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By Taylor Nicioli, CNN (CNN) — Research vessel Blue Heron trawls the Great Lakes, gathering data from the water. The floating laboratory’s most recent discovery, however, came from an unexpected location: its own rudder. While docked after a long cruise to study algae blooms in lakes Erie and Superior in September, the crew noticed a

By Katie Hunt, CNN (CNN) — Scientists are exploring ways to mimic the origins of human life without two fundamental components: sperm and egg. They are coaxing clusters of stem cells – programmable cells that can transform into many different specialized cell types – to form laboratory-grown structures that resemble human embryos. These embryo models

By Laura Paddison, CNN (CNN) — Iran’s capital Tehran could be weeks away from “day zero,” experts say — the day when taps run dry for large parts of the city — as the country suffers a severe water crisis. Key reservoirs are shrinking, authorities are scrambling to reduce water consumption and residents are desperately

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — A first-of-its-kind satellite has launched to track nearly imperceptible changes on Earth’s surface, an effort that could aid with responses to natural disasters. Called the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar mission, or NISAR, the spacecraft is equipped with two kinds of synthetic aperture radar designed by the US space agency

By Ella Nilsen, Andrew Freedman, CNN (CNN) — In one of its most significant reversals on climate policy to-date, the Trump administration on Tuesday proposed to repeal a 2009 scientific finding that human-caused climate change endangers human health and safety, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced. If successful, the repeal could strip away the federal government’s

By Lianne Kolirin, CNN (CNN) — A 4,000-year-old handprint has been discovered on a clay model used for offerings in an Ancient Egyptian tomb. Researchers from Cambridge University’s Fitzwilliam Museum, in the United Kingdom, stumbled upon the imprint while preparing for an exhibition, which is set to open this fall. It was found on the

By Katie Hunt, CNN (CNN) — Neanderthals had a voracious appetite for meat. They hunted big game and chowed down on woolly mammoth steak as they huddled around a fire. Or so thought many archaeologists who study the Stone Age. Fresh meat was far from the only thing on the menu, according to a growing

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — The asteroid known as 2024 YR4 is out of sight yet still very much on scientists’ minds. The building-sized object, which initially appeared to be on a potential collision course with Earth, is currently zooming beyond the reach of telescopes on its orbit around the sun. But as scientists

By Laura Paddison, CNN (CNN) — The soupy, smothering extreme heat that has scorched parts of the Northern Hemisphere this summer takes a hard toll on our bodies. It can make you feel nauseous, woozy and dehydrated. It can have pernicious health effects on multiple organs. But there’s another, less well-known, impact of extreme heat:

By Kameryn Griesser, CNN (CNN) — Paleontologists have discovered remarkable fossils in the Grand Canyon that reveal fresh details about the emergence of complex life half a billion years ago. The newfound remains of fauna from the region suggest that it offered ideal conditions for life to flourish and diversify, in a “Goldilocks zone” between

By Jack Guy, CNN (CNN) — Archaeologists have discovered the remains of a medieval knight, buried under a shuttered ice cream parlor in the Polish city of Gdańsk. Experts have been working at the site in the historic Śródmieście (city center) district since 2023, and initially uncovered a medieval tombstone decorated with the carved image

By Mindy Weisberger, CNN (CNN) — Lesser known than some other beloved tales of larger-than-life heroes such as Gilgamesh, Beowulf and King Arthur, the Song of Wade is a case study in what happens when stories aren’t written down. The epic was once widely known throughout medieval and Renaissance England — so popular that it

By Jack Guy, CNN (CNN) — A Ceratosaurus fossil that is one of only four known to exist has sold for $30.5 million at auction. The rare dinosaur fossil is “one of the finest and most complete examples of its kind ever found,” auction house Sotheby’s said in a statement published Wednesday. The specimen, which

By Jacopo Prisco, CNN (CNN) — A collision observed between two black holes, each more massive than a hundred suns, is the largest merger of its kind ever recorded, according to new research. A team of astronomers discovered the event, dubbed GW231123, when the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) — a pair of identical instruments

By Katie Hunt, CNN (CNN) — Scientists have recovered ancient proteins from a fossilized rhinoceros tooth, breaking new ground in the study of ancient life on Earth. The 24 million-year-old tooth, which was unearthed in the Canadian Arctic, contains proteins that are 10 times older than the most ancient known DNA. Using the sample, scientists

