Science News

Embodied AI enables robots and autonomous drones to interact with the real world, but how does it work?

Created by a young star, the bipolar star-forming region Sharpless 2-106 in this Hubble image depicts how intense the star-formation process can get.

Why is one foot sometimes larger than the other?

From the mysterious Planet Nine to the prospect of a "human-caused meteor shower," space and physics editor Brandon Specktor lists his favorite stories of 2024.

The newly discovered tarantula Trichopelma grande has unusually hairy legs for a ground-dwelling species. It's also much bigger than its relatives — and scientists aren't sure why.

For people who have been blind since birth, brain scans alone can't reveal if they dream in images.

Light helps explains the evolution of our skin color, why some of us have curly hair, and the size of our eyes. And light still shapes us today.

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.