battle of Waterloo, the French ruler gave the saber to one of his most trusted generals, whose family kept it for generations Both the sword and the sheath are made from some of the most valuable materials from Napoleon's era. Giquello “Do you know what fills me most with wonder?” Napoleon once reportedly asked the Marquis de Fontanes. “The powerlessness of force to establish anything. There are only two powers in the world: the sword and the mind. In the end, the sword is always conquered by the mind.” Whether Napoleon ever really spoke these words—quoted in Albert Camus’ essay “The Almond-Trees”—is unknown. But swords were undoubtedly a potent symbol for the French ruler. The sword is decorated with a golden dog wearing an Egyptian headdress. Giquello For Napoleon, then France’s first consul, 1802 was a critical year. In March, he made temporary peace with Britain and Spain in the Treaty of Amiens. At home, he used the interlude to consolidate his control. A national referendum established him “first consul for life,” with more than 99 percent of Frenchmen supposedly voting in his favor. With this massive (if dubious) mandate, Napoleon instituted a new constitution that allowed him to appoint his successor and set the table for his coronation as emperor two years later. During this banner year, Napoleon commissioned an ornate sword from Nicolas-Noël Boutet, the master armorer at the state armory in Versailles. He kept the sword by his side until 1815, when he gave it to his ally, Emmanuel de Grouchy, ahead of the fateful Battle of Waterloo. Once the sword was out of his possession, Napoleon spent the rest of his life in exile on the remote island of St. Helena. The sword remained in the Grouchy family for generations, a gilded reminder of the fleeting power of the First French Empire. On May 22, it will be sold at a highly anticipated auction at Hôtel Drouot in Paris, where it’s expected to fetch between roughly $800,000 and $1.1 million. “The saber is an important symbol in the collective imagination, and Napoleon placed great importance on symbols,” Alexandre Giquello, president of the Drouot auction house, tells Reuters. From hilt to blade, the sword is adorned with rich symbolism. “At the time, they used the widest range of imagery possible,” Giquello explains. “You have stylized animals, you have a palm leaf motif, the whole range of ancient and classical references, Roman and Greek.” The sword is decorated with a golden dog’s head dressed in an Egyptian headpiece and clutching a chain in its mouth. Elsewhere on the sword is the head of Medusa, the Nemean lion defeated by Hercules, and Mars, the Roman god of war. "N. BONAPARTE" is inscribed on the sword's now-blunt blade. Giquello Giquello describes Napoleon’s sword as “very high quality, the best of the best of his time.” The saber is in good condition, although the blade is slightly blunted and the original mother-of-pearl plates are re-glued, per the auction house. “N. BONAPARTE” and “PMIER CONSUL” are inscribed on either side of the blade. Giving the sword to Grouchy was a “very important act of thanks” from Napoleon to the last man he had appointed to the vaunted position of marshal of the empire, according to Giquello. Only one other version of this rare sword exists. Also commissioned by Napoleon, it is kept in the collections of the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, per Agence France-Presse. In recent years, Napoleon memorabilia has fetched large sums at auction. In 2023, one of the emperor’s iconic bicorne hats sold for $2.1 million. Last year, a pair of Napoleon’s ornately decorated pistols sold for $1.8 million. Another sword, which Napoleon carried into the Battle of Marengo in 1800, went for $6.4 million in 2007, a record price for a weapon sold at auction, according to Artnet’s Richard Whiddington. Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

Astrophysicists Track Down the Mysterious Cosmic Origins of Gold and Other Heavy Metals in Our Galaxy Researchers suggest powerful bursts from magnetars—collapsed stars with strong magnetic fields—may have contributed up to 10 percent of all elements heavier than iron in the Milky Way An artistic rendering of a magnetar—or highly magnetized neutron star—losing material into space. The magnetic field lines, shown in green, direct the movement of charged material. NASA / JPL-Caltech Industries such as technology, medicine and agriculture rely on naturally dense elements known as heavy metals. But despite these materials’ importance in our lives, their cosmic origins largely remain a mystery. While iron is known to form in the fiery cores of stars, astrophysicists are still chasing down the sources of heavier elements, such as gold. “It’s a pretty fundamental question in terms of the origin of complex matter in the universe,” Anirudh Patel, a theoretical astrophysicist at Columbia University, says in a NASA statement. “It’s a fun puzzle that hasn’t actually been solved.” Now, in a study published last week in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, Patel and his colleagues suggest a possible source for up to 10 percent of all elements heavier than iron in our galaxy: giant flares launched by magnetars. Magnetars are neutron stars—the highly dense, collapsed cores of exploded stars—with powerful magnetic fields. Sometimes, the motion of the magnetar’s interior leads pressure to build up on its surface, which ultimately unleashes energy in a “starquake.” These chaotic events can include strong and rare bursts of radiation called magnetar giant flares. Scientists have documented only three magnetar giant flares in our galaxy and its vicinity, and they’ve seen just seven beyond it. A rupture in the crust of a magnetized neutron star—caused when pressure builds up and leads to a "starquake"—can emit powerful blasts of material known as magnetar giant flares. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / S. Wiessinger As a flare’s ejected material cools and expands, the protons and neutrons in atoms can become rearranged, creating heavy metals. Elements are determined by their number of protons. But when atoms take on extra neutrons, they might become unstable and convert those neutrons into protons in a process called nuclear decay, which changes the identity of the element. Around neutron stars, atoms can turn into much heavier elements by accumulating many neutrons at once and decaying a series of times. “If you think about the basic ingredients of what everything’s made of, it’s just neutrons, protons, electrons,” Patel, who is the lead author of the study, tells the Washington Post’s Kasha Patel. “The question is how does nature forge these basic building blocks into the complex matter that we see all around us.” Researchers already had one potential explanation for heavy elements: collisions between neutron stars. In 2017, researchers found these mergers could create heavy elements such as gold and platinum. But these alone can’t account for all the heavy elements present in our galaxy and universe. “The trouble with neutron star mergers is that they occur relatively late in the history of our galaxy,” Patel tells Science’s Jenna Ahart. So, any heavy elements formed before that time would have come from a different source. Some of the study’s authors had previously suggested that magnetar giant flares could be the mysterious other origin. But they needed direct evidence. For the new paper, the team investigated records of a massive magnetar giant flare that was observed in 2004. They predicted the potential gamma-ray signal that would have been emitted if elements from the flare had decayed into heavy metals. Then, when analyzing the gamma-ray data from NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), they came across a previously unexplained smaller signal. The researchers were surprised to see that the smaller gamma-ray signal matched their predictions of what a heavy-element-creating magnetar giant flare would look like. “When initially building our model and making our predictions back in December 2024, none of us knew the signal was already in the data. And none of us could have imagined that our theoretical models would fit the data so well,” says Patel to CNN’s Ashley Strickland. “This is a very exciting development,” says Hsin-Yu Chen, an astrophysicist at the University of Texas at Austin who was not involved in the research, to the Washington Post. “It shows new observational evidence for another way heavy elements can form in the universe.” Moving forward, researchers will continue investigating archival data for past magnetar giant flares—and prepare for the next one. “Perhaps the most exciting possibility from this paper is that for the next magnetar giant flare, we could detect individual elements,” says Charles Horowitz, a physicist at Indiana University Bloomington who also did not participate in the research, to Science. Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

Threatened Birds Are Trying to Mate Near a Hazardous Airport in Wyoming. Can Papier-Mâché Decoys Lure Them to Safety? At Grand Teton National Park, officials have placed handmade look-alikes in a field south of the runway to encourage greater sage-grouse to relocate The papier-mâché decoys have been placed in a 100-acre field south of the Jackson Hole Airport runway in a bid to attract greater sage-grouse. NPS / M. Nall Every spring, amorous male greater sage-grouse strut their stuff in western North America. These chunky, round birds put on an eye-catching show to impress any nearby females: They inflate the bright yellow air sacs on their chests, fan out their tails, thrust their heads and make burbling noises. Birders travel for miles to witness these impressive dances, which take place on mating grounds known as “leks.” But sometimes, the birds inadvertently select lek sites that are near human-made hazards—like right next to the Jackson Hole Airport. Between 1990 and 2013, 32 greater sage-grouse were struck and killed by planes near the runway, according to an Instagram post from Grand Teton National Park. Now, officials have come up with an innovative solution to this problem: They’re using papier-mâché decoys to encourage the greater sage-grouse to relocate to a safer lek site. “Can papier-mâché save lives?” reads to the post. “We’re about to find out… hopefully.” Greater Sage-Grouse Watch on The Jackson Hole Airport is located within Grand Teton National Park, so wild animals are regular visitors, along with adventurous vacationers who come to ski, hike and soak up Old West culture. In a bid to improve safety for both wildlife and humans, the National Park Service developed a wildlife hazard management plan for the airport several years ago. As part of that plan, they worked with community partners to restore a 100-acre field just south of the runway. Called the McBride site, the swath was once a historic homestead but is now being transformed into optimal sage-grouse habitat. Over the last few years, biologists have been working to remove an invasive grass called smooth brome and replace it with a mix of low-lying grasses, shrubs and other plants. So far, their plan seems to be working. Officials have started to find grouse droppings on the field, which they call “white Cheetos” because of their visual similarities to the popular snack, reported the Jackson Hole News & Guide’s Billy Arnold in 2023. The number of grouse visiting the lek at the Jackson Hole Airport has also declined, but officials aren’t sure whether that’s because the birds are dying off or opting to relocate. On the McBride site, the National Park Service has also been clearing away an invasive grass called smooth brome and replacing it with low-lying grasses, shrubs and other plants.  NPS / M. Nall This spring, they’re hoping to make the McBride site even more attractive to the grouse by setting up four handmade decoys. The papier-mâché birds were created in partnership with local artist Lori Solem, as well as the Teton Raptor Center and Jackson Hole Middle School art students. Now, the park service must wait and see whether the papier-mâché look-alikes fool the real greater sage-grouse. They’ve set up trail cameras to keep tabs on the project’s progress. Next year, officials hope to up the ante even more by placing animatronic greater sage-grouse replicas on the field. They’re partnering with students on the Jackson Hole High School’s robotics team, called the RoboBroncs. The robotic birds are still a work in progress, but when they’re all finished, the students hope they will be able to perform mock mating dances. Ideally, when the real greater sage-grouse see their robotic counterparts doing their mating displays, they will be tempted to relocate to the field. “If there’s a really cool bar and you want people to go to the bar, you turn up the music and you have everyone come,” says Gary Duquette, who coaches the robotics team, to the Jackson Hole News & Guide’s Christina MacIntosh. “But then if you show up and no one’s there, you’re like, ‘This is lame.’ So, we’re providing the birds partying and doing their little dances.” This is not the first time decoys have been used to attempt to change bird behavior. In 2015, two students in Wyoming created similar papier-mâché replicas to encourage greater sage-grouse to move their lek away from a loud oil-drilling rig that had been set up in the area. In the 1970s, pioneering ornithologist Stephen Kress famously placed carved wooden decoys on the coast of Maine to attract Atlantic puffins. Since then, biologists have used decoys to lure many other species, including Laysan albatrosses, terns, flamingoes and black-crowned night herons. The greater sage-grouse lives on the sagebrush steppe in western North America. But, in recent decades, the species’ population has been declining because of habitat loss and fragmentation. The birds are sensitive to noise, human presence and other disturbances, especially on their leks. In the Jackson Hole valley, just seven leks remain: six in Grand Teton National Park and one in the nearby National Elk Refuge, per the Jackson Hole News & Guide. The birds’ population has gone up and down over the last few decades, but it now appears to be declining. In 2015, biologists counted 180 males in the Jackson Hole subpopulation. After several harsh winters, that number plummeted to 40 males in 2019. However, it rebounded to around 90 males in 2023, per the Jackson Hole News & Guide. More broadly, greater sage-grouse numbers have plunged across the American West. Since 1965, the population has dropped by 80 percent, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

