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a picture of a red and black parrot

Dracula parrot: The goth bird whose piercing screams echo through New Guinea forests

By Lydia Smith published

Pesquet's parrot, also known as a Dracula parrot, resembles a vulture and has a distinct scream — but its favorite food is figs.

Birds
an airplane black box hidden by some plants

What do black boxes on planes actually record?

By Kristel Tjandra published

Modern flight recorders can hold more than 1,000 pieces of information about an aircraft.

Technology

Science news this week: Controversy around the dire wolf 'de-extinctions' and a 3D hologram breakthrough

By Pandora Dewan published

April 12, 2025: Our weekly roundup of the latest science in the news, as well as a few fascinating articles to keep you entertained over the weekend.

Animals
Map of Antarctica showing virtual deformation values. The Wilkes Land anomaly is clearly visible in the bottom right corner of the map.

Wilkes Land crater: The giant hole in East Antarctica's gravitational field likely caused by a meteorite

By Sascha Pare published

Researchers have proposed many origins for a gravity anomaly in Wilkes Land, East Antarctica, but the latest evidence suggests the subglacial hole is an impact crater measuring 315 miles across.

Antarctica
Researcher examining cultures in a petri dish, low angle view.

Diagnostic dilemma: A scientist caught plague from bacteria thought to be 'noninfectious'

By Kamal Nahas published

A scientist who was working on plague-causing bacteria caught the disease despite using weakened strains that were deemed noninfectious.

Viruses, Infections & Disease
Looped video footage of a large shadow moving across North America

Watch moon's shadow race across US during 2024 total solar eclipse

By Harry Baker published

Earth from space Multiple spacecraft captured the moon's shadow sweeping across North America at more than 1,500 mph during the 2024 total solar eclipse, as millions of people looked up to witness totality.

Earth from space
A whitish stone tool is stuck into a piece of brown wood with greyish tar. There is a hole drilled into the wood.

Pfyn culture flint tool: World's oldest known 'Swiss Army' knife

By Kristina Killgrove published

Over five millennia ago, Stone Age people in Central Europe crafted wooden handles for their stone tools.

Archaeology
a photo of the skin beginning to shed from a snake's face

Why do snakes shed their skin?

By Emma Bryce published

It's a story that involves scales, sloughs — and spectacles.

Snakes
An image of the Milky Way captured by the MeerKAT radio telescope. At the center of the MeerKAT image the region surrounding the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole blazes bright. Huge vertical filamentary structures echo those captured on a smaller scale by Webb in Sagittarius C’s blue-green hydrogen cloud.

Space photo of the week: The chaotic heart of the Milky Way like you've never seen it before

By Jamie Carter published

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has teamed up with the MeerKAT radio telescope array to explore how magnetic fields affect star formation at the chaotic center of the Milky Way.

Astronomy
A clay artifact, about the size of a finger with engraved symbols.

What was the first alphabet in the world?

By Tom Metcalfe published

New discoveries challenge old ideas about the earliest alphabets.

Archaeology
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