Elizabeth Rayne

Elizabeth Rayne

Elizabeth Rayne is a creature who writes. Her work has appeared on SYFY WIRE, Space.com, Live Science, Grunge, Den of Geek, and Forbidden Futures. She lurks right outside New York City with her parrot, Lestat. When not writing, she is either shapeshifting, drawing, or cosplaying as a character nobody has ever heard of. Follow her on Threads and Instagram @quothravenrayne.

Recent stories by Elizabeth Rayne

A hummingbird sits on a branch in front of green foliage. It has a blue head and white breast.

Newly hatched hummingbird looks, acts like a toxic caterpillar

"Batesian mimicry" is when a species evolves to look like one that's inedible.

Elizabeth Rayne – 4/4/2025 | 39

A skate, a flat fish with a broad, rounded body and a long spike for a tail. It rests on a sandy bottom studded with small aquatic plants.

We probably inherited our joints from… a fish

Cartilaginous fish form the same style of joint that we do, while jawless fish don't.

Elizabeth Rayne – 3/21/2025 | 59

Image of two large reptiles in a swampy environment with lots of trees. The animals and trees are nothing like today's suggesting a scene from the distant past.

Even the worst mass extinction had its oases

Plants thrived in present-day China throughout the End-Permian extinction.

Elizabeth Rayne – 3/18/2025 | 34

Image of a yellow, white, and brown bird sitting on a tree branch with a green, leafy backdrop. The bird has unusually long feathers in its tail.

Flashy exotic birds can actually glow in the dark

The birds, known for their showy displays, look even more colorful than we thought.

Elizabeth Rayne – 2/23/2025 | 30

A mantis shrimp, notable for having vibrant coloration and a lot of body segments, moves across the ocean floor.

The seemingly indestructible fists of the mantis shrimp can take a punch

Specialized structures in the animal's claws can seemingly absorb impact.

Elizabeth Rayne – 2/22/2025 | 65

Two bright red and yellow parrots sitting on a tree branch facing each other, with green foliage in the background.

Parrots struggle when told to do something other than mimic their peers

When it comes to meaningless gestures, macaws try to follow the crowd.

Elizabeth Rayne – 2/6/2025 | 24

Image of an excavated area deep below ground, with some machinery furthering the excavation.

Life is thriving in the subsurface depths of Earth

Different species thrive beneath the oceans than under the land.

Elizabeth Rayne – 1/20/2025 | 49

Manta rays feed in Hanifaru Marine Protected Area near the island of Dharavandhoo in Baa Atoll in the Maldives.

Manta rays inspire faster swimming robots and better water filters

Efficient swimming and feeding make the creatures a model for human machines.

Elizabeth Rayne – 12/31/2024 | 40

Frogfish reveals how it evolved the “fishing rod” on its head

Specialized neurons have evolved to make the "bait" wiggle like prey.

Elizabeth Rayne – 12/30/2024 | 23

Business commuters waiting in line

When does your brain think something is worth the wait?

People with brain injuries differ in their ability to figure out when waiting pays.

Elizabeth Rayne – 12/30/2024 | 22

Young woman is eating cheese pizza with pleasure

Craving carbs? Blame an ancient gene.

We, Neanderthals, and Denisovans all have extra copies of a starch-digesting enzyme.

Elizabeth Rayne – 12/27/2024 | 107

artist's conception of a greenish reptile with a long body and tail, next to a brown rock containing its fossil.

Lizards and snakes are 35 million years older than we thought

Reanalysis of a fossil finds that reptiles' traits go back earlier than we thought.

Elizabeth Rayne – 12/6/2024 | 43

Image of a translucent creature with bright internal organs against a black background.

Researchers finally identify the ocean’s “mystery mollusk”

It's a nudibranch, but so distantly related that it gets its own phylogenetic family.

Elizabeth Rayne – 12/2/2024 | 33

Artists conception of two black holes, both appearing as dark spots in the center of spirals of gas.

Supermassive black hole binary emits unexpected flares

Their orbit periodically takes them through a cloud of gas, triggering flares.

Elizabeth Rayne – 12/1/2024 | 55

Image of a moss-covered forest floor with a single mushroom in it.

Fungi may not think, but they can communicate

Fungi form distinct networks depending on how food sources are arranged.

Elizabeth Rayne – 11/2/2024 | 45

Image of an orange and tan fish with broad fins and small legs.

Bizarre fish has sensory “legs” it uses for walking and tasting

Some sea robin species can use their legs to sense prey.

Elizabeth Rayne – 10/18/2024 | 31

Diagram of the Solar System, showing the orbits of some planets, the Kuiper Belt, and New Horizons' path among them.