See the Imaginative Illustrations on the Endpapers of Children’s Books Like ‘The World of Pooh’ and ‘Blueberries for Sal’ A new exhibition celebrates the often-overlooked endpapers of more than 50 works of children’s literature ranging from the mid-20th century to the present day Lillian Ali - Staff Contributor May 7, 2025 2:30 p.m. E.H. Shepard illustrated a map of the Hundred Acre Wood for A.A. Milne's The World of Pooh (1957). E.H. Shepard / E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc. If you look inside the front and back of the nearest hardcover book, you’ll probably see colored or decorative endpapers holding the pages to the covers. More than structural necessities, these endpapers serve as prime real estate for maps, engravings and illustrations, particularly in children’s books. The end of A.A. Milne’s The World of Pooh (1957), for example, depicts a drawing of the fictional Hundred Acre Wood, where readers can trace a winding river from “Where the Woozle Wasn’t” to “Rabbit’s House” all the way off the page, “To North Pole.” Open + Shut: Celebrating the Art of Endpapers features more than 50 titles ranging from 20th-century classics to contemporary bestsellers. Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art That illustration, by English artist E.H. Shepard, is on display at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, in Amherst, Massachusetts. It joins the endpapers of more than 50 other children’s books in a new exhibition, “Open + Shut: Celebrating the Art of Endpapers.” The exhibition was developed by guest curator Bruce Handy, a journalist, children’s writer and author of Wild Things: The Joy of Reading Children’s Literature as an Adult (2017). “I was intrigued by the many ways artists were using [endpapers],” Handy tells the Guardian’s Veronica Esposito. “I was surprised at how much thought goes into [them].” One of the oldest works in the exhibition, this 1948 sketch was used as a book dummy illustration for Blueberries for Sal (1948). Robert McCloskey / May Massee Collection, Emporia State University Handy created the show with “no academic background,” he tells Literary Hub’s Brittany Allen. With help from associate curator Isabel Ruiz Cano and others from the Eric Carle Museum, Handy organized the dozens of endpapers into four categories: “The Decorative Tradition”; “Maps, Landscapes and Stage Sets”; “Before and After”; and “Wit, Wisdom and Surprise.” One endpaper on display is from Love in the Library, a 2022 children’s book writtenJohn Ford movie,” with a row of barbed wire in the foreground, Handy tells Literary Hub. Yas Imamura's illustration for Love in the Library (2022) by Maggie Tokuda-Hall Yas Imamura / Candlewick Press “It literally sets the scene for the book, but it sets the scene emotionally, too,” he adds. “You have this combination of beauty and pain, beauty and confinement. I just think it’s really powerful conceptually.” Other endpapers in the collection include Jessica Love’s illustrations for her 2018 picture book, Julián Is a Mermaid, which are displayed in the “Before and After” category. The front paper depicts Julián swimming with his abuela and her friends, while the back endpaper shows the swimmers, including Julián, as mermaids. The front endpaper in Jessica Love's 2018 book Julián Is a Mermaid shows Julián, his abuelaJessica Love Quoting award-winning author and illustrator Brendan Wenzel, Handy tells the Boston Globe’s Victoria Wasylak, “When you only have 32 pages, you want to take advantage of every surface you have for storytelling.” “I feel the same way,” he adds. “Why let this space go to waste?” The Eric Carle Museum was founded in 2002 by Eric Carle, the author of the 1969 classic The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and his wife, Barbara. The museum collects and preserves picture book art, offering “audiences of all ages and experiences innovative ways to enjoy the picture book,” according to the museum’s website. “I think reading and absorbing picture books helps give kids a kind of visual literacy,” Handy tells the Boston Globe. “That’s something that’s going to be increasingly important in everybody’s lives. We’re an increasingly visual society.” “Open + Shut: Celebrating the Art of Endpapers” is on display at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst, Massachusetts, through November 9, 2025. Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

Official Paintings From Charles III’s World Tours Are Going on Public Display for the First Time Over 40 years, artists have accompanied Charles on his travels to 95 countries with only one directive: Paint whatever interests them Their Royal Highnesses on North Seymour Island, Richard Foster, 2009 Richard Foster / Royal Collection Trust In the spring of 1985, the British painter John Ward received an invitation from one of his students. Charles, the Prince of Wales, asked Ward—who had previously made sketches of the royal family at Balmoral Castle and painted the christenings of the prince’s sons, William and Harry—to join a royal visit to Italy as the official tour artist. His only task was to paint or draw whatever struck his fancy. Ward accepted the honor and joined up with the tour in Catania, a port city in Sicily, before sailing on a royal yacht up the coast of Italy to Venice. Ward’s work from the trip captures the White Ensign flag flapping in the wind as the tour makes its way north. Since Ward’s first tour, Charles III—who became king in 2022—has maintained the tradition of personally selecting and inviting an artist on his royal tours for four decades. For the 42 artists who have collectively visited 95 countries during 69 royal tours, the instructions have remained the same: Create what you like. The more than 70 artworks that resulted from these travels are going on public display this summer for the first time. “The King’s Tour Artists” will be on view at Buckingham Palace between July 10 and September 28, 2025. From the Afterdeck of HMY Britannia, John Ward, 1985 The Estate of the Artist / Royal Collection Trust “This fascinating group of works tells the story of 40 years of official travel and artistic patronage,” Kate Heard, curator of the exhibition, says in a statement. “The freedom given to each artist to capture a personal impression of the countries visited has led to the formation of a rich and varied collection. Encompassing landscapes, figure studies and still life subjects, these works are testament to His Majesty’s deep engagement with and encouragement of artists over the past four decades.” The most recent painting in the collection is Waratah and Eucalyptus, Australian National Botanic Gardens, created by Warwick Fuller during the 2024 royal tour to Australia and Samoa. Because Fuller had already been on three tours as an official artist, he was accustomed to the quick pace of each day. Instead of chasing after the royal entourage with his sketchpad, Fuller went directly to the last stop of the day, the Australian National Botanic Gardens in Canberra. There, he was pointed towards the blazing bloom of the waratah flower, revered in Indigenous Australian culture for its ability to withstand bushfires. While on the 2000 royal tour to the Caribbean, Mary Anne Aytoun Ellis made a similar decision to travel ahead to Kaieteur Falls in Guyana, which had been given just 15 minutes in the official itinerary. Her painting, Gully, captures the towering waterfall in burnished earth tones. Trees, rocks and sky merge into the thundering waters as they plummet towards the earth. Waratah and Eucalyptus, Australian National Botanic Gardens, Warwick Fuller, 2024 Warwick Fuller / Royal Collection Trust While some artists painted striking landscapes, others captured humans and animals. For instance, Phillip Butah, who accompanied Charles to Kenya in 2023 during his first state visit as king, painted a trip to an elephant sanctuary in Nairobi National Park. Butah had first met Charles in 1998, when he became the youngest winner of the Prince of Wales’s Young Artists’ Award. Since then, Butah has been closely associated with the royal family. Charles and his wife, Queen Camilla, “are one of the most famous couples of our time, so it was fascinating for me to see the personal side of their relationship” during the trip to Kenya, as Butah tells Tatler’s Ben Jureidini. “It is so strong, and they are a great team.” Both Charles and Camilla have also dabbled in painting throughout their lives. Charles mostly sticks to watercolors, Tatler reports, because he doesn’t like to keep his security detail waiting.  Philip Butah makes a sketch of Charles III during a 2023 state visit to Kenya. Phil Noble / Pool / Getty Images The royal couple are the subject of Richard Foster’s painting Their Royal Highnesses on North Seymour Island, which he created while serving as the official artist of their 2009 tour of Chile, Brazil and Ecuador. Foster captures Charles and Camilla gazing out to sea from the island in the Galapagos, home to zero humans and 2,500 land iguanas. Ahead of the new exhibition, an accompanying book will be published on June 19. Titled The Art of Royal Travel: Journeys With the King, the volume includes about 100 illustrations from the tours, as well as behind-the-scenes recollections from the artists. “Some were at the start of their careers, others more established,” the Earl of Rosslyn, the book’s editor, says in the statement. “But when interviewed for this book, all were united in gratitude for the memorable artistic adventure it represented.” “The King’s Tour Artists” will be on view at Buckingham Palace in London from July 10 to September 28, 2025. 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Art Meets Science Ancient Chinese Poems Reveal the Decline of a Critically Endangered Porpoise Over 1,400 Years Researchers looked at poetry dating as far back as the Tang dynasty to find that the Yangtze finless porpoise’s range has decreased by 65 percent A Yangtze finless porpoise appears to "smile" at the Baiji Dolphinarium at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Wang Chaoqun Over the last 1,400 years, populations of the Yangtze finless porpoise have dramatically declined in China. But intensive surveys of its range only span the last couple of decades, leaving lots of gaps in scientists’ knowledge of the species. In a creative blend of art and science, a new study uses historical poetry to chart the critically endangered animal’s population across the river it calls home. The finless porpoises once lived throughout the entire Yangtze River, which stretches from the Tibetan Plateau to the East China Sea. Now, the only known freshwater porpoise in the world has fewer than 1,800 individuals left in the wild. The research team combed through databases of Chinese poetry to find references to the porpoise and map its past distribution. They found 724 poems that mentioned the animal, of which half noted where the porpoises were observed. Their findings were published in the journal Current Biology “Having access to past data allows us to detect when declines began and correlate those changes with potential threats like habitat destruction, climate change, overhunting, disease or the introduction of invasive species,” says study lead author Yaoyao Zhang, an ecologist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, to Gennaro Tomma at Scientific American. The poems suggest the porpoise’s range has decreased by 65 percent since the Tang dynasty (618–907 C.E.). Most of that decline happened in the river’s tributaries and lakes, where the animal’s range has decreased by 91 percent. A Ming dynasty woodblock-printed illustration from "Sancai Tuhui" (Compendium of the Three Powers), a 49-volume book of poems about animals. This poem describes the Yangtze finless porpoise with morphological details, surfacing postures and maternal care behaviors. "Sancai Tuhui," compiled by Wang Qi (1573–1620) While the population decrease was mostly gradual, the sharpest decline occurred over the past 100 years. That sudden drop aligns with human activities on the river, especially dam construction in the 1950s that blocked off the porpoise’s movement to and from the river’s main channel. The work highlights the connection between culture and science. “Poems are actually ancient citizen science,” says study co-author Jiajia Liu, an ecologist at Fudan University in China, to McKenzie Prillaman at Science News. “These data are not perfect. … But they do have a lot of information if you use them correctly.” Many Chinese poets were “well-educated intellectuals,” according to the paper, and often described animals in an accurate way. And because these poets often held official positions in society, their whereabouts were often documented, per Science News. This methodology has potential for uncovering the pasts of other endangered species as well. The study “builds on many prior examples on how historical texts of various kinds can help understand past species distributions and, not least, human-caused biodiversity losses,” says Jens-Christian Svenning, a macroecologist at Aarhus University in Denmark who was not involved in the work, to Scientific American. Previously, scholars have used medieval and ancient texts to understand things like volcanic eruptions, auroras and unusual whales.Zhigang Mei, a hydrobiologist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a study co-author, echoes those sentiments in a statement, saying the work made him rethink the scientific value of historic literature, in particular. “Chinese poetry, this ancient art form, can be a serious scientific tool,” he says. “Using the past to understand the present, ‘decoding’ the stories behind the art: It’s not just research, it’s like having a conversation with the poets of the past.” Next, the team will use poems in an attempt to determine how the Yangtze River once looked, how the ancient porpoises might have behaved at the height of their population and how big their groups once were, Zhang tells Scientific American. The researchers hope their new work inspires more scientists to look toward poetry and other art forms as part of their studies. “Protecting nature isn’t just the responsibility of modern science; it’s also deeply connected to our culture and history,” says Mei in the statement. “Art, like poetry, can really spark an emotional connection, making people realize the harmony and respect we should have between people and nature.” Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

