Science & Nature
How Far North Fire Ants Have Spread
How Far North Fire Ants Have Spread. They now reach Virginia and Sicily, as milder winters and cold-hardy hybrids push the invader past old limits.
Vaquita
Vaquita, the smallest porpoise on Earth, lives only in Mexico’s northern Gulf of California, where illegal gillnets have left barely a handful in the wild.
Why There Are No Stars In Photos From Space
Why There Are No Stars In Photos From Space isn’t a mystery or a hoax. Bright sunlit scenes simply drown out the faint stars behind them.
The Northern Limit Of The Alligator Snapping Turtle
The Northern Limit Of The Alligator Snapping Turtle follows the Mississippi into Illinois, where cold winters cut short the warm season this giant needs.
Texas Coral Snake
Texas Coral Snake venom ranks among the most potent in North America, yet this shy, snake-eating burrower has no confirmed human fatality on record.
How Many Earths Could Fit Inside The Sun
How Many Earths Could Fit Inside The Sun? More than a million, yet the Sun is only an average star next to giants like Betelgeuse.
The Western Edge Of Copperhead Country
The Western Edge Of Copperhead Country runs through Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas, where wooded creek bottoms give way to open prairie and the snakes fade out.
Twig Snake
Twig Snake facts, from the stick-like camouflage and keyhole pupils of this African tree snake to its rear-fanged venom, which has no commercial antivenom.
What Space Actually Smells Like
Space is an vacuum, so if you took a breath, there would be no air to inhale, and nothing to smell. But if we could smell there, here's what it would be like.
How Far North Brown Recluse Spiders Live
How Far North Brown Recluse Spiders Live. Their wild range stops near southern Iowa, central Illinois, and southern Ohio, where winter cold sets the limit.
Giant Manta Ray
Giant Manta Ray is the largest ray on Earth, a plankton eater with a wingspan over twenty feet, a big brain, and no sting, now listed as Endangered.
The Northern Edge Of Rattlesnake Country
The Northern Edge Of Rattlesnake Country lies in Canada, where three species cling to British Columbia valleys, prairie coulees, and Ontario wetlands.
Speckled Rattlesnake
Speckled Rattlesnake matches the color of the rock it lives on so closely that snakes from ranges a few miles apart can look like different species.
How Far North Water Moccasins Live
How Far North Water Moccasins Live. Their range stops in southern Illinois and coastal Virginia, and most snakes seen farther north are harmless watersnakes.
Hellbender
Hellbender salamanders, nicknamed snot otters, are North America's largest salamanders, breathing through wrinkled skin in cold, rocky Appalachian streams.
Which Planet Is Most Like Early Earth Was?
Earth is constantly evolving, and in its early days, had a much different composition. Which planet now is most like early Earth once was?
How Far North Copperheads Have Reached
How Far North Copperheads Have Reached. Wild copperheads stop in Massachusetts, not Canada, where every confirmed sighting traces back to an escaped pet.
Angel Shark
Angel Shark species look like rays but are true sharks that bury themselves in sand and ambush passing fish, and several are now Critically Endangered.
What Dragonfly Will Look For When It Lands On Titan
NASA's Dragonfly mission will explore Titan's dunes, analyze organic compounds, and investigate conditions that may reveal how life began.
Secretarybird
Secretarybird is a long-legged African raptor that hunts on foot, killing snakes and rodents with lightning-fast kicks, and is now listed as Endangered.
Why Betelgeuse Keeps Dimming
Learn why Betelgeuse keeps dimming, what caused the Great Dimming, and how a newly discovered companion star explains its changing light.
Where Copperheads Go In The Winter
Where copperheads spend winter: rock crevices, talus dens, and shared shelters across the eastern US, plus when they return to dens and emerge in spring.
What Happens To A Body Left In Space
What Happens To A Body Left In Space. A person would black out within seconds, then swell, freeze, and mummify, slowly worn down by tiny micrometeoroids.
Bull Shark
The bull shark is a stocky coastal predator that can move between saltwater and freshwater, turning up in rivers such as the Mississippi, Amazon, and Zambezi.
Harpy Eagle
Harpy Eagle facts, from its bear-sized talons and sloth-hunting ambushes in the rainforest canopy to its slow breeding cycle and its Vulnerable IUCN status.
Which Moon Is The Most Volcanic?
Io, Jupiter's innermost moon, has about 400 volcanoes powered by tidal heating from Jupiter's pull, not the global magma ocean once suspected.
Dark-Spotted Anaconda
The dark-spotted anaconda lives in northeastern Brazil and French Guiana, a little-studied water boa that bears live young and hides in flooded wetlands.
Weeverfish
Weeverfish bury themselves in shallow sand with only their venomous spines showing, and a sting is eased by soaking the wound in hot water, not cold.
How NASA Uses American Deserts To Prepare For Mars Expeditions
NASA rehearses Mars missions and tests rovers, drones and spacesuits in the Mojave, Arizona, Nevada, Utah and New Mexico.
Are There Crocodiles Sneaking Up the Mississippi River Delta?
Are There Crocodiles Sneaking Up the Mississippi River Delta? No. The delta is full of alligators, but cold winters keep American crocodiles in South Florida.
Tiger Rattlesnake
Tiger Rattlesnake produces the most toxic venom of any rattlesnake, yet it is among the smallest of them, with a tiny head and a very low venom yield.
Which Moon Orbits The Fastest?
Gravity and orbits are a fundamental aspect of both our solar system and our universe. Here is the moon in our solar system which orbits the fastest.
Star-Nosed Mole
Star-Nosed Mole facts, from the fleshy star that is the most sensitive touch organ known to its record-fast foraging in the wetlands of eastern North America.
How Cold It Has To Get Before Rattlesnakes Stop Moving
Rattlesnakes go sluggish below 60°F and basically stop moving near 50°F, then brumate. The temperature breakdown, and why a cold snake can still bite.
Why The Milky Way May Never Collide With Andromeda
A 2025 study of the Milky Way and Andromeda found roughly even odds of a merger within 10 billion years, challenging the long-held collision forecast.
Scrub Python
Scrub Python is Australia's longest snake, and the female warms her eggs by shivering, coiled around the clutch for three months without once feeding.
Where Rattlesnakes Live In The United States
Rattlesnakes live in 46 US states, from Southwest deserts to eastern forests and the Great Plains. Where each kind lives, and the four states with none.
