By Elizabeth Pennisi, ScienceNOW

Buried beneath the leathery skin of an elephant’s foot lies one of anatomy’s unappreciated mysteries. Three hundred years ago, a surgeon claimed elephants had six toes instead of the usual five, setting off a debate about whether an extra digit was really possible. Modern anatomists scoffed at the idea, insisting instead that the extra toe was really just a big lump of cartilage. Now a study of scores of elephant feet shows that the lump really does turn into bone. The digit is not a true toe — it’s more like a panda’s faux thumb. But it nonetheless helps suppor...

The first trailer for Ridley Scott’s Alien spinoff Prometheus wastes no time pushing “What the hell?” buttons: A spaceship floats through space, someone in a spacesuit lifts a glob of goo, a woman collapses to her knees screaming, and — in case that doesn’t catch your attention — Charlize Theron does push-ups.

Scott made his intentions for Prometheus clear this summer at Comic-Con International, when he told a crowd of geeks, “Of course, what I want to do is scare the living shit out of you.”

The new teaser, with its ominous music and stark astro-horror imagery, strikes the same tone (as does...