India Is Trying to Stop the Sale of Hundreds of Ancient Gems Associated With the Buddha The 300 sacred jewels are part of a larger trove found in India in 1898. They’re scheduled to be sold by Sotheby’s Hong Kong, where bidding will start at roughly $1.3 million The gems were found in a stupa in northern India. Sotheby's In 1898, British landowner William Claxton Peppé excavated an ancient funerary monument on his estate in northern India. The site revealed a trove of 1,800 jewels, as well as ash and bone fragments. According to an associated inscription, the remains belonged to the Buddha, who was thought to have been buried nearby. On Wednesday, Sotheby’s Hong Kong is planning to auction more than 300 of the gems found at the site. The sale of the trove—which many Buddhists consider sacred—has prompted backlash among scholars, religious leaders and Indian government officials. “These sacred relics … are part of India’s and the global Buddhist community’s spiritual and cultural heritage,” writes India’s culture ministry in an Instagram post. “[The] sale violates Indian laws, international norms and U.N. conventions.” The Instagram post includes a photo of a legal notice the ministry sent to Sotheby’s. The notice asks the auction house to cancel the sale, repatriate the jewels to the Indian government, offer a public apology and provide the ministry with “all provenance documents” connected to the artifacts.The ministry writes that Sotheby’s “has responded to the legal notice with the assurance that full attention is being given to this matter.” However, the sale is still scheduled to proceed on May 7. As Artnet’s Richard Whiddington reports, the bidding will start at roughly $1.3 million. Peppé’s estate was located in the village of Piprahwa, just south of India’s border with Nepal, and it held several Buddhist funerary monuments known as stupas. The site’s first stupa was likely built at the time of the Buddha’s death around 400 B.C.E., per Sotheby’s. Officials think the gems were placed at the site when the stupa was rebuilt around 240 B.C.E. When Peppé ordered that the stupa be excavated, his workers found a vaulted chamber, according to an essay by Nicolas Chow, the chairman of Asian art at Sotheby’s. Inside the chamber was a sandstone chest containing five reliquaries (containers for holy relics), which held bones and ash alongside nearly 1,800 pearls, rubies, topazes, sapphires and other gems. One of the reliquaries was marked with a short inscription suggesting that the bone fragments belonged to the Buddha. The gems were found by British landowner William Claxton Peppé, who handed over most of the collection and kept a portion for himself. Sotheby's The British crown ultimately claimed the items under the 1878 Indian Treasure Trove Act. The bone relics were presented to the king of Siam, while the “major pieces of gold and jewelry” were donated to a museum in Kolkata, according to an essay by Peppé’s great-grandson, Chris Peppé. “It is the small portion of duplicates that [William Claxton Peppé] was allowed to keep that have been kept in our family.” Chris Peppé and two of his cousins inherited these items in 2013. After displaying the gems in museums around the world, the family decided to sell them at auction. But the sale of these items, which some Buddhists consider corporeal remains of the Buddha, has sparked criticism. “The gems, and his bone and ash, all belong to the Buddha and shouldn’t just be sold to the highest bidder,” Conan Cheong and Ashley Thompson, art historians at the School of Oriental and African Studies University of London, write in an opinion piece for the Religion News Service. “And as researchers of Buddhist material culture engaged with current global debates around restitution, we see this sale as perpetuating colonial violence.” Chris Peppé disagrees, telling BBC News’ Soutik Biswas that in the monasteries he has visited, “no Buddhists regard [the gems] as corporeal relics.” The gems were exhibited at Sotheby's Maison in Hong Kong. Sotheby's “A few Buddhist academics at western universities have recently offered a convoluted, fact-defying logic whereby they may be regarded as such,” he says. “It’s an academic construct that is not shared by Buddhists in general who are familiar with the details of the find.” But as Yon Seng Yeath, chancellor of Preah Sihanouk Raja Buddhist University and head of Wat Ounalom in Cambodia, tells thePhnom Penh Post’s Niem Chheng, “We cannot put things which carry the respect of so many human beings up for sale.” “They are the representatives of the wisdom of Buddha,” he says. “In my opinion, all of the pieces should be kept at pagodas or other sacred places, such as museums, in any country which the owners prefer.” Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

New Research Spanish Shipwreck Reveals Evidence of Earliest Known Pet Cats to Arrive in the United States The two felines—one adult, one juvenile—appear to have been cared for by the sailors before the vessel sank in a hurricane in 1559, according to a new study The cats that perished aboard the Emanuel Point II were well-fed and may have served as companions for the sailors. Pexels Cats are beloved members of many families, with 73.8 million of them prowling and purring their way around 42 million American households. But it wasn’t always this way: Domestic cats are relative newcomers to the Americas, having only arrived roughly 500 years ago with European explorers. Now, a new study is offering even more insight into the history of these four-legged felines. Researchers have discovered the remains of two house cats in a 466-year-old Spanish shipwreck near Florida, which are likely the earliest known cats in the United States. They describe their findings in a new paper published in the journal American Antiquity. The remains were found among the wreckage of the Emanuel Point II, a Spanish ship that sank in September 1559 near what is now Pensacola, Florida. The vessel was one of 11 ships that had sailed north from Mexico during an expedition under the command of Tristán de Luna y Arellano. The conquistador’s fleet was anchored near the Spanish settlement of Santa María de Ochuse when a hurricane swept through, causing six of the vessels to sink and another to be driven inland. Between 1992 and 2016, researchers discovered three of the expedition’s shipwrecks. Divers have successfully recovered several artifacts from the ships, including fragments of jars that likely contained olive oil, wine or water. Additionally, they’ve discovered the remains of several critters, including cockroaches, rats and at least two domestic cats. For the new study, scientists took a closer look at the feline remains, which belonged to one adult and one juvenile cat. Though the cats may have been stowaways, they were likely brought onboard intentionally to help keep rodents at bay. Along the way, they probably also became chummy with the sailors. Their friendliness with the crew seems to have paid off: Tests suggest the adult cat was mainly eating fish and meats like pork, poultry and beef. Although it may have hunted the occasional rat or mouse, a “significant proportion” of the cat’s diet came from other sources, the researchers write in the paper. The sailors may have fed the cats because they were so effective at controlling pests that there were none left for them to eat. Or they may have tossed the cats lots of food scraps “out of affection,” the researchers write. Sailors often considered cats to be lucky—especially those with extra toes. “Their primary role may have been as commensal ratters and mousers that kept the onboard rodent population in check,” the researchers write. “This does not, however, preclude the possibility that these cats were well-liked and cared for by the sailors.” The dietary findings also likely rule out other possibilities, such as that the cats were brought on the ship to serve as food for the sailors or were being raised for their fur. These appear to have been relatively common uses for cats in some parts of medieval Europe, the researchers note in the paper. “A Spanish cookbook from 1560 includes a recipe for roasted cat, while cat skeletons from medieval sites across Europe often bear cut marks, suggesting they were skinned for their furs or butchered for their meats,” writes IFLScience’s Tom Hale. “Fortunately, this doesn’t seem to be the case here.” Scholars think cats were first domesticated in the Middle East roughly 12,000 years ago. By around 400 B.C.E., they had spread throughout the Mediterranean region. The first cats to travel to the Americas may have sailed on Christopher Columbus’ ships, though the animals are not mentioned in the voyages’ records. Archaeologists have discovered cat remains in present-day Haiti, where Columbus landed in 1492. But since the explorer never set foot on the mainland of North America, the first cats likely arrived via other expeditions—like the one led by Luna y Arellano. Genetic testing confirmed the cats aboard the Emanuel Point II had European ancestry. “The Spanish expeditions in Florida were really the first opportunities for domestic cats to reach what is today the U.S.," lead author Martin Welker, an anthropologist and archaeologist at the University of Arizona, tells Live Science’s Margherita Bassi. Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

Fossils Reveal Enormous, Crocodile-Like Reptiles Survived for Millions of Years Longer Than Previously Thought New discoveries in the Dominican Republic suggest sebecids roamed the Caribbean as recently as 4.5 million years ago, long after they vanished from South America Lillian Ali - Staff Contributor May 6, 2025 11:33 a.m. Crocodile-like sebecids were known to roam South America after dinosaurs went extinct. Recently found fossils suggest they inhabited the Caribbean as well—and thrived there long after they disappeared on the continent. Jorge Machuky / Florida Museum of Natural History After dinosaurs went extinct, South America was dominated by large, crocodile-like reptiles called sebecids. Measuring up to 20 feet in length and bearing rows of sharp, serrated teeth, sebecids roamed the continent before disappearing from its fossil record around 11 million years ago. But over the past 30 years, other fossil finds have offered hints that this story is more complicated. Serrated teeth have appeared at sites on Caribbean islands, including Cuba and Puerto Rico. While those remains suggested that sebecids inhabited the Caribbean, without more fossils, researchers could not confirm whether those teeth were from sebecids or similar reptiles. But in 2023, paleontologists from the University of Florida found two fossil vertebrae along with another tooth in the Dominican Republic. These vertebrae were flat, like those of sebecids, rather than having the ball-and-socket joints of other crocodile relatives. The researchers’ findings, published last week in “The vertebrae are the thing that really brings home that they’re sebecids,” lead author Lazaro Viñola-López, a paleontologist at the University of Florida, tells Science News’ Jake Buehler. The fossils found by Viñola-López’s team suggest not only that sebecids made their way to the Caribbean, but that those lineages held out longer than their counterparts in South America. While the most recent sebecid fossils found in South America date to between 10.5 million and 12.5 million years ago, the tooth and vertebrae found in the Dominican Republic date to as recently as 4.5 million years ago, pointing to Caribbean islands as the last stronghold for the enormous reptiles. “You wouldn’t have been able to predict this looking at the modern ecosystem,” University of Florida paleontologist Jonathan Bloch, senior author of the paper, tells the Florida Museum’s Brooke Bowser in a statement. “The presence of a large predator is really different than what we imagined before, and it’s exciting to think about what might be discovered next in the Caribbean fossil record as we explore further back in time.” The research team found this fossil of another prehistoric crocodilian in the Dominican Republic. Jonathan Bloch / Florida Museum of Natural History The dinosaur age ended 66 million years ago with a catastrophic asteroid impact, leading to the rapid extinction of non-avian dinosaurs. In their place, mammals began to dominate the land. But sebecids, which survived the mass extinction of dinosaurs, stayed on top of the food chain in South America, ruling the continent for tens of millions of years. They had narrow, dinosaur-like skulls and long legs that made them capable of chasing down prey. Bony plates embedded in their skin offered sebecids a protective armor. “These were the types of predators that one thinks were from dinosaur times,” Viñola-López tells Reuters’ Will Dunham. Sebecids were the last surviving notosuchians, crocodile-like reptiles that first appeared in the Jurassic Period. Notosuchians varied in size, diet and habitat, but unlike modern crocodiles, they lived mostly on land. The fossil discoveries are part of “a glorious record extending back the whole Age of Dinosaurs into the Cenozoic,” as Bloch tells Science News. The Cenozoic era is Earth’s current geological era, starting 66 million years ago and continuing today. Sebecids resemble crocodiles, but their long limbs would have made them land hunters—and rendered them unable to swim from South America to islands in the Caribbean. Instead, researchers hypothesize, the reptiles might have traversed the sea on rafts of vegetation or crossed pathways of temporary land bridges. “I really am sorry they’re gone, because they must have been totally awesome to see,” Christopher Brochu, a paleontologist at the University of Iowa who was not involved in the study, tells Science News. Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

