Space

A large orange and white rocket sits on a launch pad with streaks of white clouds behind it

'80% chance of a go,' launch weather officer says at NASA's Artemis II prelaunch conference

By Kenna Hughes-Castleberry published

NASA said an X-class solar flare is not currently expected to affect the Artemis II mission, while weather on Earth looks favorable for a smooth launch.

Space Exploration
An orange and white rocket sits on a launchpad with metal scaffolding all around

NASA's historic Artemis II mission gets green light for flight as countdown begins

By Kenna Hughes-Castleberry published

NASA has given the 10-day Artemis II mission the green light after its flight readiness review, and the weather outlook remains favorable.

6 Comments
Space Exploration

'We are getting very, very close': NASA makes final Artemis II preparations as expectation grows for Wednesday launch

By Patrick Pester published

NASA's Artemis II crew is ready to fly around the moon, with promising weather forecasts for a Wednesday launch.

4 Comments
Space Exploration
Two side-by-side images of Saturn showing the planet in different wavelengths. The one on the left makes the planet appear more orange with glowing blue rings while the image on the right makes it appear soft yellow with more silvery rings.

Saturn's chaotic atmosphere revealed in most comprehensive view yet by James Webb and Hubble telescopes

By Kenna Hughes-Castleberry published

Viewing Saturn in complementary wavelengths, the James Webb and Hubble space telescopes reveal more about what makes up the layers of ringed planet's atmosphere.

Saturn
A glowing nebula of pink, blue and orange is seen in the darkness of space

Hubble images taken 25 years apart show big changes in the iconic Crab Nebula —‬ Space photo of the week

By Jamie Carter published

Astronomers reveal new insight into an iconic supernova remnant's evolution, structure and pulsar-driven growth over 25 years.

5 Comments
Space
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Planet Earth

An astronaut photo of the massif

Concentric rocky rings adorned with ancient artwork wear a magma 'hat' in the Sahara

By Harry Baker published

Earth from space A 2025 astronaut photo shows a massif made of concentric mountain ridges in the Libyan desert. The rocky walls contain ancient artworks and are occasionally used to contain herds of grazing cattle.

Earth from space
A close up of the sun shows a glowing orange and red ball of gas with long streaks of gas filaments leaking from its surface into the darkness of space.

What would happen to Earth if the sun suddenly vanished?

By Jesse Steinmetz published

Earth is habitable due to warmth from the sun. So what would happen if the sun disappeared?

Planet Earth

Our fossil fuel economy is a house of cards and Trump's war in Iran is about to topple it. The need for a clean energy transition has never been clearer.

By Michael E. Mann published

Opinion Trump's war in Iran is the embodiment of everything that's wrong with our dependence on fossil fuels — and it's highlighting just how vital the transition to renewables is.

Opinion
A collage with an illustration of DNA

DNA shed by every living thing is lurking in the environment — and it could tell us how Earth is changing in real time

By Hannah Osborne published

Environments are littered with the DNA of the creatures that inhabit them. Analyzing it could provide a real-time view of how our planet is changing.

Planet Earth

Lençóis Maranhenses: Brazil's dune-filled expanse that sits at the intersection of 3 biomes

By Sascha Pare published

Lençóis Maranhenses National Park hosts sand-dune fields that fill up with lagoons every wet season, but the reserve also has mangrove swamps where species such as the scarlet ibis thrive.

Rivers & Oceans
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Science News

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archaeology

A series of dark drawings of four-legged animals are seen with a rainbow colored overlay

Tasmanian tigers discovered in Indigenous rock art in Australia, suggesting these marsupials lived there much longer than thought

By Owen Jarus published

Around 14 new rock-art depictions of thylacines, also known as Tasmanian tigers, have been found in northern Australia.

Archaeology

Tudor Heart: A Renaissance gold necklace featuring a French-English pun on the love between Henry VIII and his first wife, Katherine of Aragon

By Kristina Killgrove published

Astonishing Artifacts A chance discovery of a 16th-century necklace reveals new information about Tudor-era jewelry styles.

