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By Taylor Nicioli, CNN (CNN) — Painted lady butterflies venture far and wide with their impressive migratory patterns that stretch for thousands of miles — but they often travel across land, so they can stop to rest. Scientists have now found evidence that a group of the winged travelers flew over 2,600 miles (about 4,200 kilometers) across

By Nic Anderson, CNN (CNN) — Molly Parren was tracking a wood turtle in Vermont when she smelled something surprising, yet familiar. The amphibian scientist for the state’s wildlife agency traced the smell to a rare wild garlic and snapped a photo. What she didn’t realize at the time was she had found not one

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — History is full of vanished arts and techniques that researchers are still trying to crack, such as decoding heirloom recipes lost to time. Some of those formulations belong to vivid colors that our ancestors developed millennia ago. It’s easy to think of the past as a sepia-toned expanse. Over time, paint

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — Hundreds of basketball-size space rocks slam into Mars each year, leaving behind impact craters and causing rumblings across the red planet, according to new research. Mission planners could use the revelations, recorded in data collected by a now-retired NASA mission, as they determine where to land future robotic missions

By Jackie Wattles, CNN (CNN) — More than three weeks into a mission that was initially projected to last only days, the two astronauts piloting the inaugural crewed test flight of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft do not know when they will return home. Officials have repeatedly indicated that the Starliner — which encountered issues with helium

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — Performing administrative tasks in ancient Egypt may not sound physically demanding, but new research has revealed that being a scribe left a mark on the skeletons of the men who held those privileged positions. Scribes were high-status men with the ability to write and were part of the 1%

By Rebecca Cairns, CNN (CNN) — The soft, pink blob stares at the camera with glassy eyes — before pulling its face into a dimpled smile. While it might look like the stuff of nightmares, this tiny robot covered in living skin could mark a step forward in the quest to make robots more human-like. It’s

By Lex Harvey, CNN Hong Kong (CNN) — The world’s largest capital cities are seeing more extremely hot days than ever, according to a new study, which says the dangerous trend is being driven by scorching temperatures across Asia as the climate crisis worsens. The world’s 20 most populous cities – together home to more

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — An early analysis of a sample collected from the asteroid Bennu suggests that the space rock had an unexpectedly water-rich past — and it may have even splintered off from an ancient ocean world. The NASA OSIRIS-REx mission scooped up the 4.3-ounce (121.6-gram) pristine sample from the near-Earth asteroid

By Jackie Wattles, CNN (CNN) — The iconic puffy white suits that astronauts have donned for decades as they step outside the International Space Station are rapidly aging — but NASA is now without concrete plans to replace them. The space agency announced Wednesday that it’s abandoning contracts worth more than $100 million with Collins

By Katie Hunt, CNN (CNN) — A fossilized ear bone unearthed in a cave in Spain has revealed a Neanderthal child who lived with Down syndrome until the age of 6, according to a new study. The find suggested that members of the community cared for and looked after the vulnerable child, who lived at

By Rachel Ramirez, CNN (CNN) — Unprecedented ocean heat has triggered the world’s worst mass coral bleaching event on record – a coral massacre so severe, reef experts are looking to one of nature’s most dangerous and destructive forces to provide relief: hurricanes. Since January 2023, 72% of the planet’s reef areas have experienced heat

By Jackie Wattles, CNN (CNN) — NASA will pay SpaceX up to nearly $1 billion to develop a vehicle capable of steering the International Space Station out of orbit to its final resting place when the federal agency and its partners retire the orbiting laboratory in the coming years. The SpaceX-made vehicle could launch later

By Taylor Nicioli, CNN (CNN) — A lone diver first laid eyes on the ancient Kyrenia shipwreck off the north coast of Cyprus nearly 60 years ago. But when archaeologists attempted to determine the exact timeline of the vessel coming to a rest on the ocean floor, they were left to speculate based on the

By Taylor Nicioli, CNN (CNN) — For thousands of years, one color rose above all others — and was worth more than its weight in gold, according to a fourth-century imperial edict. Tyrian purple was a highly prized pigment developed in the Bronze Age, and it retained its status into the late medieval period. The ancient

By Angela Dewan, International Climate Editor, CNN London (CNN) — When New Yorkers grab their morning coffee, it’s their electric grid that really needs the kick. Dozens of power plants shift into gear as demand for electricity soars at breakfast time and keeps rising until the city is done with dinner. A huge chunk of

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — Forecasters will soon be able to see real-time mapping of lightning activity on Earth and keep a closer eye on solar storms unleashed by the sun thanks to a new weather satellite. Together, NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration launched GOES-U, or the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite

By Laura Paddison, CNN (CNN) — The Antarctic ice sheet is melting in a new, worrying way that scientific models used to project future sea level rise have not taken into account, suggesting current projections could be significantly underestimating the problem, according to a new study. Scientists from the British Antarctic Survey found that warm ocean water

By Mindy Weisberger, CNN (CNN) — An extinct ribbonlike sea creature about the size of a human thumb was one of the earliest animals to evolve a precursor of a backbone. Scientists recently identified the animal’s nerve cord by using a topsy-turvy twist. They turned its fossils upside down. Paleontologist Charles Doolittle Wolcott first encountered fossils of