In The Lion King, the hyenas Shenzi, Banzai, and Ed were at the evil lion Scar’s every beck and call. And while the Disney team probably didn’t spend an extensive amount of time observing lions and hyenas interacting in the wild while making the beloved movie, a zoologist and her colleagues just did—and they found something unexpected.
The long-standing assumption about the relationship between the carnivores involves hyenas following lions for their food scraps. However, male African lions (Panthera leo) are the ones going after spotted hyenas (Crocuta crocuta), who move away from the big cats. These new findings are detailed in a study published today in the journal Frontiers in Ethology.
Nancy Barker, an ecologist at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa and lead author of the study, observed lions actively tracking hyenas while she was studying brown hyenas (Parahyaena brunnea).
“When I shared my observations with other leading researchers, I was often told that I had the relationship backwards: that hyenas are the ones tracking lions, primarily for scavenging opportunities, and that what I had seen was simply a series of chance encounters,” Barker said in a statement “I felt there was more to the story.”
A young spotted hyena at Etosha National Park scopes Barker out. At the time, Barker was setting up a bait station to immobilize and collar the matriarch of the hyena clan. Image: Dr. Nancy Barker.
Barker then put GPS-collars on socially high-ranking African lions and spotted hyenas at Namibia’s Etosha National Park, as well as lions in Linyanti Conservancy in northern Botswana and northeastern Namibia, and Chobe National Park in Botswana.. The study included data from 17 lions and 14 hyenas collected across four years.
The collars mapped the animals’ movement by capturing a location snapshot every five minutes during their peak activity hours, and Barker also maintained camera traps and conducted behavioral observations for context. Barker identified 23 pairs of simultaneously tracked animals from the GPS collar data, including 10 lion-hyena pairs. Her team classified the direction of every paired animal’s movements, consequently revealing and studying thousands of interactions.
“Our GPS collar data shows that African lions and spotted hyenas leave a clear, measurable signature in the way they move around one another,” said Barker. “Spotted hyenas consistently move away from lions, while male lions tend to move toward hyenas.”
Dr. Nancy Barker with an immobilized adult male lion from a pride in the Chobe-Linyanti floodplains. Barker took morphological measurements, identification photographs, and blood, tissue and faecal samples before fitting each collar. Image: Dr. Nancy Barker.
Female lions, on the other hand, weren’t as consistent. Barker’s observations revealed that lionesses’ reactions to hyenas were based on which other pride (a group of lions) members were around, though more data is necessary to bolster this determination.
Because the study includes a limited amount of data, Barker says that some of the findings should be viewed more as trends instead of firm scientific conclusions.
“I would love to extend this approach to other members of the carnivore guild, to understand how the entire community negotiates space and risk,” she said. “Ultimately, I want to connect these movement patterns to what matters most for the animals: their survival and reproduction.”
They’re called cornflakes. These overlooked scraps of papyri (texts written on paper made from the papyrus plant) carry partial snapshots of ancient worlds.
For archeologists, cornflakes deserve care and attention as much as their complete cousins do—and that’s exactly what took place this summer, at the University of Michigan’s (U-M) Papyrus Conservation Summer Seminar. An international group of nine researchers acquired and practiced the latest papyrus preservation techniques on papyrus fragments held at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
Close up of papyrus, Homer, Iliad, Book XVIII. Image: Jeremy Marble, University of Michigan News
“Most of them [the researchers] came to Ann Arbor with zero papyrus experience, but the group ended up conserving more than 150 big and small papyri in just two weeks,” Giuliano Sidro, curator of the U-M papyrology collection, said in a statement.
The university’s papyrology collection is the largest collection of ancient papyri in the Western Hemisphere. texts and documents dating back to sometime around 1000 BCE to 1000 CE, including personal letters, school primers, and sales contracts are all preserved within its walls.
One of the researchers worked on a fragment of a copy of “Against Ctesiphon,” a famous speech from an Athenian orator Aeschines delivered in 330 BCE. Another researcher connected a U-M cornflake to one from his home collection in Milan.