Astonishing Artifacts

'Major disruption in Neanderthal history': 65,000 years ago, all Neanderthals in Europe died out except for one lineage

By Charles Q. Choi published

The last Neanderthals to survive in Europe came from a single lineage that survived the worst period of the ice age, ancient DNA reveals.

11 Comments
Neanderthals
A close up of a small, cylindrical, yellowish bone with a hollow middle sitting on a shiny surface with a centimeter ruler next to it.

2 Neanderthals present at same Siberian cave 10,000 years apart were distant relatives, 110,000-year-old bone reveals

By Aristos Georgiou published

Researchers extracted DNA from a Neanderthal bone fragment found in Russia's Denisova Cave, and the genome is shedding light on how small and isolated their groups were.

Neanderthals
An illustration showing a large ape-like creature with brown fur sitting in front of a lush jungle

18 million-year-old fossils of ape found in Africa, but in an unexpected place

By Colin Barras published

The ancestor of apes was long thought to come from East Africa, but newly discovered fossils in Egypt may prompt a rethink.

2 Comments
Human Evolution
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Animals

A person wearing a black suit and hard hat with a flashlight on it bends over a circular wall of a small cave.

'It blew my mind': Long-lost ice-age ecosystem, including fossils of lion-size armadillo and giant ground sloth, discovered in Texas 'water cave'

By Kenna Hughes-Castleberry published

Two researchers snorkeling in a subterranean stream in Texas discovered fossils from the Late Pleistocene epoch, revealing new details about what lived in this ancient ecosystem.

Extinct species
Sperm whales gather for the birth of a calf.

Live Science Today: Jaw-dropping first glimpse of sperm whale birth and how NASA is turning astronauts into test subjects

By Ben Turner published

Daily Roundup Friday, March 27, 2026: Your daily roundup of the biggest science stories making headlines.

Daily Roundup

Critically endangered hare spotted in surprising location for the first time in 40 years — but it was already dead

By Aristos Georgiou published

Scientists in China have announced the first confirmed sighting of the critically endangered Hainan hare in part of its native range in four decades, after spotting its completely flattened carcass on a roadside.

Land Mammals
Aerial view of a sperm whale headbutting another sperm whale.

Watch sperm whale headbutt another for no apparent reason

By Sascha Pare published

Researchers have captured extraordinary footage of sperm whales randomly headbutting each other, confirming anecdotal reports from mariners and whalers in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Whales
A beaver stands on the edge of a pond on its hind legs, its large teeth exposed in its mouth

A secret weapon to fight carbon emissions was just discovered: Beavers

By Kenna Hughes-Castleberry published

A new study in Switzerland finds that beaver-built wetlands can trap and store large amounts of carbon, offering a low-cost boost for restoration and climate resilience.

5 Comments
Animals
A close up image of a blue and brown iridescent cuttlefish next to some leafy green foliage. The cuttlefish's w-shaped pupil is seen in the center of the image.

Why do animals have different pupil shapes?

By Ashley Hamer published

Pupil shapes vary widely across the animal kingdom, from the W-shaped pupils of cuttlefish to the bar-like pupils of goats. But why are animal pupils shaped so differently?

Animals
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Health & Human Behavior

A close up of a child's eye that's blue. The image has a blue tint

Pig semen component could deliver chemotherapy to hard-to-reach eye cancer, mouse study suggests

By Eva Amsen published

Researchers showed that "exosomes" from pig semen may be used in a potential new treatment for retinoblastoma.

Medicine & Drugs
woman laying on her bed holding a hot water bottle to her stomach

Endometriosis messes with the immune system and causes 'ripple effects across the body'

By April Rees, Laura Elizabeth Cowley published

Two researchers explain how endometriosis drives a whole body immune response due to inflammation, urging the medical community to see it as a whole-body issue.

