PC: A worker cleans a mosaic floor uncovered during archaeological excavations at Villa Celimontana in Rome, Italy. Reuters Archaeologists in Rome have uncovered a second-century building featuring mosaics and painted ceilings in the Villa Celimontana park, close to the Colosseum, that may once have served as barracks for the city’s ancient firefighters. Five of the…

A nuclear power plant is hardly the first place that comes to mind when thinking about wildlife refuges. Yet around Turkey Point, south of Miami, American crocodiles have made themselves at home in a vast network of artificial canals built for the plant. The waterways have become an important habitat for a species that once…

Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, has liquid rain, rivers and seas much like Earth, except its clouds are made of methane rather than water vapour. Planetary scientists studying the moon found that its rainstorms are far more extreme than anyone had anticipated. Vast stretches of the moon sit dry for long spells before being struck by…

Galileo Galilei, whose studies of falling bodies and accelerated motion laid the groundwork for the principle later demonstrated by Apollo 15 on the Moon. Image Credits: Wikimedia Commons. Two people can be equally skilled at the same subject and end up producing very different amounts of lasting work. One treats the subject as a career,…

For most people, conservation is associated with large mammals, forests or national parks. Phil Pister spent his life proving that the survival of tiny desert fish could matter just as much. The California fisheries biologist became known for an extraordinary moment in 1969 when he realised that the last remaining Owens pupfish were in immediate…