Discover Magazine

Robert Wagner, a researcher working on NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), was performing a data-quality check when he saw it — a large spot on the moon. “I just stopped, dropped everything, and started looking into what that spot was,” Wagner, who is also an image-processing specialist from Intuitive Machines and works with data from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) system, said in a press release.

Learn how diving for food may have helped our ancestors develop the heart and lung capacity later used to chase prey across land. Written byAnastasia Scott Sep 17, 2026, 10:16 PM | 3 min read (Image Credit: David G Hayes/Shutterstock) Sign up for our email newsletter for the latest science news Sign Up While diving with Sama-Bajau communities in Southeast Asia, Erika Schagatay watched people move underwater with circular strokes of their legs, leaving their hands free to gather food.

In his computer models, Stephen Kane changed how quickly Venus spun and gave it hypothetical moons of different masses. He expected different outcomes, but kept encountering moons spiraling toward destruction. The University of California, Riverside astrophysicist was investigating why a planet so similar to Earth in size and mass has no moon. His team explored whether a moon could have survived there if one had formed early in the planet’s history.

The rete ovarii (RO) is a small structure attached directly to the ovary that has largely faded from view since it was first described more than a century ago. Its name comes from the Latin word for “network,” referring to the interconnected tubes and channels that make up the structure, according to the National Cancer Institute. There is a similar structure in males called the rete testis, which sits inside the testicles and helps transport sperm.

Learn how more than a decade of lab work persuaded a museum to part with precious fossils, allowing researchers to take T. rex’s temperature for the first time. Written byAnastasia Scott Sep 17, 2026, 9:15 PM | 3 min read Thomas the Tyrannosaurus rex. (Image Credit: Dinosaur Institute, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County) Sign up for our email newsletter for the latest science news Sign Up Luis Chiappe had to decide how much of a Tyrannosaurus rex tooth a question was worth.

Before Gail the giraffe arrived, her keepers were busy making her expected landing a little smoother. Extra bedding went into the birthing stall, and overnight checks helped the animal care team keep watch over her mother, Kumi. For a newborn giraffe, entering the world involves quite a drop, followed by the challenge of figuring out those very long legs. Gail wasted little time once she arrived. At 9:32 a.m. on Sept. 14, 2026, just 30 minutes after her birth, she stood for the first time.

The current U.S. administration is pushing for American children to receive fewer vaccinations, a move described in a recent executive order as being consistent with "gold standard childhood vaccine recommendations." Yet medical professionals have roundly condemned the order, saying it offers no evidence to justify an overhaul of longstanding health policies. The administration's directive, signed on Aug.

Welsh adventurer Ash Dykes is getting ready to kayak more than 400 miles down the Sangha River through the Congo Basin. He’s been sharing the lead-up to the expedition on TikTok, where some viewers are worried about his safety. Dykes himself has been talking about the risks, naming crocodiles, hippos, and snakes in videos about the journey. But the dangers also involve the water beneath his kayak, the insects that bite him, and the difficulty of getting medical help.

What do a single snowshoe, a baseball cap, a Polaroid picture, a lens cap, and a hotel key have in common? They’re just one of over 20,000 items removed from the hydrothermal features at Yellowstone National Park by park staff so far in 2026. According to the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory (YVO), this has been a record-setting year for these items.

Most of us have had a roommate or coworker who steals food from the fridge. Off the coast of Australia, a bottlenose dolphin named Bubbles takes lunch theft a step further, chasing fish until they throw up and then eating whatever comes out. Researchers at the University of the Sunshine Coast have documented his feeding habit off Lady Elliot Island in the southern Great Barrier Reef.