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As December arrives, Baskin-Robbins is embracing the holiday season with the return of its beloved peppermint ice cream. The ice cream shop shared a clever Instagram post announcing the comeback of this fan favorite, playing on Mariah Carey's annual ...
Peripheral nerves - the network connecting the brain, spinal cord, and central nervous system to the rest of the body - transmit sensory information, control muscle movements, and regulate automatic bodily functions. Bioelectronic devices implanted o...
Array of Deep Sea Life Is Newly Documented Several oceanic organizations are working together to more quickly describe new species through collaborative workshops, advanced imaging, and DNA analysis. "By coupling expeditions with species discover...
NASA's Perseverance Mars rover has recorded the sounds of electrical discharges — sparks — and mini-sonic booms in dust devils on Mars. This long-theorized phenomenon has now been confirmed through audio and electromagnetic recordings captured by the...
A new study found 332 types of complex sugar molecules in the seals' milk, some of which help protect young from harmful bacteria. The discovery might one day help improve human health by boosting babies' immune systems. Human breast milk has long r...
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A rhesus macaque named Forrest is settling into a new home over 990 miles from the original site of his escape in Mississippi. The young monkey spent a week on the loose after a transport truck carrying 21 monkeys from the Tulane National Primate Res...
Study may upend idea about 'mini-Neptunes' A new study finds that many mini-Neptunes—perhaps the most common planets in the galaxy—are under so much pressure from their heavy atmospheres that the surface is likely compressed solid. As telescopes...
Monk Parakeets Are Highly Social Birds, but They Slowly 'Test the Waters' When Making New Friends The bright green parrots start with low-cost social behaviors—like sitting near each other without touching—when first interacting with unfamili...
Monitoring gene activity in the brain just got a major upgrade. Rice University bioengineers have developed a novel serum marker system that can be erased in the bloodstream, enabling researchers to capture subtle changes in brain activity that previ...
Italy Recognizes Femicide as Punishable by Life in Prison In a powerful and symbolic move, Italy's parliament passed a historic law that formally recognizes femicide as a distinct criminal offense. The law, approved on the International Day for t...
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Reba McEntire recently appeared on the Today show and chatted with Savannah Guthrie about various topics, including her relationship with her fiancé, Rex Linn. However, when the discussion turned to romance, Savannah made a comment that prompted Re...
For future astronauts visiting Mars, tracking the passage of time will be more complex than simply watching a clock or marking days on a calendar. Thanks to the effects of relativity, time actually moves faster on the Red Planet compared to Earth. P...
One of the country's rarest coins is slightly rarer than even expert coin collectors believed. After the surprise discovery of a long-lost 1804 dollar (aka the "King of American Coins"), the rarity's total known count now stands at 16. Regardless of ...
How Kenya's Jailhouse Lawyer Turned a Life Sentence into a Legal Career Behind Bars From Death Row to Legal Advocate Ruth Kamande, a 30-year-old woman serving a life sentence in Kenya's Lang'ata maximum-security women's prison, has turned he...
After a month-long delay caused by the federal government shutdown, New York households can now apply with the state for a subsidy to help them pay their winter heating bills. Assistance is doled out on a first-come, first-serve basis. Nearly 1 mill...
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On Nov. 2, 2025, NASA honored 25 years of continuous human presence aboard the International Space Station. What began as a fragile framework of modules has evolved into a springboard for international cooperation, advanced scientific research and te...
Scientists Extract World's Oldest RNA from Woolly Mammoth Scientists have taken an important step towards understanding the biology of the mythical woolly mammoths that roamed the Earth thousands of years ago. For the first time, a research team ...
Stretches of turquoise beaches along the Pacific coast of Latin America attract migrating whales and beachgoers, but they have also become a dumping ground for an unwanted traveler: plastic bottles. Central America, with its dense populations and lim...
Comedian Paul F. Tompkins Settles the Cake vs. Pie Debate Comedian Paul F. Tompkins has a hilarious take on the age-old debate between cake and pie. In a clip from the Just for Laughs comedy festival, Tompkins passionately argues that cake is sup...
Touring Charleston's Historic Past Charleston, South Carolina, is a place where history feels close enough to touch. Within a few walkable cobblestoned miles, the city's story unfolds—colonial beginnings, revolutionary fervor, the rise of the pla...
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Magician Demonstrates Mind-Blowing Optical Illusion When magician/illusionist Pete Firman took to social media to demonstrate a bizarre optical illusion, many were not prepared to be so incredibly impressed... and confused. Firman captions his I...
