For millions of years, some of Earth’s earliest animals barely changed. They lived, grew, and spread across the seafloor, but evolution seemed stuck in slow motion. Now, a new study suggests that the reason may have been surprisingly simple: these ancient creatures were reproducing without sex. Researchers from the University of Cambridge have found evidence […]
In Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day, opening tomorrow, protagonists race across the globe to expose a decades-long government cover-up and reveal to the world that extraterrestrial life is real. It’s a question Spielberg has been asking since his 1977 Close Encounters of the Third Kind: How would the knowledge of extraterrestrial intelligence change us? Spielberg makesContinue reading "The real disclosure day: The protocols for announcing extraterrestrial intelligence"
Ancient asteroid impacts may have done more than reshape Earth’s surface. For decades, asteroid impacts have been viewed mainly as agents of destruction. But on the young Earth, they may have done something far more surprising: helped create some of the planet’s first habitable environments. A new study from Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) suggests that [...]
The asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago is often remembered as one of the most destructive events in Earth’s history. However, new research suggests that the same catastrophe may also have created an underground environment where life could thrive for millions of years. An international team of scientists has found […]
My book, "The Physics of Creation: The Creator’s Ultimate Design for Earth," is now available for download at CreationToday.org for under $5. The book offers a unique perspective on the universe, linking physical laws to an intelligent Creator, and explores how scientific principles align with the biblical creation narrative.
A new study analyzed how NASA's Habitable Worlds Observatory might be able to confidently spot biosignatures in the atmosphere of a distant ancient Earth.
Using the SETI Institute’s Allen Telescope Array, a 42-element radio interferometer at Hat Creek Radio Observatory in Hat Creek, California, astronomers probed 3I/ATLAS for artificial radio transmissions but found only human-made interference.
As Steven Spielberg's alien conspiracy thriller "Disclosure Day" heads to theaters, Space.com talks to the astronomer who has led efforts to make sure any real alien detection will not be kept a secret.
A hidden wave of fungal disease and lung parasites is putting wild rattlesnakes and other native snakes at risk. Snake populations around the world are under increasing pressure from habitat loss, disease, and other environmental challenges. Among the diseases drawing the most concern is ophidiomycosis, commonly known as snake fungal disease, which is caused by [...]
Sweden’s celebrated wolverine recovery program is losing momentum, raising concerns about the future of one of the world’s most famous conservation success stories. A conservation program once praised as a global model for helping people and wildlife coexist may be losing its effectiveness because of decades of inadequate government support, according to new research. In [...]
As offshore wind farms expand rapidly in the global renewable energy transition, scientists are studying how these large marine infrastructure projects affect ecosystems beneath the waves. Research from Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands suggests that offshore wind may bring both risks and benefits for sharks and rays, known collectively as Elasmobranchii, which are highly sensitive to electromagnetic fields (EMFs). A six-year project called “Elasmopower” examined how EMFs from subsea power cables in offshore wind farms affect bottom-dwelling sharks and rays. These species depend on natural electric and magnetic fields for key behaviors such as navigation, prey detection, habitat use and long-distance movement, particularly in low-visibility environments. The studies conducted as part of the Elasmopower project have been published in four papers, with three additional papers currently undergoing peer review. Sharks and rays have specialized electroreceptors called ampullae of Lorenzini. The jelly-filled sensory canals around the head and snout can detect even extremely weak EMFs from prey and predators, water movement, and the Earth’s geomagnetic field, Erwin Winter, a scientist at Wageningen, told Mongabay. This system is central to hunting and orientation, making Elasmobranchii especially relevant for studying EMF exposure from offshore energy infrastructure, Winter added. Erwin Winter, a researcher with the Elasmopower project, presented findings on offshore wind, electromagnetic fields and bottom-dwelling sharks and rays at the Sharks International 2026 conference in Colombo, Sri Lanka, in May. Image by Malaka Rodrigo for Mongabay. During a presentation on a summary of the Elasmopower research at the Sharks International 2026…This article was originally published on Mongabay
Scientists failed to find radio signals emanating from the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, further bolstering its status as a natural object, not one made by aliens.
Meteorites that are billions of years old. Alienlike worms. A blue whale’s massive jaw bones. These are just some of the millions of marvels at the Smithsonian Institution.
Most are part of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History collection, a trove of nearly 150 million objects. It includes a spectacular array of preserved life forms, rocks and cultural artifacts from around the world.
Few people have ever seen this vast collection of astonishing objects. The museum in Washington, D.C., only displays a small share of the items. Most sit tucked away in huge storage pods at the Smithsonian’s Museum Support Center (MSC). This site in Suitland, Md., is not open to the public.
But Science News was able to get a behind-the-scenes peek.
Lining MSC’s hushed halls are rows of cream-colored cabinets and kilometers (miles) of shelving. Scientists led us through long corridors, pointing out prime treasures along the way. We saw and touched an abundance of specimens that captivate the mind and eyes. Some items even had odors — like a freeze-dried crabeater seal. It smelled like burnt soy sauce.