The seminar was led by Marieka Kaye, director of preservation services for physical collections at the U-M Library. According to the team, Kaye and Sidro’s collaboration at U-M is a unique dynamic. Usually, conservators and papyrologists work sequentially and independently, not together. The conservator restores and preserves the papyri, and then the papyrologist studies the pieces. When the two can join forces, it also helps the seminar participants understand the material they’re handling in real time.
“The papyrologist can read the texts and guide the conservator’s hand in placing complex, fragmentary puzzles, while the conservator not only makes papyri accessible and readable but also offers a material perspective that can inform, or even correct, a papyrologist’s assessment of a text,” Sidro explained.
On June 19, the Aquarium of the Pacific took in almost 500 animals in one go. Fish, marine invertebrates, and sharks were all brought into the facility in Long Beach, California, but the aquarium hadn’t just gone on some big marine shopping spree.
These animals were rescued from animal trafficking, and were in urgent need of a home. At the aquarium, the staff worked through the night to stabilize and care for them.
“Every animal that arrives at the Aquarium, whether through a carefully planned acquisition or a last-minute confiscation, receives the same high standard of care. What can differ is the condition in which those animals arrive,” Johnathan Casey, Aquarium of the Pacific curator of fish and invertebrates, tells Popular Science.
Many trafficked animals have been traveling in stressful or poor conditions, so the aquarium’s experts immediately check their physical condition, water quality, and individual needs. They usually know little about an animal’s origin or history, so the team needs to be prepared for anything. The rescued animals are also quarantined to avoid the potential spread of diseases, according to Alyssa Tillman, the assistant curator of fish and invertebrates.
Confiscated animals like this clownfish were kept in holding tanks at the Aquarium of the Pacific on Long Beach, California. Image: Josh Barber/Aquarium of the Pacific. Josh Barber
The species included brownbanded bamboo sharks (Chiloscyllium punctatum), ocellaris clownfish (Amphiprion ocellaris), and Banggai cardinalfish (Pterapogon kauderni). The IUCN Red List classifies brownbanded bamboo sharks as Near Threatened and Banggai cardinalfish as Endangered.
While the arrival of almost 500 animals was a standout event, the Aquarium of the Pacific has received rescued animals from over 30 confiscation events since September 2024. This means they saw one confiscation event every three weeks, though the first eight months of 2026 have already seen over a dozen cases. Overall, the aquarium has taken in over 3,600 rescued trafficked animals in the past two years.
The Aquarium encourages “the public to become informed consumers to help avoid wildlife trafficking of exotic pets. This includes researching the protected status of the species and ensuring purchases are through a reputable vendor,” Casey explains. “If the vendor cannot provide proof of where the animal came from, refraining from purchasing it is a way to help.”
In 2009, tourism operators in Australia spotted more and more humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) “fluking,” when a whale floats upside down, holding its tail above the water. Confused by the behavior, they reached out to scientists for help, triggering a research effort that solved one of the biggest mysteries about humpback whales on the Great Barrier Reef.
The Whitsundays, where the fluking was taking place, is a region with dozens of islands between the Great Barrier Reef and Australia’s north-eastern coast.
“It was an unusual behaviour they had never seen before. Not even the whale scientists knew what it meant at the time,” Crystal Lacey, Master Reef Guides program manager, said in a statement. “So that uncertainty sparked a major research effort, which combined citizen science through the tourism operators’ observations, and scientific research. It was one of the region’s largest citizen science efforts.”
The efforts included tourism operators counting whales and calves, and scientists mapping the seafloor, monitoring water temperatures, tracking whales by satellite, and surveying the region from the air. The joint mission found that the Whitsundays is one of the Great Barrier Reef’s most important humpback whale calving areas. In other words, they’d revealed a previously unknown whale maternity ward.
“The fluking the operators observed was actually a breeding behaviour,” explained Lacey. “We discovered the Whitsundays provides the sheltered, warm and shallow waters humpback whales need to give birth and raise newborn calves.”
Their results also resolved one of the biggest enigmas associated with humpback whales on the Great Barrier Reef—the question of where they give birth. The findings ultimately led to the creation of the Whitsundays Whale Heritage Area within the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.