Cool Finds Archaeologists Unearth 2,300-Year-Old Sword Decorated With Two Small Swastikas in a Celtic Necropolis Found in France, the site featured more than 100 graves filled with ancient metal artifacts—including bracelets, brooches and two well-preserved swords The shorter sword was decorated with polished gems, two of which were carved with swastikas. Flore Giraud / INRAP Three years ago, researchers excavated a vast Celtic necropolis in central France. It was filled with ancient metal artifacts, including two expertly crafted 2,300-year-old swords still in their sheaths—one of which was decorated with carved swastikas. Archaeologists from the National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research (INRAP) made the discoveries during excavations in the French town of Creuzier-le-Neuf. After extensive analysis, they announced their findings on April 15. Stretching across 7,000 square feet, the necropolis contained more than 100 graves (including a single cremation burial), according to the announcement. No skeletons remained, as they likely disintegrated in the area’s acidic soil. However, the researchers found metal grave goods in roughly half of the burials. A map shows the graves inside the necropolis. INRAP / Sébastien Dohr / Benjamin Oury Some of the graves held copper-alloy bracelets with clasps, including one that was engraved with circular shapes. The researchers also found 18 brooches made from copper alloy and iron. One such brooch, adorned with a polished gemstone and a silver leaf, dated to the late fourth or early third century B.C.E. Another brooch was decorated with ocelli, or eye-shaped symbols, which were “fashionable among Celtic craftsmen” in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.E., Vincent Georges, an archaeologist at INRAP, tells Live Science’s Sahas Mehra. In the cremation burial, researchers also discovered a small vase painted with red bands and spiral patterns. However, the most significant discoveries were two swords, both protected inside copper-alloy sheaths. One was discovered with rings that would have allowed it to be worn around the waist. Shreds of fabric, likely from the garments of the human it was buried with, still clung to its back, per the announcement. Researchers think it was made during the fourth century B.C.E. The longer sword featured rings that would have allowed it to be worn around the waist. Flore Giraud / INRAP The other sword was shorter, and it had a pointed blade. X-ray scans revealed a circle and crescent moon carved into the top of the blade, suggesting the weapon was also made in the fourth century B.C.E., according to INRAP. Its sheath is adorned with several gems, at least two of which were carved with swastikas. Long before Adolf Hitler co-opted the swastika as a symbol of the Nazi party in 1920, it was used around the world as an ancient emblem of good fortune. As Smithsonian magazine’s Lorraine Boissoneault wrote in 2017, swastikas have been found on artifacts from India, Europe, Africa, China and the Americas. Swastikas were common in the ancient Mediterranean. Per Smithsonian, the late-19th century archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann discovered at least 1,800 swastikas on artifacts in present-day Turkey. During the late fifth century B.C.E., the design was adopted by the Celts living in mainland Europe, as Georges tells Live Science. The researcher doesn’t know what meaning the Celts assigned to the symbol. Researchers think the shorter sword was decorative rather than functional. Flore Giraud / INRAP During the Second Iron Age (around 450 to 52 B.C.E.), the recently excavated necropolis was at the crossroads of ancient territories belonging to the Celtic Arverni, Aedui and Bituriges tribes, according to INRAP. Today, the region is occupied by the small town of Creuzier-le-Neuf. The two swords shed new light on the region’s culture and craftsmanship. As Georges tells Live Science, the longer sword has “all the characteristics of a functional weapon,” and its sheath could have been worn by a horseman. However, the shorter, decorated sword likely wasn’t functional. Instead, it may have been worn as a symbol of power, perhaps by a commanding warrior. In the fourth century B.C.E., Celtic tribes attacked and defeated Roman forces at the Battle of Allia. While Georges remains cautious about jumping to conclusions, he tells Live Science that the shorter sword is “more or less contemporary with the Celtic incursions in northern Italy and the sacking of Rome in 387 B.C.E.” Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

Martin Scorsese’s New Documentary Will Feature One of Pope Francis’ Final Interviews The film focuses on a project founded by the pope that encourages small communities around the world to tell their stories through cinema Pope Francis meets with Martin Scorsese on January 31, 2024 in Vatican City. Vatican Media via Vatican Pool / Getty Images Filmmaker Martin Scorsese will produce a new documentary featuring the last video interview of Pope Francis, recorded just months before his death on April 21 at age 88. Titled Aldeas — A New Story, the documentary chronicles the Aldeas cinema initiative, which enables small communities around the world to tell their own stories through cinema. The project is the work of Scholas Occurrentes, an education movement founded by the pope. “What happens when you hand a camera to a community and ask them 'Who are you?’” Aldeas says on its website. “Every reality, even the smallest, is a world in itself and reveals the broader human experience.” Pope Francis on set for the filming of the documentary in December 2024 Aldeas Scholas Films So far, groups from Indonesia, the Gambia and Italy have signed on to the project, which has no set release date. Once these local stories from across the globe are written, filmed and produced, they will be interspersed in the documentary with footage from Scorsese’s December 2024 interview with Francis in the Vatican, according to the New York Times’ Derrick Bryson Taylor. “It was important to Pope Francis for people across the globe to exchange ideas with respect while also preserving their cultural identity, and cinema is the best medium to do that,” Scorsese says in a statement, according to Variety’s Jazz Tangcay. On a visit to Jakarta last year, Francis met with participants of the film project. Before his death, he called Aldeas “an extremely poetic and very constructive project because it goes to the roots of what human life is, human sociability, human conflicts … the essence of a life’s journey,” per Variety.The Catholic faith has played a significant role in Scorsese’s life. Growing up in New York City, he attended a preparatory seminary with plans to become a priest but failed out after the first year. After “dabbling here and there” with other religions for years, he admitted in a 2017 interview with La Civiltà Cattolica’s Antonio Spadaro that he was still “most comfortable as a Catholic.” Scorsese’s films have long explored themes involving faith, but not without significant controversy. Religious groups vigorously protested his 1988 film The Last Temptation of Christ, which emphasized the human side of Jesus, including a scene where he consummates his marriage with Mary Magdalene. One extremist group that considered it blasphemous even set fire to a Paris cinema while the film was showing. Martin Scorsese and Pope Francis during the filming of the interview in December 2024 Aldeas Scholas Films Scorsese’s relationship with the organized church has significantly improved since then, although he’s never shied away from making films about faith in all its difficulties. In 2016, Scorsese met with Francis to discuss his film Silence, the story of Jesuit priests in 17th-century Japan. They met again in 2023 shortly before Scorsese announced that he would make another film about Jesus. “[Francis] knew in his soul that ignorance was a terrible plague on humanity. So he never stopped learning,” Scorsese said in a statement shared with Variety’s Ellise Shafer following his death. “The loss for me runs deep—I was lucky enough to know him, and I will miss his presence and his warmth. The loss for the world is immense. But he left a light behind, and it can never be extinguished.” With a recent project focusing on the lives of eight Catholic saints, as well as his commitment to the Aldeas documentary, Scorsese continues to examine his faith. The short films featured in his upcoming documentary will premiere in newly established local cinemas, “serving as lasting hubs for cultural expression and education,” per Variety. “Pope Francis’ vision gave life to a dream: the dream of uniting villages from different corners of the world and, through cinema, rediscovering the beauty of creation,” Aldeas Scholas Films said in a statement posted to social media after his death. “Rather than saying farewell, we honor his life through action, as we embrace the mission of continuing to tell the stories he dreamed of seeing flourish.” Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

Giant Sequoias Are Taking Root in an Unexpected Place: Detroit Arborists are planting urban groves of the world’s largest trees in one of the city’s most blighted neighborhoods Arborists are reforesting Detroit's Poletown East neighborhood with giant sequoias and other species of trees. AP Photo / Paul Sancya Giant sequoias are typically found in California’s Sierra Nevada mountain range, where they reach heights of up to 300 feet. Now, however, with help from conservationists, the world’s largest trees are spreading to new places. In Detroit, arborists are planting dozens of giant sequoia saplings in a blighted area in hopes of creating an urban forest that will clean the air, provide shade and, overall, improve residents’ quality of life. The trees are being planted in Detroit’s Poletown East neighborhood through a partnership between two nonprofits, Arboretum Detroit and Archangel Ancient Tree Archive. The effort started in 2020 and 2021, with the planting of 20 giant sequoia trees on private property and vacant lots owned by Arboretum Detroit. It continued late last month, as volunteers convened on Earth Day to plant roughly 100 additional saplings. “There’s not another urban area I know of that has the kind of potential that we do to reforest,” says Andrew “Birch” Kemp, co-director and board president of Arboretum Detroit, to the Associated Press’ Corey Williams. “We could all live in shady, fresh air beauty. It’s like no reason we can’t be the greenest city in the world.” The Earth Day saplings are roughly a foot tall. But, if all goes as planned, they’ll rocket to roughly 15 feet tall—and counting—over the next decade. The trees can grow up to two feet each year.The saplings are all clones of two well-known trees in California. One is the Amos Alonzo Stagg tree, which measures 243 feet tall. Nicknamed “Stagg” for short, the tree is the fifth-largest in the world. The other, known as Waterfall, had the largest ground perimeter of any giant sequoia, 140 feet, before it was killed in a 2020 wildfire, reports MLive.com’s Justine Lofton. The clones were developed by experts with Archangel Ancient Tree Archive, which traveled to California to gather the trees’ cones and new-growth clippings in 2010. The group is working to propagate and preserve the world’s old-growth trees at its headquarters in Northern Michigan, as well as in “living libraries” around the world. Giant sequoias are not native to Michigan. And, yet, they’re somehow thriving in the state, which has a much cooler and wetter climate than their native California. The biggest giant sequoia east of the Rockies is a 77-year-old specimen, called the Michigan Champion, that was planted in 1948 on the eastern shores of Lake Michigan. The tree measures roughly 116 feet tall and 5 feet in diameter. “They’re safer here ... we don’t have wildfires like [California],” Kemp tells the Associated Press. “The soil stays pretty moist, even in the summer. They like to have that winter irrigation, so when the snow melts they can get a good drink.” Meanwhile, experts say some native trees—including hemlock, elm and beech—are struggling in the city. In addition to the giant sequoias, Arboretum Detroit is also planting roughly 80 other species of trees in the neighborhood. “We’re planting the forest of the future,” Kemp tells MLive.com. “Diversity is the answer. There are so many natives that aren’t happy here anymore. We have to look at what trees are thriving.” The overarching goal is to reforest an area of Detroit that’s full of vacant lots, abandoned homes, an automobile assembly plant, a former incinerator and two interstates. The University of Michigan describes Poletown East as “arguably one of the most blighted neighborhoods in Detroit.”Arborists expect the giant sequoias to reduce air pollution and lower the temperature in the neighborhood, which Kemp describes as a “heat island.” The trees will also sequester carbon dioxide. Arboretum Detroit has also created a network of parks to help revitalize the area. “We live in pretty much a pollution hotspot,” Kemp tells the Associated Press. “We’re trying to combat that. We’re trying to breathe clean air. We’re trying to create shade. We’re trying to soak up the stormwater, and I think sequoias—among all the trees we plant—may be the strongest, best candidates for that.” Since giant sequoias can live for thousands of years, they’ll likely outlive the individuals who planted them. To help protect and care for them in the future, the groups are working with Detroit school children to encourage them to become stewards of the city’s urban forests. They call this educational effort “propagating the propagators.” And Detroit is just the beginning. Archangel Ancient Tree Archive also wants to plant sequoias in Los Angeles and Oakland, California, as well as in London. “This isn’t just reforestation—it’s a revolution,” says David Milarch, co-founder of Archangel Ancient Tree Archive, in a statement. “This project proves we can rebuild ancient forests and a better future even in the most unexpected places.” Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

