The human population may have lingered at about 1,300 for more than 100,000 years, and that population bottleneck could have fueled the divergence between modern humans, Neanderthals and Denisovans.
An African wild ass, one of the most endangered animals on the planet, was recently born at a U.K. zoo and is already doing "zoomies" around its enclosure.
Yellowknife, which was recently evacuated due to the threat of wildfires, has become overrun with black bears that have moved into the empty streets in search of food.
Knowing how to recognize and safely treat tick bites can help reduce your risk of developing tick-borne infectious diseases, such as Lyme disease and Rocky Mountain spotted fever.
Skin cancer, the uncontrolled growth of abnormal cells in the skin, is mainly caused by exposure to ultraviolet radiation from the sun and tanning equipment.
OSIRIS-REx is due to make its return to Earth on Sept. 24. Here's everything you need to know about the mission and what it may reveal about the beginning — and the potential end — of life on Earth.
When times get lean, male spiders may cheat more when wooing females by offering them worthless gifts of leftovers or dry leaves, rather than tasty food.
Researchers estimated that as few as 22 people would be needed to sustain a colony on Mars. But there are lots of caveats, and the new study largely misses the point of colonizing the Red Planet in the first place, experts say.
Filmmakers retraced the deadly journey of two British exploration ships that set off in 1845 and never came back, in a quest to find their captain's tomb.
The stunning experiment, which reconstructs the properties of entangled photons from a 2D interference pattern, could be used to design faster quantum computers.
There are now RSV vaccines approved for older adults and for pregnant people, and antibody shots (not vaccines) available for babies. What's the difference?
The Canadian town of Churchill has already had more than four times as many polar bear visitors this year compared with the same time last year, and many more could soon be on the way.
Goths living in northern Poland between the first and fifth centuries were talented silversmiths and produced jewelry that was as high-quality as items from the Roman Empire.
Superconductors that work at temperatures much higher than absolute zero have befuddled scientists since they were discovered. A new theory might be about to change that.
Ground-penetrating radar is revealing the secrets of a Roman legion camp near Tel Megiddo, including the ancient camp's amphitheater for combat training.
Five gold coins unearthed from a temple in ancient Carthage depict the goddess Tanit and were likely left by wealthy worshippers alongside burials as an offering to deities.
Comet Nishimura has a hyperbolic orbit, which suggests that it may have come from outside the solar system and will likely be catapulted into interstellar space after slingshotting around the sun.
Neanderthals are an extinct lineage of hominins that emerged around 400,000 years ago and died off around 40,000 years ago. They are the closest known human relatives and interbred with Homo sapiens.
The newfound vampyromorph species was equipped with defensive features not previously seen in the fossil record — and it's related to modern-day vampire squid.
A patchwork of polygon-shaped cracks in ancient Martian mud are evidence of past wet-dry cycles, which could have helped extraterrestrial life emerge on the Red Planet.
A 20-story rock face in Alaska known as "The Coliseum" is covered with layers of footprints belonging to a range of dinosaurs, including a tyrannosaur.
The Hirota people, who occupied a Japanese island for around 400 years, deliberately flattened the back of their children's heads. And experts are not entirely sure why.
Carcasses of seals, sea lions and birds were found on Tyuleniy Island in the Sea of Okhotsk by environmental groups who were there to clear up plastic pollution.
Methane emissions from tropical wetlands have been soaring since 2006 and accelerating at the same breakneck speed as when Earth's climate has flipped from a glacial to an interglacial period.
If you’re after a large and impressive air purifier that performs well at removing bacteria and viruses, the DH Lifelabs Sciaire + HEPA Air Purifier could be perfect for you.
Gargantuan storms on Saturn can wrap around the entire planet and be seen for months. New research suggests their impacts persist hundreds of years longer than experts thought.
No one has measured Cassius since 2011, which is when the saltwater giant was awarded the Guinness World Record for the world's largest living crocodile in captivity.
A small, proof-of-concept study in monkeys reveals the potential of a one-off gene therapy to treat people with alcohol use disorder who haven't responded to other treatments.
Adoptions in the animal kingdom may confer an evolutionary advantage, but other factors — such as empathy, the urge to care for babies and inexperience — could also contribute.
This week, the Hubble Space Telescope captured a stunning image of globular cluster NGC 6652 — a collection of some of the oldest stars in the Milky Way galaxy.
On Oct. 14, an epic 'ring of fire' annular solar eclipse will swoop across North America, providing once-in-a-lifetime views for several states. Here’s how to watch, no matter where you are.
Gibbaeum heathii is endemic to a valley in South Africa that is surrounded by mountains and receives very little rainfall, allowing a huge range of succulent species to thrive. This bababoutjies — or baby's bum — is one of them.
These tiny crustaceans, also known as boxer crabs, use the venomous anenomes to protect themselves from predators and to eat with. They also wave them around while fighting with each other.
Fragments of a jaw bone unearthed in China have a mosaic of features that are present in both modern and archaic humans, making it difficult to place on the human evolutionary tree.
The ancient star Earendel is more than twice as hot as the sun and around a million times brighter, new James Webb Space Telescope observations suggest.
The world's highest mountain system may have reached 60% of its current elevation before the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates crashed into each other, giving the peaks an extra push.
The magma that erupts from basaltic volcanoes in the middle of tectonic plates originates from within Earth's mantle — rather than from the outer crust — and is propelled upward by CO2, not water.
In this extract from the book "When the Sahara Was Green", Martin Williams, professor of earth sciences at the University of Adelaide, explores how a vanishing ocean and global cooling set the stage for the birth of the Sahara desert.
The long-lost 'body' of mysterious ice age animal carving was discovered in German cave, but archaeologists aren't sure if it's a cave lion or cave bear.
One marine mammal has been documented diving as deep as 9,816 feet — equivalent to the depth of over 30 Statues of Liberty stacked on top of one another.
Using off-the-shelf consumer batteries, scientists stimulated insulin release from engineered human cells implanted in diabetic mice and restored the rodents' normal blood sugar levels.
Public health measures were ramped up during the pandemic, but a new study in health care workers suggests one disease-spreading habit may have been overlooked.
Scientists simulated ancient viruses to see what impact they would have on the environment. While most had few consequences, 1% were capable of killing their hosts and disrupt ecosystems.
The James Webb Space Telescope spied a cosmic question mark in deep space while observing two young stars located more than 1,000 light-years from Earth.
Over 10,000 earthquakes have hit the Noto Peninsula over the last three years. They are believed to be emanating from an long-dead volcano, with fluids pushing through the collapsed system.
"The issue is not about running out of water, it's about having water in the right place," Lis Mullin Bernhardt, from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), told Live Science.