Healthy Oceans are a Human Right Months after a container ship went down off the coast of India, toxic pollution still contaminates the water and plastic pellets continue to wash ashore. Cleanup efforts persist, fishing restrictions remain in pla...
Rather than big bolts of lightning as seen on Earth, NASA's Perseverance rover recorded audio of small zaps similar to those from static electricity :focal(1047x698:1048x699)/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/filer_public/2a...
Has the World Become Less Grumpy? A global survey on emotional health shows people, generally, are cheering up. "The study tracks the emotions that people experience on any given day, such as anger, sadness, laughter and enjoyment." Numbers incre...
Medieval Shipwreck Mistaken for Underwater 'Rubbish' After centuries at the bottom of the English Channel, remnants from one of England's oldest surviving shipwrecks are finally back on shore. Yet the reason it took maritime archaeologists this l...
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A Man Discovered a Letter His Wife Hid for 56 Years Writing a letter was once a lost art form. You had to choose your words carefully and say everything you wanted to say. Once sent, there was no way to be sure it was delivered or read. One story...
Five Big Moments When Your Brain Dramatically Changes A team from Cambridge's MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit analyzed MRI diffusion scans from 3,802 individuals ranging from newborns to 90 years old. These scans track the movement of water...
The two subspecies split about 20,000 years ago. But since then, they may have interbred more often than Smithsonian scientists thought By Mary Randolph - Staff Contributor December 1, 2025 9:00 a.m. :focal(2500x1786:2501x1787)/https://tf-cmsv...
Octopuses Use Arms to Sense Seafloor Microbiomes From the beginning of life on Earth, microbes have shaped the environment that animals must adapt to in order to survive. Distinct microbial populations, known as microbiomes, inhabit nearly every ...
Long-term Memory Formed by Molecular Timers, Not On/Off Switch Brain researchers have long known that the model for studying memory oversimplified the complex processes the brain uses to decide what to keep and for how long. A new study has demon...
Brightcast is dedicated to restoring faith in humanity by highlighting the progress, solutions, and kindness that often go unnoticed. We believe in a balanced worldview.
Read our full mission →
Orlando Bloom and Katy Perry split in July after nearly a decade together. The pair has an on-again, off-again relationship that gave them a daughter, Daisy Dove, in August of 2020. Orlando also has a son, 14-year-old Flynn, whom he shares with his e...
'We need to speak collectively': can parliament solve the problem of 'deprivation bingo' in the UK's seaside towns? It is a lovely sunny autumn day in Ramsgate on Britain's Kent coast, and quintessential seaside chippy Peter's Fish Factory is doi...
Neo-Nazis Unwittingly Raise Over $12,000 for Anti-Hate Programs In preparation for an upcoming neo-Nazi march in the small Bavarian town of Wunsiedel, local residents decided to fight back in a hilariously perfect way: by sponsoring each of the 2...
Archaeologists have completed a long-running and award-winning excavation at the 12th-century historic center of Třebíč in Moravia, Czech Republic. The findings from this three-year project are shedding new light on daily life in the medieval settlem...
Your happiness and self-fulfillment might have a direct impact on how creative you are, according to new research. Researchers from the University of Georgia Mary Frances Early College of Education found that positive emotions can translate to increa...
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Cleveland's Beloved Ancient Sea Monster Was More Turtle Than Shark About 360 million years ago, present-day Cleveland was home to a fearsome predator. But this giant did not stalk prey on land. Instead, the 14-foot-long Dunkleosteus terrelli sw...
Gramma, a Galápagos tortoise, recently passed away at the estimated age of 141 years in the San Diego Zoo. Her life story reflects the dramatic changes that have occurred in the Galápagos Islands over the past centuries. When Gramma hatched on one o...
Ten years after Bindi Irwin won the Mirrorball Trophy on Dancing with the Stars, the Irwin family took home a second championship. Robert Irwin and Witney Carson danced their way into America's hearts this season on DWTS. People couldn't help but fal...
Generation X, born between 1965 and 1980, has many claims to fame from their younger years. Gen X brought the world Prince and Kurt Cobain. They were The Goonies and The Breakfast Club, taking down the Berlin Wall while watching MTV. Perhaps the mos...
Hugh Grant and Renée Zellweger Reunite for "Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy" Nine years after their work on the Bridget Jones films, actors Hugh Grant and Renée Zellweger have reunited for a piece in British Vogue. The two reflected on their tim...