But MSC is not just a giant storage unit. It’s a place scientists visit to do research and answer big questions about our planet. Forget the idea that museums are old and dusty, says Kirk Johnson. He’s the director of the National Museum of Natural History. Museums, he argues, are “vastly more vibrant and more important” than most people realize.
A protected collection
MSC opened in 1983 when the Smithsonian needed more space for items in its already overcrowded natural history museum. Each of the center’s five storage pods is about the size of a football field. And they’re nearly three stories tall. A sixth pod is in the works.
Their key goal: Protect the specimens.
MSC carefully controls the temperature and humidity inside each pod. It also shields these storage areas against pests.
A vast collection
148 million Items in the museum’s collection
11,945 Items on display at the museum
95,287 New items acquired in 2025
34.5 million + Items in the entomology collection
Security guards patrol the premises 24/7. Along the way, they watch for power outages, floods, flames and explosions. Huge freezers need power to keep tissues and DNA samples ultracold. Dried specimens can be damaged by fire and water. And wet items in alcohol-filled jars are at risk of drying out — or blowing up.
MSC’s stash is part of a “forever” collection. They’re available to study today and in the future. Scientists are now, for instance, analyzing African elephant DNA stored here. The elephant that this genetic material comes from is thought to belong to a population that has long evaded humans.
Past work on bird eggs collected decades ago helped reveal that the insecticide DDT had built up in their shells and thinned them. This nearly drove some species — including the bald eagle — to extinction. Evidence of DDT’s harm to wildlife helped lead the United States to ban the chemical in 1972.
“There’s a cloud of knowledge about the planet that exists only because we have collections in museums,” Johnson says.
Scientists who work here are passionate about the knowledge stored in MSC’s pods. As we moved from one area to another, staff members would race to show us “just one more thing!” A coil of feathered money, for instance, that was once used on the Santa Cruz Islands in the South Pacific.
Items stowed at the MSC or on display at the museum represent everything that we know about the planet, says Rebecca Johnson. She’s the museum’s chief scientist (and unrelated to Kirk). “This is the record of the world,” she says.
In an age of AI, it can be difficult to tell truth from fiction. But MSC’s treasures let us see and touch and smell and study our planet’s reality. “People still want to know what is real,” Rebecca Johnson says. “This is the place where we have the real thing.”
Let’s go on a field trip
Our private MSC tour introduced us to a colossal cache of objects. We saw items that dazzled and brought chills. We wanted to photograph everything. In a place that’s home to millions of objects, how do you pick what to feature?
We chose items with an eye to what stood out in size or peculiarity. We also focused on those with intriguing backstories. We could fill entire books with photos and the histories of these items. Instead, we’ll highlight our favorites.
Most likely to haunt your dreams
The Antarctic scale worm
Stephen Voss
This giant worm (Eulagisca gigantea, center) has true horror-movie potential. It has mouth parts that can extend out and retract in, as well as a toothed jaw. But don’t worry. These worms typically live on the sea floor. So you’ll likely never encounter a live one. This specimen is part of MSC’s wet collection — stuff preserved in fluid.
Most likely to make you feel very small
The jaw bones of a blue whale
Here, Michael McGowen stands inside the massive lower jaw bones of a blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus). McGowen cares for MSC’s marine mammal specimens. The whale whose jaws he’s posing with was an adult female that once lived off the coast of Antarctica.
Stephen Voss
Weighing 2 metric tons and measuring nearly 7 meters (23 feet) long, the jaws are the largest bones in the collection. Blue whale jaws, in fact, are the largest bones of any animal ever. McGowen studies the evolution and genetics of whales and other cetaceans. He loves coming to this Whale Bone Repository — a building big enough to house airplanes. “I’m always in awe,” he says.
Most likely to keep calm and carry on
A North Atlantic right whale
This bizarre-looking backbone belongs to a North Atlantic right whale (Eubalaena glacialis). Named Tips, this 14-meter (46-foot) brute appears to have survived a collision with a ship. Squiggles of bone protrude from one section of his vertebrae — a sign of injured tissue that didn’t heal cleanly.
Stephen Voss
Tips died in 2010, possibly from being caught in fishing gear. Getting tangled in gear or struck by ships are two major threats to right whales. Fewer than 400 individuals of this endangered species remain.
Biggest buzzkill
The world’s largest mosquito collection
There are some 2 million mosquitoes in MSC’s collection. It’s the most diverse bunch of these bloodsuckers in the world.
Stephen Voss
The Uranotaenia sapphirina mosquitoes seen here may not be much of a nuisance — to humans, at least. They’re among just a handful of modern mosquito species that feed on cold-blooded creatures. Their victims include earthworms and leeches, says Yvonne-Marie Linton. She cares for MSC’s insect specimens.
Best dressed
The pink fairy armadillo
In life, this pink fairy armadillo (Chlamyphorus truncatus, left) would have been a fashion designer’s dream. It boasts both a lovely pale pink shell and whitish fur. The shell gets its hue from blood vessels and may help the smallest armadillo species control its body temperature.
Stephen Voss
Check out those oversized claws, used for burrowing. They grow even bigger in the greater fairy armadillo (Calyptophractus retusus, middle). And they get bigger still in the giant armadillo (Priodontes maximus, claws shown on right).
