ScienceAlert

1.5M ratings
277k ratings

See, that’s what the app is perfect for.

Sounds perfect Wahhhh, I don’t wanna
More than 19 million years ago, the world’s open oceans were absolutely teeming with sharks, roughly ten times more than today.
Then, suddenly, these large marine predators almost all disappeared.
This devastating and mysterious mass extinction event...

More than 19 million years ago, the world’s open oceans were absolutely teeming with sharks, roughly ten times more than today.

Then, suddenly, these large marine predators almost all disappeared.

This devastating and mysterious mass extinction event was only recently discovered through a series of accidental inquiries, and from the evidence we have so far, it’s still not clear what caused the abrupt end to so many species.

“I study microfossil fish teeth and shark scales in deep-sea sediments, and we decided to generate an 85-million-year-long record of fish and shark abundance, just to get a sense of what the normal variability of that population looked like in the long term,” explains paleoceanographer Elizabeth Sibert from Yale University.

📷: Rodrigo Friscione/Getty Images

WHOOSH! You’re looking at plasma - the fourth state of matter - pulse through the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak back in 2017. The plasma was likely around 50 million °C. Just a little toasty!
Researchers hope that one day create...

WHOOSH! You’re looking at plasma - the fourth state of matter - pulse through the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak back in 2017. The plasma was likely around 50 million °C. Just a little toasty!

Researchers hope that one day create fusion energy to power our cities… but that’s still a long way off yet.

📷: Gao et al., Nuclear Fusion, 2017

You know what Uluru looks like from the ground - but how about from the air?
This incredible picture was taken by Thomas Pesquet on the International Space Station from 408 kilometers up.
Uluru has is sacred to the the Pitjantjatjara Indigenous...

You know what Uluru looks like from the ground - but how about from the air?

This incredible picture was taken by Thomas Pesquet on the International Space Station from 408 kilometers up.

Uluru has is sacred to the the Pitjantjatjara Indigenous Australians, and is one of Australia’s most iconic landmarks.

📷: ESA/NASA–T. Pesquet

Surprise! 🎉 A giant tortoise in the Galápagos Islands that was thought to have gone extinct over a century ago has been rediscovered!
Researchers found the female tortoise back in 2019 on the Galápagos’ Fernandina Island, and just genetically...

Surprise! 🎉 A giant tortoise in the Galápagos Islands that was thought to have gone extinct over a century ago has been rediscovered!

Researchers found the female tortoise back in 2019 on the Galápagos’ Fernandina Island, and just genetically confirmed it’s the long lost Fernandina Giant Tortoise (Chelonoidis phantasticus).

Rediscovering this lost species may have occurred just in the nick of time to save it,“ said James Gibbs, tortoise expert at the State University of New York. "We now urgently need to complete the search of the island to find other tortoises.”

📷: Galapagos Conservancy

Look at that nebula scuttle! This image shows the incredible Southern Crab Nebula, taken by Hubble back in 2019.
The formation is due to two stars - a red giant and white dwarf - careening around each other and the dust and gas that surrounds it....

Look at that nebula scuttle! This image shows the incredible Southern Crab Nebula, taken by Hubble back in 2019.

The formation is due to two stars - a red giant and white dwarf - careening around each other and the dust and gas that surrounds it. Swipe to get an annotated version of the shape. Isn’t space incredible!? 😍

📷: NASA/ESA/STScI/A. Feild

Researchers discovered an adorable new species of tree frog! 😍 They’ve nicknamed them ‘chocolate frogs’ for obvious reasons and they’re related to Australia’s green tree frogs. This delicious flavor of amphibian dwells in the hot, swampy,...

Researchers discovered an adorable new species of tree frog! 😍 They’ve nicknamed them ‘chocolate frogs’ for obvious reasons and they’re related to Australia’s green tree frogs. This delicious flavor of amphibian dwells in the hot, swampy, crocodile-filled, rainforest area of New Guinea.

Just look at those huge suction-y fingers for tree gripping!

📷: Steve Richards

Is this image Mars or Earth?
The two planets can appear incredibly similar, as European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet discovered while taking a photo of Earth looking decidedly red earlier this month, while onboard the International Space...

Is this image Mars or Earth?

The two planets can appear incredibly similar, as European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet discovered while taking a photo of Earth looking decidedly red earlier this month, while onboard the International Space Station.

If you wanted to quickly tell, Earth’s atmosphere is a beautiful vivid blue – much more blue than the thin atmosphere of Mars, and Pesquet’s image displays Earth’s signature blue smear enveloping the red soils.

📷: ESA/NASA–T. Pesquet