Humpback whales are found in all the world’s oceans. They’re a whale-watcher favorite because they can be observed close to shore, and frequently put on a show near the surface of the water. Humpback whales mate while “hugging” face-to-face, and the gestation period of females is 11 to 12 months. When they give birth—once every 2 to three years—the calf comes out tail first.
The New England Aquarium has cause to celebrate. Their cownose ray (Rhinoptera bonasus) Mystic officially turned 27-years-old. The birthday girl’s milestone is even more exceptional in light of the fact that cownose rays in the ocean typically live around 18 to 20 years.
“With excellent care, these animals can live even longer. We aren’t sure what the upper age limit for this species is, but Mystic could be considered one of the oldest individuals in public aquariums,” Rachel Moote, manager of husbandry at the New England Aquarium, tells Popular Science. “Our dedicated veterinary and aquarist staff work to keep Mystic in excellent health. She is monitored regularly by our teams and receives hands-on exams whenever a closer look is required.”
Mystic swimming by her birthday sign. Image: New England Aquarium.
Cownose rays are migratory, open-ocean animals related to other rays. Their unique name comes from their snout, which looks a bit like a cow’s nose, and their wingspan can be up to three feet long. Cownose rays have a venomous spine behind their dorsal fins, but the species is shy. In fact, a majority of ray-caused injuries in humans occur when humans unintentionally step on their spines. They are found along the east coast of the United States, and are classified as Vulnerable by the IUCN Red List.
Mystic has lived at the aquarium for almost two decades. Following a long career in the Giant Ocean Tank, she’s currently taking a “much-deserved retirement,” at the aquarium’s Quincy Animal Care Center. Her care team in Quincy includes aquarists, volunteers, and interns. She is hand-fed a diverse diet of fish, clams, and shellfish similar to what her diet in the wild would be, and also takes vitamin supplements. For her birthday, she received a fish and shrimp cake.
Mystic’s “birthday cake” was fit for a ray. Image: New England Aquarium.
However, her care goes beyond making sure she eats appropriately.
“Our team works hard to ensure Mystic can practice her natural foraging and problem solving abilities. One way we keep her mentally stimulated is by providing her with specially prepared rubber puzzle balls filled with her regular food items,” explains Moote. Every week, aquarists also dive into Mystic’s tank to clean the habitat.
Five pups were recently born at England’s Chester Zoo, far from their homeland. But these bush dogs (Speothos venaticus) are on a mission—they’re part of a conservation breeding program protecting the future of their species.
Bush dogs are medium-sized carnivores from Central and South America, known for their chirpy sounds. The IUCN Red List classifies them as Near Threatened. While that might indicate that they don’t need major conservation efforts as much the way that other wild animals, their last evaluation was only in 2011.
Mark Brayshaw, head of mammals at Chester Zoo, tells Popular Science that a lot has changed in the past 15 years, “with the impacts of climate change, habitat loss and inter-species disease transfer growing more evident,” he explains. “It’s a sad truth that by the time a species is listed as Endangered or Critically Endangered, they will be facing a genetic bottleneck, which heightens the risk of extinction by making the survivors more susceptible to disease and other threats.”
European zoos are now working to make sure that doesn’t happen by caring for a bush dog “insurance population,” which includes the ones at Chester Zoo. Their numbers in the wild are declining, and the breeding program is basically a backup in case the species’ population might need a genetic health boost one day.
The zoo’s new born litter only recently emerged from their den, and have started investigating their habitat with their parents and older siblings. “At this stage, they’re just little furry potatoes,” Chester Zoo carnivore keeper Richard Tyson said in a statement. “They toddle around a bit, but mostly they huddle together in a pile.” They will also start eating solid food soon.
The bush dogs began to emerge from their den earlier this summer. Image: Chester Zoo. Steve Rawlins
When they were first born, the keepers left the bush dog parents Molly and Charlie alone with their new offspring, so they didn’t immediately know exactly how many pups had popped out. An early clue that all was good in the den was the pups’ vocalizations. Bush dog pups emit high-pitched chirping noises that sound a lot like birds.