Reproductive Health
A close up shows a white rat with a brown head holding onto a small thread in front of a blue background.

A gut microbe linked to the Mediterranean diet boosts muscle strength in mice

By Kamal Nahas published

Researchers are exploring the prospect of using gut bacteria to boost muscle strength, after zeroing in on a microbe that does this in mice

4 Comments
Food & Drink
A man with long wavy black hair wearing an orange shirt lights a joint with a lighter

Why does cannabis give people 'the munchies'?

By Kenna Hughes-Castleberry published

A researcher explains how your body processes the THC from cannabis, resulting in "the munchies."

3 Comments
Health
An illustration of colorful lines converging to make the shape of a human iris and pupil

Synesthesia isn't just in your mind. The body reacts as if the colors were real.

By Clarissa Brincat published

Pupil size in people with synesthesia changed depending on how bright or dark the perceived colors were.

Health
Human brain digital illustration.

Brain aging results from a loss of control over how genes are regulated, mouse study suggests

By RJ Mackenzie published

Aging may "erase" the epigenetic markers that control gene expression in the brain, and this may create a snowball effect.

Aging

World of science

Technology

Four white security cameras are mounted in a cross-shape at the top of a street pole.

AI systems are enabling mass surveillance in the US, and there is no national law that 'meaningfully limits' the use of this data

By Jess Reia published

A technology policy researcher explores the ethics of implementing AI in current camera surveillance systems.

Artificial Intelligence
A man in a suit, surrounded by others, leaves a court building.

Live Science Today: Meta and Google fined for causing social media addiction and how dogs were our friends for millennia

By Ben Turner published

Daily Roundup Thursday, March 26, 2026: Your daily roundup of the biggest science stories making headlines.

Daily Roundup
A screenshot of a virtual reality setting where cartoon people walk around a museum of virtual images

Is the metaverse finally dead and buried? What's really going on with the embattled idea of living in virtual worlds.

By Drew Turney published

Touted as the next big thing just a few years back, the development of and hype fueling the metaverse have spluttered to a halt. Is it headed for the scrapheap of history?

5 Comments
Mixed Reality
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Physics, Math & Chemistry

Chemistry student develops clear polish that turns your fingernail into a touch-screen stylus

By Kristina Killgrove published

Researchers have developed a prototype nail polish to help more people access electrically-charged touch screens.

6 Comments
Chemistry
A twisted black and white striped ribbon is covered with small black and white dots against a white background

A new twist on matter? Strange 'Half-Mӧbius' molecule has rare properties chemists have never seen before

By Victoria Atkinson published

Chemists created a strange "half-Mӧbius" molecule, where electrons twist freely out of place to make a continuously looping surface.

Chemistry
An illustration showing a green hexagonal molecule on the right connects with a series of glowing waves on the left with a bright blue line

Physicists created an electron 'catapult' that moves particles at 'extraordinary' speed

By Skyler Ware published

Using a new method, physicists found a way to "catapult" electrons across solar materials in quadrillionths of a second.

Particle Physics

Quizzes & Games

A hand holding a pencil over a crossword puzzle

Live Science crossword puzzle #37: The seventh planet from the sun — 2 down

By Harry Baker last updated

Science crossword Test your knowledge on all things science with our weekly, free crossword puzzle!

Science crossword
A close up of a large white computer with a boxy monitor and keyboard.

Computing quiz: Can you match these 'ancient' devices to their pictures?

By Kenna Hughes-Castleberry published

Think you know your technology? Put your computing knowledge to the test by matching classic and modern devices to their images.

Computing
A large black, red and white wood carved totem pole shows a large face with black eyes and white teeth with feathers on either side.

First Americans quiz: How much do you know about the first people to reach the Americas?

By Laura Geggel published

The first Americans came over during the last ice age, but how much do you know about them?

The Americas
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Buying guides
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The best last-minute Amazon deals for a fitter body, cleaner air and a brighter smile

By Anna Gora last updated

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Deals

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