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Can you imagine having a skeleton made of glass? The sea sponge known as Venus’ flower basket can! This glass skeleton has inspired Australian engineers to create a strong new material that could make buildings more sustainable.

The orca, or killer whale, is one of the ocean’s most feared creatures. They are highly intelligent and capable of unusual hunting techniques. Their normal diet consists of smaller fish, marine mammals, turtles and even sea birds. However, a pod of Mexican orcas has added young whale sharks to their menu.

Last October, an amateur mathematician named Luke Durant discovered the largest known prime number, M136279841, a number with more than 41 million digits. Luke used a global network of computers powered by Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), which are widely used in developing artificial intelligence algorithms. Luke’s breakthrough marked the first use of this technology to uncover a prime of this size.

In 2021, Assistant Professor Lindsey Swierk at the University of Binghamton discovered that the water anole can use a bubble to breathe underwater so they can escape predators. Water anoles are a brown lizard found in Costa Rica that spend time underwater and on land.

Molly Barlow is a researcher studying this amazing, endangered marsupial. She wants to know why kowari numbers are going down in the wild.

Cosmos Magazine has partnered with Double Helix to publish a free eBook that takes kids aged 8 to 12 on a dive into the science of our oceans. The eBook includes stories about turtles, wonky holes and undersea cables, as well as experiments to do at home.

Archaeologists from John Hopkins University have recently discovered what may be the world’s oldest alphabet in Syria, offering new insights into the origins of written language.

What’s all this buzz about quantum? Maybe you’ve heard it in science class or maybe in a sci-fi movie! No matter where you’ve come across it, you probably know it’s a bit strange, maybe confusing but also possibly an important part of the future. And all these things are true!

CSIRO scientists have found a species of fish to add to Australian aquaculture and, hopefully, Aussie diets. Trachinotus anak, known as the pompano, oyster pompano, giant oystercracker or dart, is a white-flesh fish endemic to northern Australia, and CSIRO’s top choice for farming.

The 1980 Mount St Helens eruption in the USA led to a surprising discovery. The eruption killed 57 people and destroyed 350 km2 of forest. In an effort to restore the ecosystem of the plains, in 1983, scientists captured 2 wild gophers, placing each into a small, fenced off area on the volcanic plain. The gophers dug for twenty-four hours before the scientists removed them. A new study published in 2024 shows the long-lasting effects the gophers had on the ecosystem.