Eric Ralls

4 days ago | earth.com | Eric Ralls

Waterways support everyday activities like washing clothes or watering vegetables. Yet many of these rivers now carry a hidden burden that may influence future health crises. An international study has brought attention to antibiotic residues that slip into river systems in massive amounts. These residues come from human consumption and pass through wastewater treatment or end up in the environment with minimal filtration.

4 days ago | earth.com | Eric Ralls

High on New Guinea’s mist-wrapped peaks, hunters told stories of a shaggy rat as long as a house cat and as heavy as a newborn baby. Those tales floated through villages for decades, yet no scientist had ever confirmed that Mallomys istapantap was actually alive. That has just changed, thanks to an expedition that spent half a year in terrain so steep that climbers joke the ground leans back at them.

4 days ago | earth.com | Eric Ralls

Although whale populations are now drastically diminished, they flourished in the distant past. Early humans living near the ocean used whales as a source of food and materials. They also used whale bones to make tools, including harpoons, which where then used to kill more whales. It’s hard for scientists today to know exactly when humans started using whales because many of the places where early people lived along the coast have been washed away by the ocean or are underwater now.

4 days ago | earth.com | Eric Ralls

For over a century, humans have measured the universe with ever-improving tools, driven by a desire to understand where we come from and where we’re going. One of the most important numbers in cosmology is the Hubble constant, which tells us how fast the universe is expanding. Yet, for the past decade, scientists have been deeply puzzled. Two different methods to measure this expansion gave conflicting results.

5 days ago | earth.com | Eric Ralls

Archaeologists recently uncovered a pebble that appears to show the oldest full human fingerprint ever recorded. Their investigations suggest it was made by Neanderthals, who may have used a red pigment on a rock to shape what looks like an artistic rendition of a facial figure from roughly 43,000 years ago. Curiosity grew when researchers noticed the pebble’s unusual shape and the red coloring placed where a nose might be.