New Kuiper Belt objects lurk farther away than we ever thought

Our Solar System's Kuiper Belt appears to be substantially larger than we thought.

Elizabeth Rayne – 10/4/2024 | 87

A man stands next to piles of compressed plastic bottles.

Vaporizing plastics recycles them into nothing but gas

Polypropylene and polyethylene can be broken down simultaneously.

Elizabeth Rayne – 9/21/2024 | 179

A five-armed starfish, with orange and yellow colors, stretched out across a coral.

A single peptide helps starfish get rid of a limb when attacked

A signaling molecule that's so potent injected animals may drop more than one limb.

Elizabeth Rayne – 9/14/2024 | 43

Image of a white planet with small patches of blue against a black background.

Evidence of “snowball Earth” found in ancient rocks

An outcrop in Scotland has material from when the Earth went into a deep freeze.

Elizabeth Rayne – 9/13/2024 | 93

Graphic of a spacecraft above a grey planetary body, with a distant sun in the background.

Meteorites give the Moon its extremely thin atmosphere

Impacts that vaporize bits of the lunar surface maintain the Moon's thin atmosphere.

Elizabeth Rayne – 8/17/2024 | 77

Image of a small grey object, curved around its abdomen, with a series of small appendages on the bottom.

520-million-year-old larva fossil reveals the origins of arthropods

Early arthropod development illuminated by a microscopic fossil.

Elizabeth Rayne – 8/11/2024 | 41

A hand holding a microphone against a blurry backdrop, taken from an angle that implies the microphone is directly in front of your face.

Karaoke reveals why we blush

Volunteers watched their own performances as an MRI tracked brain activity.

Elizabeth Rayne – 8/1/2024 | 34

Image of three planets on a black background, with the two on the left being mostly white, indicating an icy composition. The one on the right is much smaller, and represents Earth.

Mini-Neptune turned out to be a frozen super-Earth

The density makes it look like a water world, but its dim host star keeps it cool.

Elizabeth Rayne – 7/20/2024 | 96

Seismic data shows Mars is often pummeled by planet-shaking meteorites

Seismic information now allows us to make a planet-wide estimate of impact rates.

Elizabeth Rayne – 7/16/2024 | 47

Greyscale image of an adult skeleton in a fetal position, framed by vertical rocks.

Egalitarian oddity found in the Neolithic

Men, women, and immigrants all seemed to have similar dietary inputs.

Elizabeth Rayne – 7/6/2024 | 134

Image with a black background, large purple streaks, and a handful of bright blue objects.

Swarm of dusty young stars found around our galaxy’s central black hole

Stars shouldn't form that close to the black hole, so these would need explaining.

Elizabeth Rayne – 7/4/2024 | 53

Image of a greenish creature with a long stalk and tentacles, against a black background.

How do brainless creatures control their appetites?

Separate systems register when the animals have eaten and control feeding behaviors.

Elizabeth Rayne – 6/15/2024 | 38

A small animal with spiky fur and a long snout strides over grey soil.

Bizarre egg-laying mammals once ruled Australia—then lost their teeth

Finds may indicate what the common ancestor of the platypus and echidna looked like.

Elizabeth Rayne – 6/7/2024 | 58

Image of a feathered dinosaur against a white background.

Dinosaurs needed to be cold enough that being warm-blooded mattered

Two groups of dinosaurs moved to cooler climes during a period of climate change.

Elizabeth Rayne – 5/28/2024 | 82

The head and forelimbs of a green, brown, and yellow lizard on a rock.

Lizard that Hulks out shows off its superhero genes

A subspecies of reptiles in Italy is much bigger and greener than its relatives.

Elizabeth Rayne – 5/22/2024 | 8

Grey image of a complicated surface composed of many small rocks bound together by dust.

How the perils of space have affected asteroid Ryugu

Ryugu's parent body appears to have had a fair amount of water present, too.

Elizabeth Rayne – 5/19/2024 | 38

Image of a galaxy showing lots of complicated filaments of gas.

Monster galactic outflow powered by exploding stars

Star death and birth both contribute to driving material out of a galaxy.

Elizabeth Rayne – 5/12/2024 | 16

Image of the moon.

How the Moon got a makeover

The Moon's former surface sank to the depths, until volcanism brought it back.

Elizabeth Rayne – 5/11/2024 | 26

Image of a planet on a dark background, with an iridescent circle on the right side of the planet.

Glow of an exoplanet may be from starlight reflecting off liquid iron

A phenomenon called a "glory" may be happening on a hellishly hot giant planet.

Elizabeth Rayne – 5/4/2024 | 59

A long, rectangular stone building.

Mayans burned and buried dead political regimes

After burning, the remains were dumped in construction fill.

Elizabeth Rayne – 5/3/2024 | 30

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