Scientists in Australia Mapped the Genome of an Endangered Frog Species in an Effort to Save It A deadly fungus threatens the southern corroboree frog, which needs a lot of help to survive A researcher swabs a frog.  Corey Doughty The southern corroboree frog is an iconic species in Australia. The tiny frog is known for the striking yellow and black markings that cover its body, which warn predators of its poisonous skin. The frog is also one of the most threatened amphibians in the country—with its primary threat being chytridiomycosis, a disease caused by the chytrid fungus. Now, researchers have sequenced the frog’s entire genome for the first time, with the hope that their work can help save the animal. Their research was published in the journal Wellcome Open Research last week. “They’re quite unique frogs. They belong to this ancient family of frogs that’s only found in Australia,” says Tiffany Kosch, a conservation biologist at the University of Melbourne and lead author of the study, to Petra Stock at the Guardian. “They’re about 100 million years old” Along with other frog species around the world, the corroboree frog began to mysteriously die off in the 1980s. A decade later, Australian scientists identified the chytrid fungus as the main culprit. Today, less than 50 individual southern corroboree frogs live in the wild. Ever since learning of the decimation of frogs due to the fungus, Kosch knew that she “wanted to be part of the solution,” she writes in a statement. Mapping the frog’s genome was no easy feat. The entire project took ten years of work across multiple institutions. “Seeing the first assembled genome data was an incredible moment for me—after years of effort, we finally had a complete genetic blueprint of this iconic species,” Kosch writes in a statement. The frogs have large genomes three times the size of humans  Tiffany Kosch “This project is a testament to the power of collaboration, persistence and scientific innovation,” she adds. Kosch and her team worked with the Vertebrate Genomes Project at Rockefeller University and the New South Wales Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water. “We discovered that southern corroboree frogs have remarkably large genomes—more than three times the size of the human genome,” Kosch explains in a statement. “A lot of other frogs in their family have much smaller genomes—including one of the smallest frog genomes on record,” she adds to the Guardian. The scientists also discovered that 80 percent of the frog’s genome is made up of non-coding DNA, genetic material that doesn’t directly code for protein. The research team is still working on understanding what that means for both the corroboree and other frog species. Simon Clulow, a conservation ecologist at the University of Canberra who was not involved in the study, tells the Guardian that having the full genome sequence will make understanding and helping the frog much easier. For example, researchers could work on identifying resistant genetic traits to help protect frogs against the fungus. The next phase of the work—made possible by deciphering the genome—will involve determining what causes the frog’s susceptibility to the chytrid fungus. “The hope is that work with the southern corroboree frog could be used as a proof-of-concept for other frogs threatened by the chytrid fungus, and potentially other species threatened by climate change,” adds Kosch to the Guardian. “The genome is really just the first step in helping us get there.” Nicki Mitchell, a zoologist at the University of Western Australia not involved in the work, adds that more funding for biodiversity is needed to help endangered species in Australia. “The species, in some ways, is a symbol of the twin crises that we’re facing as a globe, of climate change and biodiversity loss,” she tells the Guardian. For now, Kosch and her team will keep working on using the completed genome to uncover new information about the frog. “Our ultimate goal is to translate these findings into real-world conservation action, helping to secure a future for this remarkable species in the wild,” she writes. Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

When Reggie, the World’s Tallest Dog, Met Pearl, the World’s Shortest Dog He was a massive Great Dane. She was a pint-sized Chihuahua. During one adorable playdate, the two superlative pups became fast friends Pearl (left) is a 4-year-old Chihuahua, while Reggie (right) is a 7-year-old Great Dane. Guinness World Records The world’s tallest and shortest dogs recently met up for a playdate—and their unique get-together was just as adorable as you might imagine. Reggie is a massive Great Dane that can easily rest his head on the kitchen counter, while Pearl is a pint-sized Chihuahua that barely hovers off the ground. Despite their size difference, they have at least one thing in common: They’re both Guinness World Record holders. Reggie is the tallest living male dog in the world, measuring 3-foot-3 at the withers. Pearl is the shortest living dog in the world, standing just 3.6 inches tall. When their owners brought them together last month, the two pooches hit it off instantly, according to a statement from Guinness World Records. They sniffed each other and wagged their tails, and Reggie even tried to give Pearl a few kisses. Tallest Dog Meets Smallest Dog - Guinness World Records Watch on The two superlative pups met in Idaho Falls at Reggie’s house on April 4 and 5. Pearl traveled from her home in Florida for the meetup to save Reggie the trouble of getting onto an airplane. The visit was organized by Guinness World Records as part of its 70th anniversary festivities, reports KUSA’s Megan Divers. When Pearl first arrived, her owner, Vanesa Semler, held her while Reggie tentatively sniffed her. Then, the two dogs briefly lay next to each other on the couch. Once the dogs got acquainted, they began to explore the house together. Then, they went out into the backyard to run around. They even shared a meal. “Obviously, bringing the smallest dog in the world with the tallest dog in the world, there was a little bit of anxiety,” Reggie’s owner, Sam Johnson Reiss, tells KUSA. “He was very gentle, very, very kind to Pearl, as best as he could be.” Their owners staged a photoshoot to show off their size difference. Guinness World Records Of course, their owners had to stage a cute photoshoot to show off the odd couple’s three-foot height difference. At one point, they placed Pearl in Reggie’s food bowl to show just how small she is. (For reference, she’s roughly the same length as a dollar bill—five inches from nose to tail.) They also took a photo to show the size difference of their paws, placing Pearl’s dainty foot atop Reggie’s giant one. At first glance, the two canines might look like they have nothing in common. But their owners quickly realized they’re more alike than they are different. “I met Pearl and was like, ‘Wow, she is so much more like Reggie than I thought,’” Johnson Reiss tells the Washington Post’s Kyle Melnick. Though their owners were a bit apprehensive, the two dogs hit it off right away. Guinness World Records They both have extensive wardrobes, for example. They love chicken. They snore when they’re asleep. They’re affectionate and thrive on attention. And, perhaps most importantly, both dogs are not afraid to advocate for themselves. “He’ll tell you what he wants, when he wants it,” says Johnson Reiss, according to the Guinness World Records statement. Semler, Pearl’s owner, echoed that sentiment. “She’s really demanding,” says Semler. “She’s strong, and opinionated, and she can tell you what she wants.” Pearl weighs a little more than a pound and stands at 3.6 inches tall. Guinness World Records Reggie—whose full name is Reginald—was born in September 2017. He was the runt of the litter, but that didn’t stop Johnson Reiss from falling in love with him. Though he started out small, Reggie grew and grew and grew—until he weighed 145 pounds and was crowned the tallest living dog in the world. He set the world record in January at age 7. Reggie is so tall he could easily grab food off the counter, so his owners have had to train him to eat only from his bowl. But when he gets thirsty, he simply sidles up to the kitchen sink for a drink straight from the tap. He’s still a few inches shy of the tallest male dog ever, a 3-foot-8 Great Dane named Zeus. Zeus died in 2014 just before his sixth birthday. Another Great Dane, also named Zeus, briefly held the title for world’s tallest living male dog in 2022, measuring 3 feet and 5 inches tall. But he died in 2023 at the age of 3 from complications associated with bone cancer. A year later, a 3-foot-2 Great Dane named Kevin held the record for just a few days before he died after an unplanned surgery. Pearl, meanwhile, was born in September 2020, weighing less than an ounce at birth. She’s grown since then, but not by much. Today, she weighs a little over a pound. Pearl was related to Milly, the previous record-holder for world’s shortest dog. Milly also belonged to the Semler family and was cloned 49 times before she died in 2020—a world record in its own right. It’s not clear if Pearl and Reggie will ever have the chance to meet up again. But according to Guinness World Records, their owners expect the dogs to “stay friends forever.” Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday. More about: Animals Dogs Pets World Records

How to Watch the Peak of the Spectacular Eta Aquariid Meteor Shower The shower will peak during pre-dawn hours in early May, as fast-moving meteors trail across Earth’s atmosphere, thanks to debris left behind by Halley’s Comet Kayla Randall - Digital Editor, Museums May 2, 2025 12:53 p.m. A view of the sky during the Eta Aquariid meteor shower over the Fred C. Babcock/Cecil M. Webb Wildlife Management Area in Florida Diana Robinson Photography via Getty Images Every spring, swift meteors from the Eta Aquariid shower illuminate the sky. Known for their speed, these shooting stars are pieces of cosmic rock and dust that glow as they travel through Earth’s atmosphere at 40.7 miles per second, according to NASA. This year’s Eta Aquariids—sometimes spelled “Aquarids” and named after Eta Aquarii, one of the brightest stars in the constellation Aquarius—are active from April 19 to May 28. But the best views should come during their peak, which falls on the night of May 5 into the morning of May 6, per the American Meteor Society. During the peak, NASA says, observers could see up to 50 meteors per hour—though, in reality, most watchers in the Northern Hemisphere will see a little over ten per hour in good conditions. That’s in part because this shower favors the Southern Hemisphere. Those in the southern United States will have better views. But even for sky watchers at more northern latitudes, the Eta Aquariids could offer some surprises. Although the meteor rate will be lower for those in the northern U.S. and Canada, more of them may be “Earthgrazers,” or extra-long meteors that fly low to the horizon. These dazzling meteors are the result of debris left by Halley’s Comet burning up in Earth’s atmosphere. This famous orbiter, which taught astronomers that the same comets can show up in our skies repeatedly, takes 76 years to loop around the sun. Its debris is also responsible for the Orionid meteor shower in October. The Aquariid shower follows the Lyrid meteor shower, which peaked in late April, and the Quadrantid shower, which peaked in early January. The Quadrantids are famous for their fireballs, very bright meteors caused by large debris particles. Eta Aquariids generally aren’t known for producing fireballs, but these meteors can leave lingering, glowing trains across the sky. Here’s how you can see these fast meteors dance in the night. Tips for viewing the Eta Aquariid meteor showerFor the best chance of seeing Eta Aquariid meteors, watch in the pre-dawn hours. The radiant—or point where the meteors appear to emanate from—lies in Aquarius, which rises after midnight. And the moon, which is set to be more than 60 percent full, will set shortly after. “On the peak night this year, the moon sets by around 3 a.m., leaving dark skies until dawn for ideal viewing conditions,” according to NASA. “While the peak is early on the morning of May 6th, the two or three nights before that are also decent opportunities to spy a few shooting stars.” To get the best view during the early May 6 peak, it’s important to watch the darkest skies possible, far from light pollution. And note that most of these meteors will be seen in the eastern half of the sky, according to the American Meteor Society. Telescopes and binoculars are not necessary for viewing a meteor shower. Instead, lawn chairs, sleeping bags and blankets are recommended. The American Meteor Society also suggests using lounge chairs that specifically allow you to comfortably view the sky half-way up and to find a view where you can focus your gaze higher than hills and trees that could obscure the celestial activity. After the Eta Aquariids, the next major meteor shower to take over the sky will be July’s Southern Delta Aquariids. Like the previous Aquariids, they’re also best viewed from the southern tropics. But if you miss the Aquariids this year, there’s always next year. Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