By Jack Guy, CNN (CNN) — A meteorite that is the largest known piece of Mars on Earth is expected to fetch up to $4 million when it goes up for auction at Sotheby’s. Known as NWA 16788, the meteorite weighs 54 pounds (24.5 kilograms), massive compared with most Martian meteorites, which tend to be

By Gina Park, CNN (CNN) — Skygazers can look toward the horizon this week to catch a glimpse of the full moon around its peak illumination. This month’s full moon, also called the buck moon, will be at its fullest at around 4:37 p.m. ET on Thursday, according to EarthSky. That is, of course, during

By Kameryn Griesser, CNN (CNN) — Hundreds of millions of flies dropping from planes in the sky might sound like a horrible nightmare, but experts say such a swarm could be the livestock industry’s best defense against a flesh-eating threat poised to invade the southwestern border of the United States. An outbreak of New World

By Jacopo Prisco, CNN (CNN) — A galaxy that has remained unchanged for 7 billion years — a rarity in the universe — has been observed by astronomers, offering a glimpse into cosmic history and adding to an enigmatic collection of objects called relics or “fossil galaxies.” These space oddities are galaxies that, after an

By Olivia Kemp, CNN (CNN) — An ancient Peruvian city that was a thriving hub of trade more than 3,000 years ago has been unveiled by archaeologists. Peñico is located in the Huaura province, north of the capital Lima, according to the Ministry of Culture in a press release sent to CNN. In what was

CNN By Renée Rigdon, Angela Fritz, CNN (CNN) — The waterways in Texas Hill Country have carved paths over the centuries through the granite and limestone, shaping the rocky peaks and valleys that make the region so breathtaking. When too much rain falls for the ground to absorb, it runs downhill, pulled by gravity into

By Katie Hunt, CNN (CNN) — Stone Age humans living by a lake in what’s now Germany systematically processed animal carcasses for fatty nutrients — essentially running what scientists describe as a “fat factory” to boil bones on a vast scale, according to new research. Archaeologists uncovered the factory by analyzing some 120,000 bone fragments

By Ella Nilsen, Rene Marsh, CNN (CNN) — The Environmental Protection Agency has placed roughly 140 employees on administrative leave days after they signed a public letter expressing concern about the treatment of federal employees and the Trump administration’s regulations on climate and public health. The EPA is conducting an “administrative investigation” into the employees,

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — A newly discovered object speeding through our solar system is sparking excitement among astronomers because it’s not from around here. Believed to be a comet, the object is only the third celestial body from beyond our solar system ever to be observed in our corner of the universe. This

By Ella Nilsen, CNN (CNN) — The visitors who trek to America’s national parks are already noticing the changes, just months after President Donald Trump took office. “I’ve been visiting national parks for 30 years and never has the presence of rangers been so absent,” one visitor to Zion National Park wrote in National Parks

By Laura Paddison, Mitchell McCluskey, CNN (CNN) — A brutal heat wave is gripping many parts of Europe, leaving millions of people struggling to adapt to punishing, record-breaking temperatures. Heat persists even at night, with temperatures in some places not dipping much below 90 degrees. There is little respite. Air conditioning is very rare in

By Andrew Freedman, CNN (CNN) — The Trump administration’s proposed budget seeks to shut down the laboratory atop a peak in Hawaii where scientists have gathered the most conclusive evidence of human-caused climate change since the 1950s. The Mauna Loa laboratory in Hawaii has measured atmospheric carbon dioxide, which — along with other planet-warming pollution

By Jacopo Prisco, CNN (CNN) — Astronomers in Australia picked up a strange radio signal in June 2024 — one near our planet and so powerful that, for a moment, it outshined everything else in the sky. The ensuing search for its source has sparked new questions around the growing problem of debris in Earth’s

By Ella Nilsen, Matt Egan, CNN (CNN) — Business groups and clean-energy developers are apoplectic over a last-minute provision tucked into President Donald Trump’s spending bill that will tax the solar and wind industry, making it much harder to get new, cheap electricity onto the grid. Senate Republicans revealed an entirely new tax for renewable

By Katie Hunt, CNN (CNN) — A rocky outcrop in a remote corner of northern Quebec appears serene in its eerie isolation on the eastern shore of Canada’s Hudson Bay. But over the past two decades, this exposed remnant of ancient ocean floor, known as the Nuvvuagittuq Greenstone Belt, has been a heated scientific battleground