CNN – World

By Katie Hunt, CNN No other animal is as inexorably linked with extinction as the dodo, an odd-looking flightless bird that lived on the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean until the late 17th century. The arrival of sailors brought with them invasive species like rats and practices like hunting. They doomed the dodo,

By Ashley Strickland, CNN As a NASA orbiter turned its camera to the Martian surface, the face of a bear seemed to be looking back. A camera aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, called the High Resolution Imaging Experiment, or HiRISE, captured an image of the unusual geological feature in December. A circular fracture pattern on

By Kristin Fisher, CNN Sometime this spring, NASA will make one of the biggest announcements in its history when it names the initial four-person crew for its flagship Artemis program to return astronauts to the moon for the first time in 50 years. Scheduled to launch in 2024, Artemis II will be the program’s first

By Ashley Strickland, CNN The Arctic was once a surprisingly warm place — and a haven for unusual creatures. About 56 million years ago, Earth began experiencing a global warming event. Temperature differences between the poles and regions near the equator narrowed. Over time, some intrepid animals began to trek north, including two sister species

By Zoe Sottile, CNN A globe-trotting gecko has accidentally made the trip from Egypt to England after hitching a ride in a container of strawberries. The tiny traveler was discovered by Nikata Moran, who bought a box of strawberries at her local Lidl supermarket in Manchester, England, on January 18, according to a news release

By Pierre Meilhan and Heather Chen, CNN Western countries will deliver more than 300 tanks to Ukraine, Kyiv’s ambassador to France said Friday. “As of today, numerous countries have officially confirmed their agreement to deliver 321 heavy tanks to Ukraine,” Vadym Omelchenko told French TV station and CNN affiliate BFM television. He did not specify

By Laura Paddison, CNN Human activity and extreme drought is causing far more damage to the Amazon rainforest than previously thought, exacerbating climate change, according to a new study. While many climate studies focus on Amazon deforestation — where trees are completely cleared and land use changes — this study looks at “degradation.” This is

By Laura Paddison, CNN A legal fight in Norway over snow crabs could end up having big implications for access to oil in the Arctic. This week Norway’s Supreme Court is hearing a case about whether Latvian trawlers are able to catch snow crab — a cold water species whose leg meat is popular in

By Issy Ronald and Amarachi Orie, CNN From pointing to animated arm movements and nodding, people regularly employ gestures to accompany and create language. Now, it’s been suggested that humans can also understand sign language used by apes, meaning humans may retain an understanding of ape communication from their ancestors. Great apes deploy more than

By Ashley Strickland, CNN An asteroid the size of a box truck made one of the closest passes of planet Earth ever recorded. The small near-Earth asteroid, called 2023 BU, zipped over the southern tip of South America at 7:27 p.m. ET Thursday about 2,200 miles (3,540 kilometers) above Earth’s surface. This distance was well

By Ashley Strickland, CNN Analysis of fossils found in the far north of Canada has revealed that two previously unknown species of ancient near-primates lived above the Arctic Circle some 52 million years ago, according to new research. The now-extinct creatures belonged to a part of the primate family tree that branched off before the

By Jackie Wattles, CNN Rocket Lab, a prolific launch company that routinely blasts its towering Electron rockets out of New Zealand, conducted its first liftoff from US soil on Tuesday. The mission, nicknamed “Virginia is for Launch Lovers,” took off from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility on Virginia’s northern coast at 6 p.m. ET. The launch