A Great Lakes survey caught its first documented Oswego Harbor burbot—and the native fish was bright yellow from an exceptionally rare pigment condition.

The first animal named under modern zoological rules lost its original reference specimens. Drawings, anatomy, and DNA helped scientists choose a Swedish spider to anchor the name again.

A 1,700-year-old frog graveyard near Cambridge puzzled archaeologists for a decade. Bone damage, frog ages, and landscape clues point to an owl feast.

Two Florida teachers noticed a student sitting in the dirt at her bus stop. A bench, a little library and a thank-you followed.

Three Italian friends recovered Patrick Mohr’s wedding ring from a river, then traveled to Ireland dressed as hobbits to return it.

AT 2016blu keeps flaring on a roughly 113-day cycle. A carefully timed Chandra observation points to a black hole or neutron star taking material from it.

Ben Burtt combined an old projector’s hum with a buzz picked up near a television. Making the lightsaber swing took another wonderfully physical trick.

Superman’s morning routine has a wonderfully strange comics answer: heat vision and a reflective piece of the ship that brought him to Earth.

Caltech’s ASTRA robot assembled a third truss bay in orbit without astronauts. The partial success—and the unfinished antenna—shows what in-space construction can and cannot do yet.

A partial leg bone from Liang Bua, the cave famous for Homo floresiensis, identifies the largest known Megapodius—and leaves flight and extinction unsolved.