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Scientists have solved the mystery of the Seychelles' vanished crocodiles using DNA from historic museum specimens. The reptiles were not a unique species after all, but an isolated population of saltwater crocodiles that likely drifted thousands of ...

The Arctic Ocean may have crossed a dangerous tipping point. Scientists say the rapid disappearance of sea ice is triggering a hidden chemical shift that is stripping the ocean of nitrate -- a nutrient essential for the tiny plankton that support ...

Tiny birds on remote Scottish islands are undergoing a dramatic evolutionary transformation. Scientists studying four isolated populations of British Wrens discovered that some island birds have grown astonishingly large -- with the biggest St Kilda ...

A casual walk through an Ithaca cemetery led to the discovery of a gigantic hidden bee population -- roughly 5.5 million ground-nesting bees packed beneath the soil. Scientists believe it may be one of the largest bee aggregations ever documented and ...

A sea slug smaller than a sesame seed has turned up in Taiwan's coastal waters -- and it's so tiny and unusual that scientists realized they had discovered a completely new species. Named Thecacera sesama after its black-and-yellow "sesame-like" ...

New research suggests Earth's climate can swing wildly on surprisingly short timescales -- even during hot, ice-free greenhouse periods. By studying ancient sediments from the Late Cretaceous, scientists uncovered repeating climate shifts tied to ...

Humanity may already be living far beyond what Earth can sustainably support, according to a sweeping new study analyzing more than 200 years of population and environmental data. Researchers found that while population growth once fueled innovation ...

Scientists uncovered evidence that human blood cells may trace their origins back to single-celled ancestors that lived 700 million years ago. By rebuilding the evolutionary family tree of blood cells, the team revealed how today's immune system grew ...

Scientists have created a global "treasure map" for rare earth elements by uncovering where the strange volcanic rocks that contain them are most likely to form. By combining thousands of rock samples with seismic images of Earth's deep interior, the ...

When a queen wasp suddenly disappears, her colony doesn't calmly choose a successor -- it erupts into chaos. Researchers found that female wasps immediately begin battling for power, shattering the colony's social order in a frenzy of aggression. But ...