Bush dogs are “a wonderfully active, engaging species to watch,” says Brayshaw. “Every individual has a different personality. They are loved by the keeper team and by the public, and the new pups are already proving popular with visitors.”
Little do the young chirpers know that they have a higher calling than simply entertainment for less-hairy visitors.
A little less than 2,000 years ago, Mount Vesuvius became the antihero of the ancient world’s most well-known tragedy. The infamous explosion covered Pompeii and Herculaneum in volcanic debris, immortalizing the final moments of the ancient Roman cities and some of their unfortunate inhabitants in stunning detail.
Now, however, visitors can witness the glory of Pompeii before it all came crashing down in 79 CE. A former game engineer from Illinois and his team have developed an application that brings sites at the Archaeological Park of Pompeii to unprecedented life via Immersive Extended Reality technology. In other words, you can now stand in the forum alongside other ancient Romans and watch in horror as Mount Vesuvius starts to rumble along the horizon.
Todd Porter, the former game engineer and now founder of the software company Histoury, went through a different kind of horror to make it happen—walking every inch of the archaeological sites to execute 155 scans under southern Italy’s blazing sun.
An idea ahead of its time
Porter founded Histoury less than three years ago, but the lightning bolt of inspiration originally struck him 15 years ago on a visit to Herculaneum, Porter tells Popular Science. It was while wandering around the archaeological sites that he had the idea of using his video game background to reconstruct his surroundings in a virtual world one could visit with their phones.
Of course, in 2012, smart phones didn’t have enough processing power to support the sort of software required for something like that. “It only took 13 years for phones to catch up to my vision,” Porter jokes.
But that vision could only manifest with the Pompeii archaeological park’s consent. Thankfully, a member of the team—a former hotel front desk employee who, after learning about the team’s project, offered to quit his job and do their business development—wouldn’t take no for an answer. He knocked on Pompeii’s door every day until, possibly out of exhaustion, the park agreed to a demonstration.
Histoury’s digital reconstructions start with two different kinds of scans—a high resolution scan and a spatial scan.
The high resolution scan creates a virtual 3D model of the site with an accuracy range of less than 2 centimeters, and involves walking around the archaeological site with an instrument called a LiDAR scanner.
“That’s just me walking around with a device that looks like a bomb,” Porter says. “It’s shaped like a giant pill with a light whirling around and it makes a noise. You hold it with one hand and you’re looking at your phone with the other.”
Todd Porter, the former game engineer and now founder of the software company Histoury, walked around with this scanner capturing every inch of Pompeii. Image: Histoury, Inc.
The resulting 3D model is then converted into 3D mesh—essentially a kind of digital model compatible with the game development software they use. Histoury’s artists then build the reconstruction directly on top of this 3D mesh, in consultation with a team of archaeologists to make sure everything is as historically accurate as possible.
The other scan—the spatial scan—employs a less powerful instrument called an Xgrid Portalcam, and serves several different purposes. The main one is to secure spatial accuracy. Traditional GPS data is largely inaccurate. Instead, Histoury’s application uses artificial intelligence to determine where the user is standing and which way they are facing within six inches of accuracy. The AI matches the image captured by the smart phone to images of known locations in its data.
The other purpose of the spatial scan is to allow artists to double check their work without having to visit Pompeii in person. “We blend the two [scans] in our tool set so that the artist can walk around and they can switch back and forth between their recreation and the real world just to triple check that everything is lined up,” Porter explains. “AI is really sloppy with a lot of things. Music, art, but the stuff that it’s really good at is the stuff we use it for, which is number crunching.”
In the final step, the team’s lead AI expert has AI agents that “walk” the entire digital reconstruction, looking in every direction. Simply put, these walk-throughs help check how accurate the spatial aspect of the reconstruction is.
“If it’s not accurate at all or less than a certain percentage, it sends the team back to the site for another spatial scan,” Porter explains. “It means we don’t have to send people on site to stand in 5,000 different places to figure out our accuracy,” says Porter. “We can do that virtually.”
