The ‘oldest octopus’ in the world isn’t an octopus after all, scientists find

by News Feed Editor | Apr 9, 2026 | Science

The story of a 300-million-year-old fossil has been rewritten after scientists discovered that it doesn’t actually belong to the world’s oldest octopus as previously thought.In fact, it belongs to an animal related to a modern nautilus, which has tentacles and an...

A tiny experiment using Artemis II astronaut cells could reshape medicine

by News Feed Editor | Apr 9, 2026 | Science

Subscribe to The Post Most newsletter for the most important and interesting stories from The Washington Post. As the four Artemis II astronauts looped around the moon this week before their return trip to Earth, so did four transparent chips, each about the size of a...

Iran war puts focus on petrochemicals used in numerous products and a driver of climate change

by News Feed Editor | Apr 9, 2026 | Science

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — The Iran war has exposed deep vulnerability in the global economy: dependence not just on oil, gas and coal for fuel, but on petrochemicals that underpin everything from food production to plastic packaging.As disruptions ripple through energy...

Creature thought to be world’s oldest octopus isn’t an octopus after all

by News Feed Editor | Apr 9, 2026 | Science

A prehistoric fossil previously thought to belong to the world’s oldest octopus has been reclassified as something else, after scientists discovered the remains actually belonged to a different type of sea creature.”It turns out the world’s most...

These two iconic polar species have been driven to endangered status by a warming planet

by News Feed Editor | Apr 9, 2026 | Science

Climate change is pushing two iconic Antarctic species toward the brink of extinction — the emperor penguin and the Antarctic fur seal, a new assessment finds. The new listings, published Wednesday by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, cite...

Would you go to the moon? Board an alien spacecraft? What nearly 80 years of polls say about US attitudes on space

by News Feed Editor | Apr 9, 2026 | Science

Americans’ opinion of space exploration is pretty high.In an Ipsos poll conducted last week just after the launch of Artemis II, US adults say, 62% to 34%, that the benefits of NASA sending people into space are worth the costs, with nearly identical levels of support...