Science News

Fluoride is added to tap water in many countries around the world. But why?

From astronauts getting stranded on a leaking ISS and faceplanting moon landers to injured Mars robots and a tumbling solar sail, here are 10 of the biggest space exploration mishaps in 2024.

The big news in Earth science this year was all about climate change, with extreme weather, flooding and drought attributed to warming. Scientists also warned about much worse to come if we don't rein in carbon emissions.

On Christmas Eve, NASA's Parker Solar Probe flew closer to the sun than any human-made object ever — a stunning technological feat that scientists liken to the historic Apollo moon landing in 1969. Now, we know it survived.

There were sharks eating sharks, snakes eating snakes, and ants chopping each other's legs off. Here is a roundup of some of the best animal news stories from 2024.

Kawah Ijen is an active volcano on the island of Java with an extremely acidic crater lake and gas emissions that produce blue flames upon contact with oxygen in Earth's atmosphere.

We may be on the cusp of quantum supremacy. But what does that actually mean?

By digitally modeling muscles and tendons for the skeleton of Lucy (Australopithecus afarensis), researchers determined that our hominin ancestors could run well but topped out around 11 mph.

AI dominated tech news this year, but has the technology actually been improving? We review the leaps we've seen, as well as what's new in the world of quantum computing.

When human activities disrupt and unbalance ecosystems, such as by way of climate change and biodiversity loss, things go wrong.

Soaring carbon emissions, an unexpected new source of global warming, and collapsing ocean currents shocked scientists in 2024. Here are our picks for this year's top climate change stories.

Frosted branch angiitis is a rare condition that makes the blood vessels that supply the retina look like the frosted branches of a tree.

It's not a competition, but if it were, Saturn would be winning.

A new effort to map the rumblings in spacetime caused by enormous black hole collisions paints a surprisingly loud and lopsided picture of the universe.

What knocked this black hole over onto its side? It's a cosmic "whodunnit" that NASA scientists using the Hubble and Chandra space telescopes are trying to solve.

A massive, energetic jet from Virgo A could help scientists understand how matter behaves around a black hole.

From bloodsucking fly mites to fish being swallowed whole, photographers get up close and personal with an array of animals in this year's shortlisted entries for the Close-up Photographer of the Year 2024.

An excavation of three Viking graves in Norway reveals beads, coin jewelry and a stone carved to look like female genitalia.

Here are our biggest archeology stories of 2024.

Life expectancy prediction using data collected over four decades reveals southern right whales' exceptionally long lives — far longer than scientists previously thought.