The final product is a smart phone or tablet application, Portyl, that shows what Pompeii would have looked like before Mount Vesuvius’ devastating explosion wherever you point your device. The recreation is populated with people, animals, sound effects, and audio explanations. It’s about as close as you can get to strolling through Pompeii before it was demolished.
The reconstructed sites available for virtual tour currently include Pompeii’s amphitheater, large theater, small theater, quadriporticus (a space turned into a gladiator training school), House of the Citharist (a large aristocratic house), forum, and basilica. The team is also working on additional Pompeii locations. Everything is free until September 1, and the app is accessible even for people who aren’t there in person.
The amphitheater of Pompeii is one of the oldest Roman amphitheaters in the world. When you download Histoury, you can see what this massive theater would’ve looked like in its prime. Image: Histoury, Inc.
But for those who are in Pompeii, “you hold your phone or iPad up, we recognize where you’re standing usually within six inches and we know exactly where you’re facing and then we basically spawn the recreation right there,” Porter says enthusiastically.
“Like in the amphitheater, you’re walking around gladiators fighting. There’s 30,000 people in the crowd around you, and you hear the roar, and you hear the clang of the metal. Of all the things I’ve ever done in my life, this is truly one of the most magical things I’ve ever been part of. I think that’s what really gets everybody—it gets you emotionally.”
Histoury is close to signing a contract with Herculaneum and making moves in other countries, including Egypt.
Since Histoury’s Portyl users can trigger the explosion of Mount Vesuvius and then watch it erupt to the sound of screams and the sight of people running for their lives, the question perhaps stands in this case, too.
But they can also simply peer around the basilica or the amphitheater, and there’s something uniquely respectful about paying tribute to Pompeii’s former glory instead of adoring its tragic remains. And more broadly, there’s no denying the fact that a live reconstruction has the potential to make ancient history feel closer than it has ever been before, especially for people who have a hard time imagining the bygone world on their own.
Virgil once wrote, “fugit irreparabile tempus,” meaning “irretrievable time flies.” The ancient poet may have thus been surprised to learn that today, time is indeed retrievable—at least somewhat.
Animals sometimes get stuck in the strangest (and most terrible) of places. From a peanut butter jar to a car’s front grill, wildlife experts have certainly seen it all. But when Cape Wildlife Center in Barnstable, Massachusetts received a call about a raccoon trapped in a drain grate earlier this month, their veterinary staff had their hands full with three other emergencies.
While they couldn’t get to the trapped raccoon right away, other animal lovers were ready to step in. They physically took the raccoon—and the grate it was stuck in—to the Cape Wildlife Center. This team raccoon and drain grate removal effort involved the Bourne Department of Natural Resources, Fire/Rescue & Emergency Services, Police Department, and Department of Public Works.
“In our line of work it sometimes takes a village to do what we do and this young raccoon had so many people fighting to save him today,” Cape Wildlife Center wrote in a social media post. “When they arrived at the hospital we were ready with meds to sedate the poor raccoon. We did not know how long he had been stuck like that and could only imagine how exhausted and scared he was.”
Bourne Department of Natural Resources, Fire/Rescue & Emergency Services, Police Department, and Department of Public Works worked together to save the raccoon. Image: Cape Wildlife Center.
With the trash panda fast asleep, the team used highly sophisticated equipment to pull its head out—canola oil and plastic garbage bags. Thankfully, it took less than 10 minutes. The medical team then carried out a full exam and administered rehydrating fluids and anti-inflammation medications.
Finally, they woke up the unfortunate raccoon. In its misfortune this furry individual was pretty lucky—it doesn’t seem like he sustained any significant injuries, given that he could move his neck and limbs normally. For now, the wildlife center is keeping an eye on him while he stays in an outdoor enclosure.
The raccoon did not have any major injuries. Image: Cape Wildlife Center.
“Wildlife rescues don’t always happen with one person or one team,” the wildlife center wrote. “This one took a whole community working together, and we’re grateful to everyone who helped get this little guy the care he needed.”
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