An iceberg nearly the size of Greater London broke off the Brunt Ice Shelf in Antarctica on Sunday according to the British Antarctic Survey.Scientists first discovered significant cracks in the ice shelf a decade ago, but in the last two…
A nuclear thermal rocket engine in development could one day transport humans to Mars.The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, a research arm of the US Department of Defense, and NASA are setting their sights on a type of rocket engine…
The Doomsday Clock has been ticking for 76 years. But it's no ordinary clock.It attempts to gauge how close humanity is to destroying the world.On Tuesday, the clock was set at 90 seconds until midnight — the closest to the…
It turns out burps can be big business. Billionaire Bill Gates has announced an investment in Australian start-up Rumin8, which is developing a seaweed-based feed to reduce the methane emissions cows produce through their burps and, to a lesser extent,…
During a recent excursion to the icy plains of Antarctica, an international team of researchers discovered five new meteorites — including one of the largest ever found on the continent.The rare meteorite is about the size of a cantaloupe but…
The James Webb Space Telescope peered inside a wispy molecular cloud located 630 light-years away and spied ices made of different elements.Molecular clouds are interstellar groupings of gas and dust where hydrogen and carbon monoxide molecules can form. Dense clumps…
From a deer's elaborate branching antlers to the fiddler crab's oversize claw, the animal kingdom is full of flashy features used in combat to help secure a mate.A team of researchers announced last week that it has found the earliest…
In its violent early years, Earth was a molten hellscape that ejected the moon after a fiery collision with another protoplanet, scientists now suspect. Later, it morphed from a watery expanse to a giant snowball that nearly snuffed out all…
To pry open the mysteries of our planet's past, scientists typically study rocks and fossilized bones.Eggs are an often overlooked but extremely rich source of information, with birds, reptiles, dinosaurs and a few oddball mammals laying them on land for…
South Korea's first lunar probe has returned some striking images of Earth and the moon.The Korean Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter began orbiting the moon in December after the Korea Aerospace Research Institute's spacecraft had launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket…
In the largest DNA analysis of its kind, scientists have found evidence to suggest that historic plague pandemics, such as the Black Death, were not caused by newly evolved strains of bacteria but ones that could have emerged up to…
Chris Hipkins, New Zealand's education minister, is bidding to replace Jacinda Ardern as prime minister, after her shock resignation announcement earlier this week.Hipkins emerged as the only candidate to be nominated for the leadership of the ruling Labour party on…
Scientists were able to create a virtual lightning rod using a large, powerful laser atop a mountain in Switzerland, successfully diverting the path of lightning strikes.Lightning deflection technology hasn't changed much since Ben Franklin invented the lightning rod in 1752.…
A man who spent 24 days adrift in the Caribbean Sea says he survived by eating little more than ketchup.Elvis Francois, 47, was found 120 nautical miles northwest of Colombia's Puerto Bolívar after a plane saw the word "help" engraved…
Climate change is sending the world hurtling towards a series of catastrophic tipping points, which risk setting off feedback loops that lock the world into irreversible climate change. That's the bad news.The good news, however, is that there is also…
A new survey of the Milky Way galaxy has unveiled 3.3 billion celestial objects.Our galaxy is brimming with hundreds of billions of stars, dark pillars of dust and gas, and gleaming stellar nurseries where stars are born. Now, astronomers have…
The world's population of North Atlantic right whales has been decimated in recent years by human-caused vessel strikes and rope entanglements, and now another member of this rare species faces the same fate.A 4-year-old female right whale found heavily entangled…
SpaceX fired a new GPS satellite into orbit on behalf of the US military on Wednesday, continuing an effort to bolster the constellation of global positioning and navigation satellites that underpin smartphone apps, wartime operations and more.The GPS satellite launched…
Paleontologists working in central India have made a rare discovery — a fossilized dinosaur hatchery with 92 nests and 256 eggs belonging to colonies of giant plant-eating titanosaurs.A study of the nests and their bowling ball-size eggs has revealed intimate…
Australia's echidna has developed a curious way to cool off — blowing bubbles out of its beaklike snout.The short-beaked echidna is common across Australia, Tasmania and New Guinea and along with the platypus, it's one of Earth's few monotremes —…