Invasive Crab With Furry, Mitten-Like Claws Detected for the First Time in the Pacific Northwest A commercial fisherman nabbed a large male Chinese mitten crab in the lower Columbia River late last month, putting biologists on high alert Chinese mitten crabs had never been found in the Pacific Northwest, until now. Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife A Chinese mitten crab has been caught in the Pacific Northwest for the first time, raising concerns about the spread of the highly invasive species. According to an alert from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, a commercial fisherman caught the crustacean on April 22 in the lower Columbia River, which serves as the border between Oregon and Washington. The fisherman discovered the invasive creature east of Tongue Point, a small peninsula that juts out into the river near the city of Astoria. After making the unexpected catch, the angler took the critter to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, where a shellfish biologist confirmed it was a Chinese mitten crab (Eriocheir sinensis). The animal is a large male that may have hitched a ride as a larva in the ballast water of a boat. Or, authorities say, it could have been illegally introduced to the Columbia River by a person releasing it into the wild. (Chinese mitten crabs are a prohibited species in Oregon.) State biologists are now working with their counterparts in neighboring Washington and at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to learn whether other Chinese mitten crabs are lurking in the waterway. They plan to set up trap lines and gather water and sediment samples to look for the species’ genetic markers in the environment. This is the first confirmed sighting of the invasive species in the Pacific Northwest. But Chinese mitten crabs are nothing new in North America. They first established a foothold on the continent in the 1980s in California’s San Francisco Bay, where fishermen were catching between 100,000 to 800,000 crabs per year in the late 1990s, according to the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC). “It was spectacularly abundant. A true outbreak,” SERC biologist Greg Ruiz told the center’s Kristen Goodhue in 2018. The crabs caused “significant infrastructure and ecological damage” in California, which is why officials with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife are encouraging members of the public to report any and all sightings. Chinese mitten crabs can easily be mistaken for native species, but authorities in Oregon are encouraging members of the public to report any and all sightings. Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Chinese mitten crabs haven’t been detected in San Francisco Bay since 2010, but they have started to crop up elsewhere—including along the East Coast between Maryland and Connecticut. Chinese mitten crabs have also occasionally been found on the Gulf Coast and in the Great Lakes, but they don’t appear to have established breeding populations in those places. In recent years, the crabs have also been spreading across the United Kingdom, where authorities are experimenting with traps to prevent them from migrating to downstream breeding grounds. Chinese mitten crabs have some unusual features, including their namesake furry, mitten-like claws. They also have four spines on each side of their shells, plus a notch between their eyes. The crabs vary in color but tend to fall somewhere along the brownish-orange to greenish-brown spectrum. But even though their appearance is so distinctive, Chinese mitten crabs are not easy to identify and can easily be mistaken for native crab species—and vice versa. The crustaceans typically live in freshwater, but they must migrate to saltwater to reproduce. And Chinese mitten crabs are prolific parents: Adult females can carry between 250,000 and 1 million eggs. When those eggs hatch, the crab’s larvae live briefly in saltwater bays and estuaries. Once they mature to become fully molted juveniles, the crabs make their way a few miles upstream to brackish and freshwater areas. Chinese mitten crabs originated in East Asia, where they remain a popular delicacy in some regions. But the crabs are banned in the United States and the United Kingdom, where they are considered invasive. In these countries, the sale, export, import, purchase and acquisition of Chinese crabs is prohibited unless you have a permit. Biologists say the crustaceans are problematic, because they outcompete native species for food and habitat. In addition, their burrows can damage or weaken levees, dikes and stream banks. In California, they’ve also clogged fish salvage structures, used to collect and relocate fish, at water diversion facilities. Anglers dislike the crabs, because their sharp claws can damage fishing gear. And, in some places, the crafty crustaceans have also been caught nabbing anglers’ bait and catch. However, containing the crabs is no easy feat. Adults can live for about a week in a dry environment or for more than a month in a damp meadow, according to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. They’re capable of scaling concrete structures that are between 10 and 13 feet tall and are known for being “one of the best climbers” among crab species, per the federal agency. “Mitten crabs can also pass through lock systems and possibly climb fish ladders, or leave the water and walk around barriers where the terrain is suitable,” according to the bureau. Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

Cool Finds Hikers Stumble Upon Gold Coins and Treasures That Could Be Worth $340,000 After discovering the 15-pound cache while hiking in the Czech Republic, the two men handed it over to a local museum The cache weighed more than 15 pounds. Museum of Eastern Bohemia via Facebook Two men were hiking in the Czech Republic when they spotted part of an aluminum can sticking out of the dirt. When they opened it up, they were amazed to find hundreds of shiny gold coins. The men searched the surrounding area and found an iron box full of various treasures made of some sort of yellow metal. Together, the items weigh more than 15 pounds and could be worth as much as $340,000, report Radio Prague International’s Ruth Fraňková and Lörincz Tomáš. The men discovered the items in February while trekking in the foothills of the Krkonoše Mountains, situated near the Polish border in the northern region of the Czech Republic. They handed the cache over to the Museum of East Bohemia, where archaeologists are now analyzing it, according to an April 25 Facebook post. The aluminum can contained nearly 600 gold coins. Museum of Eastern Bohemia via Facebook When Vojtěch Brádle, the museum’s numismatist, first saw the stash, he was impressed. “My jaw dropped,” he tells the Czech news site Novinky.cz, per TVP World. The aluminum can contained 598 total coins, which had been arranged into 11 tidy columns and wrapped in black cloth. The coins originated in many different places, including France, Turkey, Belgium, Romania, Italy and Russia, per Radio Prague International. The coins are stamped with dates ranging from 1808 to 1915. But some also bear small marks “known as countermarkings, [which] indicate that they were reissued in 1921 in an area of Yugoslavia most likely encompassing modern-day Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina,” writes Artnet’s Richard Whiddington. The iron box housed 16 cigarette cases, 10 bracelets, a bag made of wire mesh, a comb, a chain with a key and a powder compact. Researchers aren’t sure what kind of metal those items are made of, but they’re conducting additional tests to determine their composition. The hikers first found the aluminum can, which contained 11 columns of coins wrapped in black fabric. Then they found an iron box full of other treasures. Museum of Eastern Bohemia via Facebook Nobody knows who buried the hoard—or why they had to hide it. Researchers are also puzzled by the fact that whoever buried the cache never came back to retrieve it. Perhaps it belonged to one of the hundreds of thousands of Jews and Czechs who fled to escape persecution after the Nazis annexed the region in the 1930s, the researchers say. Or maybe the Nazis stashed it at the end of the war. Whatever the motivating factors, researchers suspect the items were hidden for the value of the gold. “It was clearly not about the nominal value of the coins,” says Brádle, according to a translation by Radio Prague International. “It’s not about what the coins could buy—that’s not what mattered. It was deliberately hidden because it was precious metal.” Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

This Sea Lion Can Headbang Better Than You—Watch Her Out-Perform Humans at Keeping a Beat A new study of Ronan, a sea lion famous for her dancing skills, challenges the idea that only vocal learners can match a tempo Ronan the California sea lion sits in front of a pool at UC Santa Cruz’s Long Marine Laboratory. Colleen Reichmuth; NOAA / NMFS 23554 In 2013, a California sea lion named Ronan shot to fame when her trainers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, revealed she could bop her head to the rhythm of a beat—including to music she hadn’t heard before. Now, Ronan is back in the limelight, thanks to a new study published Thursday in the journal Scientific Reports, which demonstrates that she can match a tempo better—and more consistently—than humans. She’s particularly talented when it comes to the song “Boogie Wonderland,” as study lead author Peter Cook, a behavioral neuroscientist at New College of Florida and UC Santa Cruz, tells the Associated Press. “She just nails that one,” he says. To test Ronan’s precision, the researchers pitted her against ten UC Santa Cruz undergraduate students in a dance-off. They played different tempos at 112, 120 and 128 beats per minute (bpm). While Ronan had previously practiced bopping at 120 bpm, she had never experienced 112 or 128 bpm. Ronan bopped her head, and the students were asked to move an arm up and down to the beat of a percussive metronome, while the researchers measured their accuracy. At 120 bpm, Ronan hit the beat within an average of 15 milliseconds, and her timing variability from beat to beat was also around 15 milliseconds. This is ultra precise—for comparison, it takes humans 150 milliseconds to blink, per a statement. “Sometimes, she might hit the beat five milliseconds early, sometimes she might hit it ten milliseconds late. But she’s basically hitting the rhythmic bullseye over and over and over again,” Cook explains in the statement. Battle of the Beats: Sensorimotor Synchronization to Rhythm in an Experienced Sea Lion - ESM2 Watch on Needless to say, “there was no human that was better than Ronan on every measure of precision and consistency,” Cook tells the New York Times’ Gennaro Tomma. “And she was better than most humans on all measures, so she really rose to the top.” The researchers emphasize that Ronan willingly participates in the head bopping—meaning she is not punished for not engaging, should she choose not to. She did undergo some beat-keeping training, but the team says it wasn’t extensive—since 2013, she has participated in about 2,000 training exercises, each lasting just 10 to 15 seconds. Nevertheless, the study reveals that in the 12 years since the last study, Ronan’s beat-keeping ability has improved. While “moving to music probably isn’t that helpful in the wild,” Cook points out, “the ability to perceive a regular pattern in time, the ability to predict the next event in the pattern and the ability to plan and match one’s movement to that event when it happens,” could be, he tells the London Times’ Rhys Blakely. Both studies of Ronan challenge a widely held notion about who, exactly, is capable of maintaining a beat. “Scientists once believed that only animals who were vocal learners—like humans and parrots—could learn to find a beat,” Hugo Merchant, a researcher at Mexico’s Institute of Neurobiology who was not involved in the study, tells the Associated Press. Aniruddh Patel, a psychologist at Tufts University who didn’t participate in the study, hasn’t yet been convinced otherwise, per the New York Times. He says scientists should conduct more research on whether sea lions also have vocal learning abilities. Plus, Ronan was trained to keep a beat, while humans and parrots do it spontaneously—an “important difference,” Patel adds. (He has previously studied a dancing cockatoo named Snowball.) Still, the new findings provide insight on rhythm perception in animals, which is key to understanding the evolution of cognition. Moving forward, the team aims to test other sea lions and see if Ronan can match less predictable tempos. Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

