CNN – World

By Francisco Guzman and Pete Burn, CNN Are you ready to give up caffeine for 40 days? What about your social media accounts? While giving up those things may seem hard for you, Christians long ago used to give up a whole lot more. Ash Wednesday is today. It marks the first day of Lent

By Ashley Strickland, CNN When archaeologists uncovered the burial site of two brothers who lived during the 15th century BC in Israel, they were surprised to discover that one of them had brain surgery shortly before he died. The finding marks the earliest example of trephination, a type of cranial surgery, found in the ancient

By Jackie Wattles, CNN A tough, bell-shaped fungus that grows on the rotting bark of trees has been used as a fire starter for centuries, earning it the nickname “tinder fungus.” Now, researchers are taking a closer look at the molecular structure of this oddly powerful organism — and they’ve found that it could hold

By Ashley Strickland, CNN Astronomers have used the James Webb Space Telescope to peer back in time to the early days of the universe — and they spotted something unexpected. The space observatory revealed six massive galaxies that existed between 500 million and 700 million years after the big bang that created the universe. The

By Jackie Wattles, CNN Scientists have long wondered what lies at the very center of the Earth, and the latest research is putting weight behind a theory that our planet has a distinct ball of iron within its metallic core. Beneath the outermost crust, the mantle and the molten-liquid outer core lies the Earth’s solid

By Ashley Strickland, CNN Finding potential evidence of life on Mars may be more difficult than expected, according to new research. Missions such as the Perseverance and Curiosity rovers are each equipped with a suite of scientific instruments that can analyze rock and dust samples and collect data about the red planet. But those instruments

By Laura Paddison, CNN Antarctic sea ice has reached record low levels for the second time in two years, with some scientists alarmed that dramatic drops are a signal the climate crisis may now be more clearly influencing this vast, complex and isolated region. The sea ice that fringes Antarctica dropped to just 737,000 square

By Ashley Strickland, CNN The mysterious red streaks crisscrossing the surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa may be the result of a newly discovered kind of salty ice. Europa has long intrigued scientists because the moon has a subsurface ocean beneath a thick shell of ice. Plumes of water have been known to erupt from cracks

By Amarachi Orie, CNN A nearly 2,000-year-old wooden object in the shape of a penis could have served as a sexual tool by ancient Romans in Britain, according to a new study. The artifact was unearthed in 1992 in a ditch at the Roman Fort of Vindolanda, near Hadrian’s Wall, which once marked the Roman

By Yoonjung Seo, Junko Ogura and Emma Tucker, CNN North Korea launched two ballistic missiles into waters off the east coast of the Korean Peninsula early Monday, and leader Kim Jong Un’s sister warned of more to come unless the United States halts military drills with South Korea. Kim Yo Jong, one of the country’s

By Ashley Strickland, CNN I’ll never forget reading “Treasure Island” as a kid. Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel made me want to set out immediately on a tall-masted ship and seek adventure — and maybe a little buried gold, too. Surely, there was something out there that no one had ever found, waiting to be discovered.

By Claudia Dominguez and Hafsa Khalil, CNN Twelve cheetahs have arrived in India as part of efforts to revive the species after decades of extinction in the country. The feline predators from South Africa were flown in on Saturday from Johannesburg, the Indian Air Force announced. The cheetahs will next be airlifted in helicopters from

By Ashley Strickland, CNN Astronomers have used the James Webb Space Telescope to peer inside the heart of spiral galaxies, where young stars carve out glowing paths. The space observatory can see the universe in infrared light, which is invisible to the human eye, making the telescope uniquely poised to look through the dust that

By Ashley Strickland, CNN In 1660, a ship carrying a treasure trove of luxury goods sank off the coast of Texel, the largest island in the North Sea. Nearly four centuries later, little remained of the wooden unidentified Dutch merchant ship. But as the silt and sand covering the wreck washed away, broken chests began

CNN Editorial Research Here is a look at famine, a severe and prolonged hunger in a significant portion of a region or country’s population that results in malnutrition and death by starvation and disease. To assess a country’s food security, the United Nations uses the scale known as the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC).

By Taylor Nicioli, CNN With the thick vegetation of the northern Guatemala rainforests hiding its 2,000-year-old remnants, the full extent of the early Mayan way of life was once impossible to see. But laser technology has helped researchers discover a previously unknown 650-square-mile (1,683-square-kilometer) Maya site that offers startling new insights about ancient Mesoamericans and