For the first time ever, scientists received a signal after sending laser beams from Earth to a reflector on NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter around the moon. The successful signal was received after multiple attempts over the last decade, and the results of the study could complement future laser experiments used to study space. A laser…

Woolly rhinos went extinct at the end of the last ice age in Siberia about 14,000 years ago, and now ancient DNA is helping to shed light on what really happened to them and other large mammals. Previously, it was believed that humans hunted these giant animals as they spread across the globe. But new…

A new report released Wednesday details how 2019 was another year of extremes for Earth’s climate, adding to a litany of evidence exposing the grim reality of our warming world. Last year saw devastating wildfires burn through Australia; large regions including Europe, Japan, Pakistan, and India experienced deadly heat waves; almost 100 tropical cyclones created…

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Our Milky Way galaxy has a bit of a look-alike in an unlikely place: the early universe. Astronomers used ALMA, or the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array of telescopes, based in Chile, to find the galaxy located more than 12 billion light-years away from our own. That means the light from this galaxy has traveled for…

Ceres is a dwarf planet and the largest known object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. And now we know it may be an ocean world with intriguing geologic activity taking place on and just below its surface, according to new research. While this global ocean beneath the planet’s surface likely froze over…

New Zealand’s most populous city has gone back under lockdown after new locally transmitted coronavirus cases broke the 102-day streak the country had gone without recording a local infection. New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern confirmed four new locally transmitted coronavirus cases on Tuesday night, and announced that Auckland will temporarily see level three restrictions…

The Perseid meteor shower, one of the most popular meteor showers of the year, will face some competition from the moon this year during its peak. The shower will peak with the most number of meteors during the late evening hours of August 11 and early morning hours of August 12 — which coincides with…

A doctor in England wanted to prove that face masks won’t impair your oxygen levels. So he ran for 22 miles while wearing one. Throughout his running journey, Tom Lawton used a pulse oximeter to monitor his oxygen levels. The medical device measures the saturation of oxygen in a person’s red blood cells and typically…

The main opposition candidate in Belarus’ Sunday presidential election went into hiding the night before challenging longtime leader Alexander Lukashenko, who is seeking his sixth term. Svetlana Tikhanovskaya’s campaign said she fled her apartment due to safety reasons after police detained several of its senior staffers, in what critics called an attempt to intimidate the…

Brazil surpassed 100,000 deaths from Covid-19 on Saturday as cases exceeded 3 million, according to the latest numbers by the country’s Health Ministry. The fatalities milestone comes less than five months after Brazil recorded its first Covid-19-related death. The ministry said 100,477 people have lost their lives and 3,012,412 have been infected. In the last…

As a grieving Beirut rebuilds its homes, businesses and lives, some Good Samaritans are making sure that one group of vulnerable residents are not forgotten. More than 190 volunteers have been scouring the streets of the blast-damaged city for lost pets. They search for animals trapped in the rubble, tend to the injured and care…

The glass and debris from Tuesday’s explosion in Beirut injured Imad Khalil and Lina Alameh, but both say they are lucky to be alive. The husband and wife now lay in a local hospital room, together, recovering from the glass and debris that tore through their apartment — and them. Lina needed three hours of…

Doctored videos of Tuesday’s devastating explosion in Beirut are already circulating on every major social media platform. In videos originally shot by both CNN and eyewitnesses in the Lebanese capital, footage of a rising smoke plume at Beirut Port was inverted and made to look like a “negative.” In addition, a missile-like object was superimposed…

For more than a hundred years, the fossil of the Tanystropheus has puzzled scientists. The strange reptile — resembling a real-life Loch Ness Monster or a prehistoric crocodile crossed with a giraffe — was first described in 1852 and first reconstructed in 1973. Palaeontologists have long known that the species once lived in Switzerland’s Monte…

The Canadian government will allow four patients with incurable cancer to receive psilocybin therapy, which uses the drug found in the so-called “magic mushrooms” or “shrooms,” to ease their end-of-life distress. The landmark decision by Minister of Health Patty Hajdu, marks the first time since 1974 that a legal exemption has been given in Canada…

At least 100 people are dead and 4,000 wounded following an explosion in Lebanon’s capital city of Beirut. While it is still unclear what caused the explosion, the city is decimated with thousands of residents left homeless, a medical system already strained from coronavirus and up to $5 billion worth of damage. You can help…

Satellite imaging has revealed that there are nearly 20% more emperor penguin colonies in Antarctica than previously thought. However, while the discovery has been welcomed, the previously undiscovered animals will act as “canaries in the coalmine” when it comes to studying the impact of global warming, experts have said. Scientists discovered 11 new colonies, meaning…

A school that said a student couldn’t attend classes if she didn’t cut her dreadlocks did not infringe on the child’s constitutional rights, the Supreme Court of Jamaica ruled Friday. The issue began in July 2018 when Kensington Primary School asked the mother of a 5-year-old — identified as ZV since she’s a minor —…

