A team of zooarchaeologists in the United Kingdom analyzed 1,964 horse bones from 171 different archaeological sites dated between 300-1650 C.E., and compared how those remains measure up to the horses of today. The horses of the Middle Ages, they found, were much slighter than their modern-day descendents—usually no more than pony-size. Their findings were published last August in the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology. Whether an equine animal is classified as a horse or pony depends entirely on its size....

In November 1958, local politicians and angry mothers gathered in New York City’s Washington Square Park for a ribbon-tying ceremony. The activists arranged the photo-op—a sly inversion of a ribbon-cutting —as a cheeky victory lap. The crew had spent the better part of three years in a bureaucratic street fight with the city’s master builder, Robert Moses, who, in 1955, renewed his longstanding call to extend the four lanes of Fifth Avenue through the park’s iconic arch....

This image comes courtesy of NASA’s Terra satellite. Taken on January 27, it clearly shows streams of air moving south and east across the Great Lakes. Those ribbons of white are called cloud streets—yes, that is the technical term—and they’re right in line with the prevailing winds. Cloud streets are bands of cumulus clouds that form when a layer of cold air gets sandwiched between (relatively) warm water below and air above....

The planet Saturn’s northern pole has a beautiful—and mysterious—weather feature: a vortex of clouds shaped like a hexagon. The image above, taken by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft in 2012 and first published in 2013, shows this unique jet stream at its highest-ever resolution. NASA was even able to stitch together 128 individual images to create a movie showing the swirling winds in motion: These hurly-burly hexagons are the subject of a new study in Nature Communications....

This multi-state material is made possible by a mix of breathable membranes imbued with pores made of vertically-aligned carbon nanotubes beneath a surface layer of material designed to respond to various chemical and biological agents. These carbon nanotube pores offer high gas transport rates, yet they are small enough to keep biological agents like bacteria and viruses at bay. But for chemical agents like mustard gas or nerve gas that could potentially pass through the pores, the functional materials actually sense the presence of a threat and close to block them out....

Now, researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health have developed a technique for making mini-brains more quickly and consistently, which they believe could allow mini-brains to replace animal testing for a variety of experiments. Dr. Thomas Hartung, a professor of environmental health sciences and one of the researchers behind the project, presented the work on Saturday at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Washington, D....

Laser-printer sized machines with long names like “gas chromatographs” and “mass spectrometers” can identify food-spoiling agents, but cost thousands of dollars. For those of us who don’t work in a laboratory, researchers and entrepreneurs are experimenting with accessories that integrate freshness sensors with refrigerators, coffee grinders, and smart phones. They’re so-called electronic noses for your food. Electronic noses have been around since the 1980s, but researchers have only recently started adding mobile components to target consumers....

The Army Corps of Engineers has been building and managing the complex and sprawling system of levees, locks, dikes and spillways along the length of the Mississippi River for decades now, bending the river–which periodically wants to change its course, top its banks, and otherwise be, you know, a natural flowing body of water–to its will. Meanwhile, human development along the river offers the Corps a smaller and smaller envelope in which to err....

In a teleconference with reporters, Roscosmos Executive Director for Human Spaceflight Sergei Krikalev and NASA’s ISS Program Manager Joel Montalbano said Russia will launch another uncrewed Soyuz spacecraft on February 20 to provide a ride home for the two cosmonauts and single astronaut that flew to the ISS in September 2022 aboard the now stricken Soyuz MS-22. Both officials stopped short of calling the coming launch a rescue mission, however....

That’s not spin—it’s something scientists are expressing themselves. “There’s a wide diversity of outcrop and rock types accessible at this site, which the Mars 2020 rover will be able to interrogate to vastly improve our understanding of the ancient Martian surface environment, and whether it might preserve any evidence for past life,” says Timothy Goudge, a planetary scientist at The University of Texas at Austin. He calls Jezero “an incredible landing site that will provide us with immense opportunity to do very compelling and interesting science....

Here are some of our favorite bamboo cutting boards on the market today. This extra large bamboo cutting board from Greener Chef offers 450 square inches of chopping surface area, making it perfect for cutting larger veggies and meat without worrying about a spillover. The drip grooves along the edge of one side keep moisture off your countertop, and the other side is perfectly flat if you want to flip it over and use it as a serving tray....

In the very near future, new materials could change that. Take, for instance, a surface coating that could wick floating virus droplets right out of the air. Researchers at Northwestern University have created a substance that they think does just that. It comes in a paint-like form, a clear coating that you can spread or spray across a surface—in theory, anything from barriers and face shields, to walls and tables, to even clothes and curtains....

“This year’s Prize in Chemistry deals with not overcomplicating matters, instead working with what is easy and simple. Functional molecules can be built even by taking a straightforward route,” said Johan Åqvist, chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, in a press release. This is the second chemistry Nobel for Sharpless, a professor at Scripps Research in La Jolla, California. He won the 2001 prize for his work on using catalysts that wouldn’t be consumed by an oxidation reaction where electrons were lost....

Per a recent report from The New York Times, biologists and keen-eyed observers previously believed springtails’ evasive maneuvers were largely random and uncontrolled. The key to a springtail’s gymnastics is a tiny organ called a furcula, which slaps the water underneath it to launch the animal into the air. In less than 20 milliseconds following liftoff (a world record for speed, by the way) springtails manage to orient themselves so as to land on their hydrophilic collophores—tubelike appendages capable of holding water and sticking to surfaces, thus allowing the springtails to sit comfortable atop ponds and lakes....

Having to deal with various cables, plugs, and adapters whenever you need to power up your devices can often prove to be a hassle. Not to mention, they make your workspace or nightstand a mess too. To save yourself the headache, using a multifunctional charger is the smartest option. Not only does it charge multiple devices at once, but it also declutters and optimizes your desk. If you own an iPhone, AirPods, and Apple Watch, consider the 3-in-1 Fast Wireless USB Charging Dock Station to be the latest addition to your workstation....

It turns out that which nests parasitic birds can successfully sneak their eggs into may partly depend on eye size, scientists reported this week. Researchers compared eyeball measurements from thousands of species of birds and found that parasitic birds tend to have larger eyes than the hosts that wind up raising their young. This could mean that the brood parasites, those that lay their eggs in other species’ nests, are targeting birds whose eyesight isn’t very keen....

Unfortunately, study after study shows that meat as a protein source isn’t the healthiest. It’s far better to get that necessary protein from plants. Generally speaking, diets heavy on plant matter tend to be healthier. In fact, according to a 2017 review in the International Journal of Epidemiology, which reviewed 95 studies, eating five servings of plants per day provides a slight lower risk of heart attack and stroke, and upping that intake to 10 servings a day could lower a person’s risk of cardiovascular disease by 28 percent and overall risk of death by 31 percent....

Researchers from the University of Strathclyde in Scotland and EcoLab in France spent five months collecting plastic fibers in some of the highest reaches of the Pyranese mountain range, a string of peaks that separate France and Spain. The team found that rain, snow, and wind carried microplastics at least 60 miles to this remote ecosystem previously thought to be free of garbage. This is just the beginning’ hitchhiking particles like these could potentially travel thousands of miles....

And so can a gallon of gas. Jon Lauckner would very much like for you to understand this. Lauckner is vice president for global program management at General Motors, a man with a self-professed strong bias toward the electrification of the automobile, and yet he wants you to realize exactly what electric cars are up against — to recognize that in the harsh, unsentimental view of an engineer, batteries, no matter how advanced they may seem, make gasoline look like a bargain....