Sprinklings of life appear key to the recipe for rain. Lofted flecks of organic material like bacteria, pollen and fungal spores play a profound role in regulating rainfall patterns, a …
The carbon that once warmed Mars’ atmosphere has been locked in its rusty rocks for millennia. That’s the story revealed by a hidden cache of carbon-bearing minerals unearthed by NASA’s …
A common chemical in household plastics has been linked with heart disease deaths. In 2018, about 13.5 percent of the more than 2.6 million deaths from cardiovascular disease among people …
Ancient oxygen-making microbes may have oxygenated large swaths of Earth’s seafloor hundreds of millions of years before the element filled the atmosphere. Geochemical analysis of sediments deposited roughly 2.6 billion …
For the first time, astronomers have confirmed the existence of a lone black hole — one with no star orbiting it. It’s “the only one so far,” says Kailash Sahu, …
Neandertals formed sophisticated hunting parties that drove wild horses into fatal traps around 200,000 years ago. At Germany’s Schöningen site, wooden spears, double-pointed sticks, stone artifacts and butchered remains of …
This year may already be on track to be the second hottest on record, after 2024. Floods and tornadoes are wracking wide swathes of the United States. And more wild …
I confess: If I think about skeletons, it’s around Halloween. I especially enjoy the yard displays of larger-than-life skeletons engaging in mundane activities, like walking skeleton dogs. But our own …
Despite capturing hearts around the world, the wild axolotl — an aquatic salamander with feathery frills and a soft smile — faces extinction. Fortunately, for both axolotls and their fans, …
As the Mars rover Perseverance crested the top of Witch Hazel Hill, its operators back on Earth expected amazing things. This area on the western rim of the Jezero crater, …