CNN – World

By Amarachi Orie, CNN A scan of the skull of a 319-million-year-old fossilized fish has led to the discovery of the oldest example of a well-preserved vertebrate brain, shining a new light on the early evolution of bony fish. The fossil of the skull belonging to the extinct Coccocephalus wildi was found in a coal

By Katie Hunt, CNN Some 125,000 years ago, enormous elephants that weighed as much as eight cars each roamed in what’s now northern Europe. Scientifically known as Palaeoloxodon antiquus, the towering animals were the largest land mammals of the Pleistocene, standing more than 13 feet (4 meters) high. Despite this imposing size, the now-extinct straight-tusked

By Ashley Strickland, CNN An unusual star system created more of a fizz and less of a bang when it exploded in a supernova. The lackluster explosion, known as an “ultra-stripped” supernova, led researchers to discover the two stars 11,000 light-years away from Earth. It’s the first confirmed detection of a star system that will

By Ashley Strickland, CNN A recently discovered green comet will soon zip by Earth for the first time in 50,000 years. It was last visible in the night sky during the Stone Age. Discovered on March 2, 2022, by astronomers using the Zwicky Transient Facility’s wide-field survey camera at the Palomar Observatory in San Diego

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