Cool Finds Egyptologist Reveals Mysterious Messages Hidden in the Hieroglyphics on a 3,000-Year-Old Obelisk Jean-Guillaume Olette-Pelletier says he has identified seven sets of crypto-hieroglyphs on the 75-foot-tall structure, which France received as a gift in 1836 The obelisk once stood outside a temple in Luxor, Egypt. Daniel Candal via Getty Images A French Egyptologist says he has deciphered secret messages engraved on a 3,000-year-old Egyptian obelisk built during the reign of Ramses II. The 75-foot-tall stone structure once loomed outside a temple in Luxor, Egypt. But since 1836, it’s stood at Place de Concorde, a public square in Paris. The obelisk is covered in hieroglyphics—the ancient Egyptians’ pictorial writing system—and engraved with both names that Ramses used as king. During his long reign in the 13th century B.C.E., the pharaoh left his mark all over Egypt, commissioning new structures and even adding his name to older monuments. The Concorde obelisk was one of two red granite columns that Ramses raised outside Egypt’s Luxor Temple. In the 1830s, Ottoman Egypt sent one of them to France, where it’s remained ever since. Several years ago, Jean-Guillaume Olette-Pelletier, an Egyptologist at the Sorbonne and the Catholic University of Paris, began studying the obelisk on his neighborhood strolls. “I would walk up to it and read the hieroglyphs on its surfaces to relax,” Olette-Pelletier tells Sciences et Avenir’s Marine Benoit. “At one point, I realized something unusual: The hieroglyphs’ meaning indicated a direction, that of the entrance to the portico of the Temple of Luxor. But that was just the beginning.” Jean-Guillaume Olette-Pelletier studying the obelisk Jean-Guillaume Olette-Pelletier Olette-Pelletier couldn’t find other research related to his observation, so he began his own. After analyzing the obelisk’s engravings with binoculars, he figured out that the pillar contains multiple pieces of code called crypto-hieroglyphs. Crypto-hieroglyphs were discovered in the 1950s by the Egyptologist Canon Étienne Drioton. They featured “puzzles and wordplay, such as changing the reading direction,” according to Artnet’s Richard Whiddington. As Olette-Pelletier tells Sciences et Avenir, “Although some Egyptians could read hieroglyphs, only certain elites were capable of understanding the hidden messages that they could contain, considered a language of the gods.” Olette-Pelletier got to see the Concorde obelisk up close in 2021, when it was surrounded by scaffolding for conservation work ahead of the Olympic Games. Seeing an opportunity, the researcher requested to ascend the scaffolding to examine the upper sections of the obelisk, where he was able to confirm his suspicions. In its original location, the obelisk towered over the banks of the Nile. Judging by the location and angle of its coded messages, they were probably meant to be read by passengers aboard an approaching boat. As Olette-Pelletier tells Artnet, one message was likely intended for upper-class Egyptians arriving at the temple for an annual festival. Based on the messages' position, Olette-Pelletier thinks they would have been read by passengers in approaching boats. Jean-Guillaume Olette-Pelletier “Given the angle of approach, the nobility would have seen the hidden message and reflected: ‘The king confirms himself as god incarnate, who cannot be dethroned,’” Olette-Pelletier adds. “It was propaganda aimed at the very high intellectual elite.” Olette-Pelletier happens to be one of the few Egyptologists capable of deciphering crypto-hieroglyphs. In 2021, he published a study translating some cryptographic hieroglyphs upon a small throne of the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun. In total, Olette-Pelletier identified seven crypto-hieroglyphs on the Concorde obelisk. Some of them, for example, instruct viewers to make offerings to the gods. The researcher plans to detail his findings in a study scheduled for publication in the Egyptology journal ENiM.  “The use of hieroglyphic cryptography allows us to provide a new reading of pharaonic texts,” Olette-Pelletier tells Artnet. “It’s an example proving that Egyptology still holds a lot of things waiting to be discovered.” Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

Man Who ‘Always Fancied’ Owning a Shipwreck Buys One on Facebook Marketplace for $400 Hobbyist diver Dom Robinson jumped at the chance to purchase the S.S. “Almond Branch,” a cargo ship that’s been resting 190 feet beneath the surface of the English Channel since World War I The S.S. Almond Branch was torpedoed by a German submarine during World War I. Dom Robinson Hobbyist diver Dom Robinson has spent the past three decades exploring shipwrecks, which have fascinated him since childhood. So when he recently spotted one for sale on Facebook Marketplace, he jumped at the chance to purchase a piece of history. Now, Robinson is the proud owner of the S.S. Almond Branch, a roughly 330-foot-long cargo ship that sank during World War I. It’s submerged off the coast of Cornwall, England, 190 feet beneath the surface of the English Channel. Robinson, a 53-year-old project manager from Plymouth, bought the vessel for about $400 (£300). He doesn’t expect to find any valuable treasures onboard, so “the only real reason to buy it is for bragging rights,” he tells CornwallLive’s Kirstie McCrum. The vessel was a British merchant ship that was equipped with weapons. Rick Ayrton Built in 1896, the Almond Branch was a British merchant ship that was equipped with weapons for protection. In November 1917, the vessel was sailing near Dodman Point when it was torpedoed by a German submarine. One person died in the attack, according to Robinson. After the war, the British government processed an insurance claim for the sunken ship and became its owner. Then, in a bid to recoup some of its losses, the government sold the vessel to a private owner in 1978. I bought a SHIPWRECK on Facebook Marketplace Watch on Nearly 50 years later, the owner decided to part ways with the historic ship. Robinson, who had already dived the wreck, snapped it up. In the United Kingdom, “it’s possible for private individuals to buy and sell [shipwrecks], and I’ve always fancied owning one,” he says in a video on his YouTube channel, Deep Wreck Diver. “So when I saw this advert on Facebook Marketplace, I knew that this was my opportunity.” Robinson has been interested in shipwrecks since childhood. Dom Robinson According to BBC News’ Jonathan Morris, the transaction was approved by the Receiver of Wreck, a government official who manages “voluntary salvage wreck material” across the U.K. Once the deal was done, Robinson was eager to revisit the Almond Branch. He braved the chilly January weather to dive the wreck with a few friends. “I can go down and do something that I think is pretty extraordinary,” Robinson tells the London Times’ Christian Oliver. “It’s still a pile of rusting iron, but you’re swimming around a pile of rusting iron and going: ‘Yeah, this is my pile of rusting iron!’” The vessel is submerged 190 feet deep in the English Channel. Rick Ayrton Robinson may be thrilled. But his wife was less than enthused about the purchase. “She said, ‘What a waste of money—I just hope he doesn’t bring it up and put it in the garden,’” he tells CornwallLive. Robinson hopes the find the ship's bell. Rick Ayrton Though Robinson now owns the wreck, he says anyone is free to dive it. But if someone finds the ship’s bell, Robinson tells BBC News he’d like to keep it. He’s also curious about the vessel’s gun, which is missing from its gun mount. Over the course of his diving career, Robinson has discovered more than 20 shipwrecks—including three Royal Navy ships—by scanning the seabed and exploring any anomalies. “Each shipwreck has got a story associated with it,” he tells the Telegraph’s Natasha Leake. “That’s something I find particularly rewarding.” Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

A Single Prehistoric Bone Might Rewrite the History of the World’s Strangest Mammals Analysis of the fossil suggests that the only two egg-laying mammals, platypuses and land-based echidnas, both descended from a semi-aquatic creature New research suggests that land-based echidnas descended from semi-aquatic mammals.  Gunjan Pandey CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons Between backward-facing-feet, nipple-less milk secretion and egg-laying, platypuses and echidnas are some of the strangest mammals on Earth. While the amphibious platypus spends much of its time in water, the echidna—also known as the spiny anteater—makes its home on land. Now, new analysis of a bone found three decades ago in Australia suggests that both animals evolved not from a creature that lived on land, as was previously thought, but from a water-dwelling animal. A new study published Monday in the journal PNAS, upended the widely held theory about monotremes—the most ancient living order of mammals, now down to just platypuses and echidnas. “By using advanced 3D imaging approaches, we have been able to illuminate previously unseen features of this ancient bone, and those have revealed a quite unexpected story,” study co-author Laura Wilson, a researcher at the University of New South Wales’ School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences in Australia, tells CNN's Amanda Schupak. The humerus bone unearthed in the 1990s dates back to between 103 million and 108 million years ago, and is the only fossil example of the extinct monotreme Kryoryctes cadburyi. The creature was an early common ancestor of platypuses and echidnas and the scientists used advanced scanning techniques to take a look at the bone's internal microstructure. “While the external structure of a bone allows you to directly compare it with similar animals to help work out the animal’s relationships, the internal structure tends to reveal clues about its lifestyle and ecology,” Suzanne Hand, a paleontologist at the University of New South Wales and a co-author of the study, says in a university statement. “So the internal structure doesn't necessarily give you information about what that animal actually is, but it can tell you about its environment and how it lived.” While on the outside, the bone appears similar to echidna bones, the internal structure of the bone was more like that of the platypus. The bone had thick walls and a narrower bone marrow cavity. The thicker walls function as ballast that helps semiaquatic animals dive. In contrast, echidna bones are much lighter. This “indicates that the amphibious lifestyle of the modern platypus had its origins at least 100 million years ago,” Hand tells Schupak, “and that echidnas made a much later reversion to a fully terrestrial lifestyle.” While dozens of examples exist of marine and semi-aquatic mammals evolving from land-based mammals—such as whales, dolphins, seals and otters—the vice-versa scenario is much rarer. "We’re talking about a semiaquatic mammal that gave up the water for a terrestrial existence, and while that would be an extremely rare event, we think that’s what happened with echidnas," Hand explains in the statement. Researchers don't have enough fossil evidence to estimate when echidnas made their return to land. Nevertheless, monotremes can help scientists better understand the earliest stages of mammalian evolution, says Guillermo Rougier, a researcher in anatomical sciences and neurobiology at Kentucky’s University of Louisville who also wasn't involved in the study. "The typical mammal from the time of dinosaurs," he says, "probably shared a lot more biology with a monotreme than with a horse, a dog, a cat or ourselves."   Matthew Phillips, an evolutionary biologist at Queensland University of Technology who wasn't involved in the study, tells ABC's Ellen Phiddian that the recent research adds to previous evidence suggesting that both of today's surviving monotremes descended from semi-aquatic mammals. However, it's not proof. "You rarely get absolute proof of anything in science," he points out. "There are other potential explanations, but there's enough evidence coming down with that same conclusion that it's getting fairly difficult to deny." Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

