By Amanda Schupak, CNN (CNN) — The clever, adaptable urban raccoon may be evolving a shorter snout — a key physical trait of pets and other domesticated animals. The new finding describes what a biologist says could be the first account of domestication in its earliest stages. For Raffaela Lesch, an assistant professor at the
Continue Reading
By Laura Paddison, Andrew Freedman, Ella Nilsen, CNN (CNN) — The world struck a new climate deal at the COP30 summit in Brazil Saturday, which calls for a tripling of funding to help countries adapt to increasingly severe climate impacts. But countries failed to agree to a roadmap away from fossil fuels, after entrenched divisions
Continue Reading
By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — A series of about 5,200 holes stretching nearly a mile (1.5 kilometers) across the Pisco Valley in the southern Peruvian Andes has baffled researchers for nearly a century. But a fresh look at the site, called Monte Sierpe, or “serpent mountain,” may help archaeologists to decipher why ancient people
Continue Reading
By Ella Nilsen, Steve Contorno, CNN (CNN) — The Trump administration is proposing to open federal waters off the entire coastline of California to drilling, as well as an area off the coast of Florida. Neither state’s waters have been open to new drilling for decades. President Donald Trump’s Interior Department released a five-year offshore
Continue ReadingBy Jacopo Prisco, CNN (CNN) — The universe’s expansion might not be accelerating but slowing down, a new study suggests. If confirmed, the finding would upend decades of established astronomical assumptions and rewrite our understanding of dark energy, the elusive force that counters the inward pull of gravity in our universe. Two separate teams of
Continue Reading
By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — The latest images of an interstellar comet shared by NASA have captured how an array of spacecraft witnessed a flyby that was truly out of this world, revealing clues to the object’s composition. Astronomers first detected the rare comet, known as 3I/ATLAS, on July 1. It’s only the third
Continue Reading
By Ella Nilsen, CNN (CNN) — The Trump administration moved on Wednesday to roll back Biden-era protections for endangered species and their habitats. The Interior Department’s Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service proposed restoring rules from the first Trump administration that stripped safeguards for plants and animals threatened by human development
Continue ReadingBy Katie Hunt, CNN (CNN) — A new study that examines how kissing evolved suggests that ape ancestors and early humans like Neanderthals probably locked lips with their friends and sexual partners. The behavior may date back 21 million years. Humanity’s earliest kisses were recorded 4,500 years ago in Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt, but Matilda
Continue Reading
By Taylor Nicioli, CNN (CNN) — Upon the open grasslands of what is now Kazakhstan, there once stood a Bronze Age settlement that may have served as a center of exchange and power around 1600 BC. The settlement — called Semiyarka and nicknamed “The City of Seven Ravines” for its location overlooking a network of
Continue Reading
By Mindy Weisberger, CNN (CNN) — Scientists say they have for the first time unlocked how a parasitic ant uses chemical warfare to take over the nest of a different species, by tricking workers into an unlikely assassination. The deadly scheme unfolds like a Shakespearean drama. In an ant colony, the queen is dying, under
Continue Reading
By Gina Park, CNN (CNN) — Sky-gazers worldwide may get the chance to see a celestial display this week as the annual Leonid meteor shower reaches its peak. The Leonids are set to peak at 1 p.m. ET Monday, according to EarthSky. You may start glimpsing meteors at 11 p.m. Sunday local time, which is
Continue Reading
By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — For the first time, astronomers say they have spotted a giant explosion released by a star beyond our solar system. The eruption was similar in some ways to those unleashed by our sun, such as the solar storms that graced the night skies with auroras last week on Earth,
Continue ReadingBy Katie Hunt, CNN (CNN) — Scientists have recovered ancient molecules of RNA from a juvenile mammoth named Yuka, who died 40,000 years ago in what is now Siberia. These biological remnants are providing insight into the last moments of the extinct ice age creature’s life. The RNA was extracted from mummified leg tissue that
Continue ReadingBy Laura Paddison, CNN (CNN) — Iceland’s relatively mild climate is shaped by a crucial network of currents that winds its away around the Atlantic Ocean transporting heat northward — without it, the island would be much icier and stormier. As evidence mounts these currents could be on course for collapse, Iceland’s government has made
Continue Reading
By Amarachi Orie, CNN (CNN) — A scientist in Japan has developed a technique that uses brain scans and artificial intelligence to turn a person’s mental images into accurate, descriptive sentences. While there has been progress in using scans of brain activity to translate the words we think into text, turning our complex mental images
Continue Reading
By Katie Hunt, CNN (CNN) — Researchers have analyzed a sample of DNA believed to belong to Adolf Hitler, which they say reveals the dictator of Nazi Germany had a genetic marker for a rare disorder that can delay puberty, according to a new documentary. The research, which took more than four years to complete,
Continue Reading
By Jackie Wattles, CNN (CNN) — Blue Origin, the rocket company founded by Amazon multibillionaire Jeff Bezos, launched its towering New Glenn rocket on a mission that marked its first major test. Carrying a pair of satellites that are destined to take a long, winding trip to Mars, New Glenn took flight from Cape Canaveral
Continue Reading
By Mindy Weisberger, CNN (CNN) — Scientists have newly described three extraordinary species of tree toad that leapfrog over the egg-to-tadpole stage. The females give birth on land to dozens of toadlets, each measuring just a few millimeters long. Live birth, or skipping the egg-laying and larva stage, is extremely rare in amphibians. Among nearly
Continue ReadingBy Jacopo Prisco, CNN (CNN) — Asteroids contain large quantities of both precious and common metals, and despite the obvious challenges in reaching them, a few startups say these celestial bodies could offer a sustainable alternative to Earth-based mineral extraction, which is plagued by issues like diminishing supply and environmental damage. The race is on
Continue ReadingBy Chris Lau, CNN (CNN) — Scientists say they have unearthed Australia’s oldest known crocodile eggshells, a discovery that could shed light on ancient reptiles that may have hunted prey by dropping on them from trees. The eggshells belonged to mekosuchine crocodiles, a prehistoric creature that dominated Australian waters 55 million years ago — a
Continue Reading