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By Amanda Schupak (CNN) — What do you get when you cross a blue jay with a green jay? That’s not the start of a joke, but the subject of a new study that aims to describe a hybrid bird never encountered before in the wild. The bigger question scientists are puzzling over, though, is

By Katie Hunt, CNN (CNN) — A badly crushed cranium unearthed decades ago from a riverbank in central China that once defied classification is now shaking up the human family tree, according to a new analysis. Scientists digitally reconstructed the squashed skull, thought to be 1 million years old, and its features suggest that the

By Ella Nilsen, Andrew Freedman, CNN (CNN) — In a consequential move for the global climate, China committed Wednesday to reduce its planet-warming pollution by 7% to 10% from peak levels over the next decade. China’s new economy-wide goal takes on outsized importance given the country is both the biggest emitter of global warming pollutants

By Andrew Freedman, CNN (CNN) — A new interactive map and groundbreaking database allows people in the world’s largest metropolitan areas to track their air pollution exposure, along with their region’s biggest sources of planet-warming pollution. The tool, which depicts air pollution plumes and their sources, is the work of a nonprofit coalition of scientists,

By Jack Guy, CNN (CNN) — Endangered leopard sharks have been observed mating in the wild for the first time, with scientists witnessing a “threesome” involving two males and a female. The encounter was filmed by Hugo Lassauce, a marine biologist at the University of the Sunshine Coast, Australia, and documented in a research paper

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — Surrounding our solar system is a natural and enigmatic cosmic shield called the heliosphere — and a new mission has launched to help astronomers better understand it. Created by the solar wind, a constant flow of charged particles that stream away from the sun, the heliosphere acts as an

By Amarachi Orie, CNN Day-one fans of Taylor Swift know that the pop superstar has come a long way since launching her music career as a country singer — and that evolution is apparent in her dialect, according to speech scientists. From Tennessee to Pennsylvania to New York, the career of the 14-time Grammy award

By Jackie Wattles, CNN (CNN) — NASA on Monday introduced the 10 people — selected from a pool of 8,000 applicants — who will join the agency’s astronaut corps as it races to return to the moon before attempting an unprecedented crewed mission to Mars. The group includes six women and four men, whom acting

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — Astronomers are trying to understand what caused a series of gamma ray bursts, or GRBs — the most powerful explosions in the universe. These energetic bursts are typically unleashed by the incendiary death of a star, or when it is shredded by a black hole. The observation of repeating

By Gina Park, CNN (CNN) — Sky-gazers should get ready for a full day of celestial events on Sunday, including a partial solar eclipse in parts of the Southern Hemisphere. The partial solar eclipse will peak, the point at which the moon blocks the largest portion of the sun’s surface, at 3:41 p.m. ET. But

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — A violent storm may have sent two baby pterosaurs spiraling to their deaths in a lagoon about 150 million years ago, based on a new analysis of the tiny, astonishingly well-preserved fossils. This latest research also provides fresh clues that may unravel a broader enduring mystery surrounding the site

By Andrew Freedman, CNN (CNN) — A record-breaking and astonishingly expansive marine heat wave is underway in the Pacific Ocean, stretching about 5,000 miles from the water around Japan to the West Coast of the United States. The abnormally warm “blob” of ocean water, which is getting a significant boost from human-caused global warming, is

By Jacopo Prisco, CNN (CNN) — Astronomers might be close to confirming the presence of an Earth-like atmosphere on an exoplanet for the first time, if more detailed analyses verify preliminary observations from the James Webb Space Telescope. The planet is part of a planetary system about 40 light-years away from Earth called TRAPPIST-1, which

By Katie Hunt, CNN (CNN) — A plan to genetically engineer a version of the dodo, a giant flightless bird that disappeared 400 years ago and became the poster child for extinction, has made some headway, according to Texas-based biotechnology firm Colossal Biosciences. The company’s scientists said they have succeeded in culturing specialized cells from

By Bill Weir, CNN Chief Climate Correspondent It was 1985, and improvised empathy was cool. News reports of families starving to death in drought-stricken Ethiopia were enough to move the lead singer of the Boomtown Rats to assemble a British supergroup to help save them. Bob Geldof, Band Aid and “Do They Know It’s Christmas”