Biggest stinker
The tongue orchid
Stephen Voss
This massive plant is part of the Smithsonian Gardens Orchid Collection. It’s one of the largest orchid species on Earth. Bulbophyllum fletcherianum has leaves that can stretch nearly 2 meters (6.5 feet). But it’s known for more than epic leafage.
Its blooms give off the foul stench of rotting flesh. That scent attracts insects, such as blow flies or carrion beetles. Those insects are looking to lay eggs in dead and decaying animals. But when the tongue orchid’s smell draws them in, they help the plant by pollinating it.
Most likely to be mistaken for a mushroom
A Dracula orchid
Stephen Voss
The Dracula orchid gets its name from its blood-red coloring and long, pointy structures. The plant (Draculachimaera ‘Pacifica’) grows in Ecuador and Colombia. To fungus gnats, the orchid’s blooms have the alluring odor of mushrooms. Those flowers kind of look like mushrooms, too. Fine ribs decorate their central, pouchlike petals. This feature mimics the gills on a mushroom.
Most likely to make you take a closer look
The wet collection
Stephen Voss
Resting in row upon row of jars, some 25 million MSC specimens sit preserved in fluid. Included among them are sand dollars, shrimp, coral, slipper lobsters and octopuses. Together, they take up roughly 72 kilometers (45 miles) of shelving. That’s more than four times as long as trails to the bottom of the Grand Canyon.
Most of these jars are filled with ethanol, nearly 2 million liters (530,000 gallons) in total. This alcohol evaporates over time. So all of the jars need to be topped off to keep their specimens from drying out.
Most likely to strip the flesh from your bones
The hide beetle
Flesh-eating beetles might sound terrifying. But they feast on the dead, not the living. And it’s the baby beetles — or larvae — that do most of the meat-eating, anyway, explains Inger Toraason. So this hide beetle (Dermestes maculatus) on his hand poses no danger of chowing down. In fact, this insect — and thousands of its buddies — are closer to Toraason’s coworkers than specimens.
Toraason takes care of bone specimens at MSC. Flesh-eating beetles help clean animal bones for him. They eat tissue off specimens being prepped for the museum’s collections. It’s a big job. The beetles cleaned 429 skeletons in 2025 alone. They can strip a hummingbird’s bones in less than a day. A whale skull might take months.
Stephen Voss
Beetle-cleaned bones then go through several more steps to be preserved. Toraason picks off any remaining flesh by hand. Then he soaks the bones in a cleaning solution. You can see an example of this with the skeleton of a little owl (Athene noctua, inset).
If Toraason and his coworkers didn’t have beetles on their side, they could simply let flesh rot away in water. But that’s a long process. And it leaves behind just a pile of bones. With the hide beetles, the team gets an intact skeleton at the end. The beetles are “our little unsung heroes of the museum,” he says.
Finest feathers
Bird-of-paradise headdress ornaments
Stephen Voss
These vibrant ornaments were once used in headdresses by people in what is now Papua New Guinea. Made from Raggiana birds-of-paradise (Paradisaea raggiana), they’re meant to move, says Joshua Bell. At MSC, he curates cultural artifacts from around the world.
Men and sometimes women wore these ornaments while dancing in ritual performances, Bell says. Glinting light and rapid motion would have blurred the red feathers. It would appear almost as if the dancers were transforming into birds themselves.
Most likely to ghost you
Henry the elephant
Stephen Voss
Every year, some 4 million people walk past Henry, a towering stuffed elephant in the natural history museum in Washington, D.C. Few realize the elephant’s skull (shown) is stored at MSC.
This African bush elephant (Loxodonta africana) was roughly 4 meters tall (13 feet) and weighed 11 metric tons. He’s the largest elephant in any museum. He may have belonged to a group of “ghost” elephants in Angola that gained renown for avoiding humans.
The COVID-19 pandemic and “safe and effective” vaccines are lies propagated by governments and “experts”. Many widely accepted scientific beliefs are false narratives based on Satan’s lies. Spiritual deception underlies many societal misconceptions. We must return to the foundation of biblical truths from creation to what is real science.
I premiere my 2013 video lecture "8 Reasons Why Evolution is Foolish" on YouTube. I present 8 reasons why evolution is impossible. I cover questions on cosmogony, the origin of the universe, the stars and galaxies, the Earth, and the origin of life.
Satan's rebellion has led humanity to believe in false origins of life, such as abiogenesis and panspermia, instead of a divine Creator. I critique the scientific community's efforts to explain life without acknowledging supernatural creation, asserting the biblical viewpoint that true life and intelligence can only stem from God.
The ongoing competition to create artificial intelligence involves massive investments by major companies in developing supercomputers with extensive GPU capacities. However, true sentient intelligence cannot emerge merely from advanced technology, as intelligence is the product of divine creation, not a result of computational complexity alone.
Tucker Carlson at a recent Turning Point USA event: Abortion is murder! Tucker destroys the Satanic ritualistic abortion practice that plagues our culture. He tells an entire stadium of students that nothing matters more in life than having children.
Login