An American woman’s TikTok guide to making hot tea that went viral in June had Brits tut-tutting in horror over their morning cuppa — largely because of the controversial use of a microwave rather than a kettle to heat water. The spat over the best way to brew tea boiled over into a transatlantic incident,…

Two more teenagers, between the ages of 14 and 17, have died from Covid-19 in Florida — bringing the total deaths of children and teens in the state to seven. More than 38,000 minors have contracted the coronavirus in Florida, a hotpot of the pandemic in the United States. The deaths are a reminder that while…

They were looked upon as examples of how to deal with the coronavirus, hailed for their no-nonsense approach, their clear messaging, their slick test-and-trace regimes, and the resulting low infection and death rates. But now even countries celebrated for their handling of the pandemic are seeing a resurgence in Covid-19 cases. Take Australia: Five million…

Thousands of light years away, there’s a “space butterfly” colored with brilliant blues and clouds of purple and red. It’s an image we’ve never seen in this much detail before. So named for its resemblance to the winged insect, the “butterfly” is actually a planetary nebula — a giant cloud of gas that forms around…

A large crowd of far-right groups gathered for a “sit-in” at Berlin’s iconic Brandenburg Gate on Saturday to protest against the German government’s coronavirus restrictions. A march earlier Saturday that was criticized by police for not adhering to rules on social distancing and face masks was halted by organizers. The march, which was named by…

When NASA’s Perseverance rover touches down on Mars in February 2021, the mission will spend the next two years exploring one of the oldest and most intriguing sites on the red planet: Jezero Crater. It’s the site of an ancient lake bed and river delta that existed between 3 and 4 billion years ago —…

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When you think about cyber espionage, the Vatican doesn’t come to mind as an obvious target. It’s a tiny country whose leader has more moral authority than worldly power. But China and the Vatican are expected to begin sensitive negotiations in September to a renew a secret deal over control of the Catholic Church in…

Just when it seemed that Europe was getting to grips with the coronavirus pandemic, Covid-19 appears to be spreading again. Germany’s center for disease control, the Robert Koch Institute, said this week that a recent spike in cases was “very disturbing.” In France, new daily cases have crept back to the same level as when…

After years of designing, building, planning and testing, the NASA Perseverance rover’s launch readiness review has concluded, and it’s a go for launch on July 30. Perseverance is armed with a multitude of new capabilities and instruments to explore and experience the red planet. The rover is designed to determine whether life existed on ancient…

Humans can go without food for about three weeks before the effects of starvation begin to kill them. Some microbes deep underneath the seafloor have us beat: They can survive with barely any sustenance for more than 100 million years. These microorganisms live more than 18,000 feet underneath the ocean surface — in an area…

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has beamed back an amazing photo showing summertime on Saturn. Hubble captured the image on July 4, when the giant planet was 839 million miles from Earth, according to a statement from NASA released Thursday. It shows what summertime is like in Saturn’s northern hemisphere, which is pointed toward Earth, and…

Exposed to a sick American bullfrog tadpole, a healthy tadpole will do its best to stay away. Garden ants and even lobsters also know to stay away when one of their own is sick. These animals are better at social distancing than we are. For many humans, social distancing feels like the most unnatural thing…

The World Health Organization chief attacked US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s “unacceptable” claims that the Director-General had been “bought” by China and said countries should focus on saving lives during the coronavirus pandemic, in one of his strongest rebuttals to date against criticism from the United States. Pompeo made the claim about Tedros Adhanom…

The question is not whether Russia and China will try to influence Western elections — it’s whether Western governments have the wit and will to do something about it. In Washington, Democrats are warning of a fresh Russian effort to interfere in the upcoming US election with the apparent goal of helping President Donald Trump…

Humans aren’t the only creatures who love leftovers. It turns out foxes during the Ice Age had a craving for them, too. Arctic foxes ate food scraps left by humans around 42,000 years ago, according to a new study published Wednesday in PLOS ONE journal. Researchers studied fox remains dating back to the ice age…

Scientists have discovered evidence that may push back the timeline for humans living in North America from 13,000 years ago to 30,000 years ago, according to two new studies. The studies about the evidence of human occupation and its timing and effect published Wednesday in the journal Nature. The traditional understanding among scientists about the…

A global consortium of astrophysicists have created the world’s largest three-dimensional map of the universe, a project 20 years in the making that researchers say helps better explain the history of the cosmos. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), a project involving hundreds of scientists at dozens of institutions worldwide, collected decades of data and…

Teen climate activist Greta Thunberg will donate a portion of a $1.14 million prize to fighting coronavirus in the Brazilian Amazon. This week, Thunberg won the very first Gulbenkian Prize for Humanity, launched by Portugal’s Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, for her environmental activism. In a Twitter video accepting the honor, she said the winning prize was…