See Eastern Quolls Get Released on Mainland Australia in a New Bid to Re-establish the ‘Magic Little Animal’ Conservationists recently introduced 15 of the polka-dotted marsupials into a protected area of New South Wales Eastern quolls went extinct on mainland Australia in 1963. Aussie Ark Eastern quolls were once abundant in southeast Australia. But in 1963, the small, polka-dotted marsupials disappeared from the mainland, with the only surviving wild population living on the island state of Tasmania. Now, however, with help from conservationists, the bushy-tailed critters are slowly returning to the mainland. Biologists recently released 15 endangered eastern quolls (Dasyurus viverrinus) into a protected site in the state of New South Wales. The captive-bred carnivores were introduced into a “controlled bushland environment” near the town of Nowra, according to a statement from the University of Sydney. The university teamed up with the Jerrinja Indigenous people, as well as the wildlife conservation group Aussie Ark, on the project. The 168-acre site is located on the Bannockburn campus of the Scots College, a Presbyterian boys’ school. This is the first time eastern quolls have been released on the site, though they’ve been reintroduced in other parts of New South Wales in recent years. EASTERN QUOLLS RELEASED INTO NSW BUSHLAND! Watch on Ron Carberry, a Jerrinja tribal leader, describes the release as a “magnificent moment” for the “magic little animal.” “It’s about healing Country,” he says in the statement. Researchers plan to keep a close eye on the 15 eastern quolls, which are each about the size of a small domestic cat. Scientists have affixed radio and GPS tracking devices to their tails, and they’ve set up 54 trail cameras around the site. They also plan to capture the creatures once every three months to see how they’re faring. The project will allow researchers to do a “deep dive into the ecology” of the species, says Thomas Newsome, an ecologist at the University of Sydney, in the statement. “We need to better understand the quoll’s role in an ecosystem from which it has been absent from for almost 70 years,” he adds.The recent release is part of a broader “rewilding” effort for eastern quolls on mainland Australia. Starting in 2018, conservationists began releasing batches of captive-bred eastern quolls into Booderee National Park, also in New South Wales. But none of those creatures or their descendants survived, reported the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s James Glenday and Adam Kennedy in 2021. Undeterred, researchers installed a 2.5-mile fence within the national park, a barrier designed to keep foxes and cats out. Last year, they released 19 eastern quolls into the roughly 200-acre fenced area, which was also equipped with trail cameras and supplementary feeding stations. “We saw in the first reintroduction a really high mortality rate in the first three months and then the rest actually learned how to hunt, scavenge and evade predators,” said Rob Brewster, rewilding program manager for WWF-Australia, to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Romy Gilbert last year. “So, we’re testing it again within this fenced haven to grow the population and make it stick.” In a bid to boost their numbers, captive-bred eastern quolls have also been released in Tasmania. The animals have been able to maintain a wild population on the island due to the absence of foxes, but their numbers have been shrinking in recent years. Scientists are still trying to understand the declines, but they suspect climate change, habitat loss and feral predators may be at play. In February, conservationists released 24 eastern quolls onto private property in Tasmania’s Midlands region. The critters have also been reintroduced in Victoria, the state just south of New South Wales. Scientists affix a tracking device to a quoll's tail. Aussie Ark Conservationists say eastern quolls play an important role in Australia’s ecosystems. As predators, they help keep populations of insects, mice, rats and rabbits in check. Beyond their importance for biodiversity, the creatures are culturally significant to many Indigenous groups in Australia. The word “quoll” comes from Guugu Yimithirr, an Aboriginal language, according to the Australian National University. Eastern quolls also happen to be adorable, with a penchant for frolicking around and getting the zoomies. “If you go into an open grassland that is just jumping with eastern quolls, it’s the most delightful sight in the world,” said David Hamilton, an ecologist with the Tasmanian Land Conservancy, to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Mackenzie Heard in March. “They look like they’re full of joy every time they move, which is just something that makes my heart sing.” Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

Captive-Bred Axolotls Can Survive in the Wild, Offering Hope for the Critically Endangered Amphibians The popular salamanders are nearly extinct in the wild, where they are confined to a small system of canals in Mexico City. But a new study suggests released axolotls could thrive in their natural habitat as well as artificial wetlands The charismatic salamanders known as axolotls can survive in the wild despite being bred in captivity, according to a new study. Kevin Schafer via Getty Images Axolotls, famous for their perpetually smiling faces, are critically endangered amphibians. Now, a new study offers some hope for the beloved species’ conservation. A team of researchers released 18 captive-bred axolotls into wetlands in southern Mexico City—and they found that the animals could survive. Their work, which could pave the way to further reintroduction projects, was published in the journal PLOS One on Wednesday. “This is a huge step, because in conservation programs when you have animals in captivity and you take them back to the wild … there’s a lot of mortality,” says Alejandra Ramos, a researcher at the Autonomous University of Baja California in Mexico and the study’s lead author, to Justine McDaniel at the Washington Post. Axolotls (Ambystoma mexicanum) are salamanders that do not go through metamorphosis—instead, they stay in their tadpole-like phase for their entire lives and never transition to living on land. Though they once dwelled across several lakes in Mexico City, their habitat dwindled as humans diverted and drained the lakes to prevent flooding. Now, the amphibians’ only remaining natural habitat is a series of canals in Lake Xochimilco. The researchers released eight axolotls in Xochimilco and ten in a pond at La Cantera Oriente, an artificial wetland. They tracked the animals—nine females and nine males—using radio transmitters and the help of volunteers who monitored each site at least twice a day over 40 days. Not only did all the released axolotls survive the experiment’s duration, but the three that the team recaptured had gained weight. That showed the animals were hunting. “If they had been skinny or ill,” Ramos says to Anna Gibbs atScience News, “that would have been really, really bad for us.” The researchers also discovered other interesting tidbits by monitoring the axolotls. For example, the animals socialize with each other, and they spend more time with specific individuals, which the scientists liken to friendships. “One of the most surprising findings was that, in Xochimilco, older axolotls traveled shorter distances per day compared to younger ones,” adds Ramos to Laura Baisas at Popular Science. “The reason for this is still unclear, but it is possible that older individuals, through experience, are better able to select and defend high-quality territories with sufficient food, reducing their need to travel for foraging.” After the study period concluded, researchers and locals observed a couple of egrets preying on axolotls. As a result, they suggest future captive-breeding programs incorporate predator awareness training before releasing the salamanders. While axolotls are mostly dark-colored in the wild, the animals are sometimes bred to be white and pink when kept as pets. Paul Starosta via Getty Images Axolotls have special significance in Mexican culture. The animal is named after the Aztec god of fire and lightning, Xolotl, who disguised himself by taking on the form of a salamander in a legend. “If we lose this species, we lose part of our Mexican identity,” says co-lead researcher Luis Zambrano, a biologist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, to Victoria Gill at BBC News. The researchers note that the priority for the animal should be improving its natural habitat. Lake Xochimilco has been impacted by years of pollution and degradation, causing the salamander’s numbers to plummet over the last few decades, with the International Union for Conservation of Nature estimating that only 50 to 1,000 remain in the wild. “If we can restore this [wetland] habitat and restore the axolotl’s population in a city of more than 20 million people,” Zambrano adds to BBC News, “I feel that we have hope for humanity.” But the success of the axolotls in La Cantera Oriente suggests the species could also thrive in artificial wetlands. “It’s kind of like having a Plan B,” says Esther Quintero, a biologist with the nonprofit Conservation International Mexico who was not part of the study, to the Washington Post. “One can at least be sure that we have two different places in which we can restart the population.” The findings underscore the importance of protecting endangered creatures’ habitats. “It’s like polar bears. The solution is not to translate them to our fridges,” Zambrano tells the Washington Post. “We have to preserve the North Pole in order to have polar bears. We have to preserve Xochimilco in order to have axolotl.” Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

Child Scratches Mark Rothko Painting Worth Millions While Visiting Dutch Art Museum Artworks by the Latvian-American Abstract Expressionist have been damaged before, but repairs have added up to hundreds of thousands of dollars Grey, Orange on Maroon, No. 8, Mark Rothko, 1960 Aad Hoogendoor / Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen A monumental Mark Rothko painting was removed from view at a Dutch art museum after a child scratched the canvas. Grey, Orange on Maroon, No. 8 was a highlight of the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, which boasts a collection spanning from the middle ages to modern times. It’s one of only two works by the Latvian-American Abstract Expressionist in public collections in the Netherlands. Conservation experts are now assessing the extent of the damage, as well as the cost of repairing a painting likely worth tens of millions of dollars. The artwork “sustained superficial damage after a child touched the painting when it was on display,” says the museum in a statement, per Euronews’ David Mouriquand. “As a result, small scratches are visible in the unvarnished paint layer in the lower part of the painting.” Created in 1960, Grey, Orange on Maroon, No. 8 measures 7.5 feet high by 8.5 feet wide. It’s a prime example of Rothko’s “color field” paintings, which prompt emotional responses through large blocks of carefully mixed colors. “I am not an Abstractionist,” Rothko once reportedly told art critic Selden Rodman. “I’m not interested in relationships of color or form. … I’m interested only in expressing basic human emotions—tragedy, ecstasy, doom and so on—and the fact that lots of people break down and cry when confronted with my pictures shows that I communicate those basic human emotions.” Grey, Orange on Maroon, No. 8 was damaged while on display at the museum's depot site, which is accessible to the public as renovations continue on the main building. Aad Hoogendoor / Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen Turning emotion into paint required the artist to develop a mastery of colors and materials in his paintings. “Rothko’s mixture of pigments and resins and glues were quite complex,” Jonny Helm, a marketing manager at Plowden & Smith, an art restoration service in England, tells BBC News’ Anna Lamche. While the museum has not provided an estimated cost of the repairs, Rothko works regularly fetch millions at auction. For example, Orange, Red, Yellow (1961) sold for nearly $87 million in May 2012. That same year, a vandal at the Tate Modern in London deliberately defaced Rothko’s 1958 painting Black on Maroon (1958) with graffiti. The vandal was sentenced to two years in prison. Experts estimated that repairs would take 18 months and the equivalent of more than $350,000 in today’s money. However, a child scratching a painting is a much different scenario. A spokesperson for the museum tells the Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad’s Antti Liukku that the painting was damaged while it was on display at the museum’s depot, accessible to the public as the main building undergoes renovation. But the incident raises new questions about how to make artworks accessible—particularly for younger audiences—while also protecting them from harm.“Every museum and gallery thinks hard about how to balance meaningful physical access to artworks and objects with keeping them safe. I’d say most have the balance right, but accidents can still happen,” Maxwell Blowfield, the creator of the “maxwell museums” newsletter, explains to CNN’s Lianne Kolirin. “It’s impossible to prevent every potential incident, from visitors of all ages. Thankfully, things like this are very rare compared to the millions of visits taking place every day.” Who will pay for the repairs is also unclear. Rachel Myrtle, a fine art insurance expert at Aon, tells BBC News that art museum insurance policies tend to cover “all risks associated with physical loss and damage to artwork.” But in 2011, when a tourist at the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen accidentally stepped on Pindakaasvloer—a conceptual work created by Wim T. Schippers in the 1960s in which the floor is covered in peanut butter—the museum asked the tourist to pay restoration costs, per Euronews. In other cases, however, museums have been more understanding—especially when children are involved. Last August, a 4-year-old boy accidentally shattered a 3,500-year-old Bronze Age jar at the Hecht Museum in Haifa, Israel. Instead of punishing the boy or his parents, the museum used the accident “as a teaching opportunity,” inviting the family back to the museum to see how experts conducted repairs, Julia Binswanger wrote for Smithsonian magazine. For now, the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen is researching “next steps for the treatment of the painting,” including other examples of successful Rothko restorations, per the statement. “We expect that the work will be able to be shown again in the future.” Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.