CNN – World

By Ashley Strickland, CNN More than a year and a half after its first flight on Mars, the Ingenuity helicopter has set a new record. The little 4-pound (1.8-kilogram) chopper completed its 35th flight on December 3 and reached a new altitude record of 46 feet (14 meters). The aerial excursion lasted for 52 seconds

By Katie Hunt, CNN A core of ice age sediment from northern Greenland has yielded the world’s oldest sequences of DNA. The 2 million-year-old DNA samples revealed the now largely lifeless polar region was once home to rich plant and animal life — including elephant-like mammals known as mastodons, reindeer, hares, lemmings, geese, birch trees

By Taylor Nicioli, CNN December’s full moon, also known as the “cold moon,” will shine bright in the night sky this Wednesday, peaking at 11:08 p.m. ET. Jupiter, Saturn and Mars will also be visible in the night sky Wednesday, with an extraordinarily rare phenomenon, known as a lunar occultation of Mars, set to happen

By Taylor Nicioli, CNN Recently exposed sandbars along the drought-stricken Mississippi River have caught the attention of fossil hunters, leading to two exceptional finds from a rare ice age species. Wiley Prewitt was exploring a newly exposed area on October 26 when he came across a rather large tooth poking out of the sand. The

By Ashley Strickland, CNN The largest predatory dinosaur to ever walk on Earth sported a massive sail that rose from its back, but it turns out this imposing creature would have made for a very slow and awkward swimmer, according to new research. Spinosaurus was even larger than Tyrannosaurus rex and measured 45 feet (13.7

By Christian Edwards, CNN As you read this, look around. Are you still in bed? Are there piles of clothes and takeout food boxes strewn across the floor? Do you have chip crumbs on your sheets? Have you broken your self-care routine more times than you can count? Do you not even care? If so,

By Katie Hunt, CNN Dr. Mrinalini Watsa, a researcher at San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance in California, scoops up soil from a fresh paw print made by Rakan, a 4-year-old male Sumatran tiger who lives at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, and secures it in a specimen jar. Back in her lab, Watsa analyzes

By Mariya Knight, CNN Around 2,500 endangered seals have been found dead on Russia’s Caspian coast, state-run news agency RIA Novosti reported Sunday, citing authorities in the North Caucasus region. Caspian seals, the only mammals found in the Caspian Sea, have been classified as endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red

By Manveena Suri, Jen Deaton and Heather Chen, CNN A former Iran national team football player has criticized authorities for their “silence” over the death of a man who celebrated the country’s World Cup defeat to the United States earlier this week. Mehran Samak, 27, died in Bandar Anzali city, northern Iran, during public celebrations

By Nina dos Santos, CNN Beijing has set up more than 100 so-called overseas police stations across the globe to monitor, harass and in some cases repatriate Chinese citizens living in exile, using bilateral security arrangements struck with countries in Europe and Africa to gain a widespread presence internationally, a new report shared exclusively with

By Tim Lister, Radina Gigova and Nina dos Santos, CNN A wealthy Russian businessman has been arrested as part of a “major operation” on suspicion of multiple offenses, the United Kingdom’s National Crime Agency said in a statement Saturday. The 58-year-old man was arrested Thursday at his “multi-million-pound residence in London by officers from the

By Ashley Strickland, CNN Selfies weren’t a common practice when humanity first reached the moon. Neil Armstrong was the first man and the first photographer on the lunar surface. All the photos he took, including the iconic boot print, were of fellow NASA astronaut Buzz Aldrin. But Armstrong’s face and other details of the mission

By Ashley Strickland, CNN The International Space Station will receive a power boost during a spacewalk on Saturday, as NASA astronauts Josh Cassada and Frank Rubio install a solar array outside the floating laboratory. The spacewalk is on track to begin at 7:25 a.m. ET and will last for about seven hours, with live coverage

By Mia Alberti, Lianne Kolirin and Tara Subramaniam, CNN The South Atlantic island of St. Helena is celebrating the birthday of the world’s oldest living land animal — a Seychelles giant tortoise called Jonathan, who is turning 190. The island governor’s house, where Jonathan has spent most of his life, is marking the occasion by