By Jessie Yeung, CNN (CNN) — Parts of Australia’s iconic Great Barrier Reef, famed for its stunning colors and biodiversity, suffered the biggest decline of coral on record last year after a marine heatwave bleached vast swathes of hard coral, a new report has found. The reef had its worst summer on record in 2024
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By Taylor Nicioli, CNN (CNN) — Research vessel Blue Heron trawls the Great Lakes, gathering data from the water. The floating laboratory’s most recent discovery, however, came from an unexpected location: its own rudder. While docked after a long cruise to study algae blooms in lakes Erie and Superior in September, the crew noticed a
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By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — The humble modern-day potato, first domesticated about 10,000 years ago, got its start in the Andes mountains before becoming a key crop the world depends on. But because plants don’t preserve well in the fossil record, its lineage has remained largely a mystery. Now, a team of evolutionary biologists
Continue ReadingBy Jack Guy, CNN (CNN) — Archaeologists have used cutting edge techniques to reveal new information about the intricate tattoos of a woman that lived in Siberia during the Iron Age. Although the prehistoric remains date from more than 2,000 years ago, the skin, and therefore the tattoos, of mummies from the region’s Pazyryk culture
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By Laura Paddison, CNN (CNN) — Iran’s capital Tehran could be weeks away from “day zero,” experts say — the day when taps run dry for large parts of the city — as the country suffers a severe water crisis. Key reservoirs are shrinking, authorities are scrambling to reduce water consumption and residents are desperately
Continue ReadingBy Rebecca Cairns, CNN (CNN) — For the first time, archaeologists have used advanced scientific techniques on 4,000-year-old dental plaque to confirm traces of betel nut chewing in ancient Thai communities. Betel nuts are usually chewed as “quids,” a mix of slaked lime and ground betel nuts—which contain psychoactive compounds that boost energy, alertness, euphoria,
Continue ReadingBy Lianne Kolirin, CNN (CNN) — Archaeologists are facing a “race against time” to explore the wreck of an English warship that sank in a huge storm more than 300 years ago. Northumberland was a 70-gun warship built in Bristol, England in 1679 as part of the transformation of the English navy under Samuel Pepys
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By Ella Nilsen, CNN (CNN) — President Donald Trump came into office promising to lower energy and electricity costs. But with the cost of electricity rising, congressional Democrats and left-leaning groups see an opening to go on the offense ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. A Wednesday letter led by Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of
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By Katie Hunt, CNN (CNN) — Scientists are exploring ways to mimic the origins of human life without two fundamental components: sperm and egg. They are coaxing clusters of stem cells – programmable cells that can transform into many different specialized cell types – to form laboratory-grown structures that resemble human embryos. These embryo models
Continue ReadingBy Jack Guy, CNN Archaeologists working at a site in Spain say they have uncovered evidence of what may have been a synagogue used by a hitherto unknown Jewish community. While excavating the site, previously believed to be a church dating from the 4th century, experts found materials and architectural evidence that led them to
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By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — A first-of-its-kind satellite has launched to track nearly imperceptible changes on Earth’s surface, an effort that could aid with responses to natural disasters. Called the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar mission, or NISAR, the spacecraft is equipped with two kinds of synthetic aperture radar designed by the US space agency
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By Gina Park, CNN (CNN) — Sky-gazers may get a good chance to see fireballs streak across the night sky this week. Two meteor showers — the Alpha Capricornids and Southern Delta Aquariids — will reach their peak and another is ramping up. The Alpha Capricornids meteor shower, which is best known for producing very
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By Ella Nilsen, Andrew Freedman, CNN (CNN) — In one of its most significant reversals on climate policy to-date, the Trump administration on Tuesday proposed to repeal a 2009 scientific finding that human-caused climate change endangers human health and safety, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced. If successful, the repeal could strip away the federal government’s
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By Ella Nilsen, Laura Paddison, CNN (CNN) — The Trump administration fired the last of the US climate negotiators earlier this month, helping cement America’s withdrawal from international climate diplomacy. It may also have handed a huge victory to China. The elimination of the State Department’s Office of Global Change — which represents the United
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By Lianne Kolirin, CNN (CNN) — A 4,000-year-old handprint has been discovered on a clay model used for offerings in an Ancient Egyptian tomb. Researchers from Cambridge University’s Fitzwilliam Museum, in the United Kingdom, stumbled upon the imprint while preparing for an exhibition, which is set to open this fall. It was found on the
Continue ReadingBy Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — Astronomers have observed what they believe to be a never-before-seen companion star orbiting Betelgeuse, a pulsating red supergiant star in the shoulder of the Orion constellation. One of the best known and most luminous stars in the night sky, Betelgeuse has long intrigued anyone who has gazed up and
Continue ReadingBy Julianna Bragg, CNN (CNN) — During the first week of July, the popular travel center and gas station chain Buc-ee’s opened its largest location in Georgia, just off coastal Interstate 95. But it’s not the beaver-branded merchandise or the smell of barbecue that’s attracting Georgia’s sea turtles — it’s the harsh glare of towering
Continue ReadingBy Lex Harvey, CNN (CNN) — What struck Scott Bennett most were the razor clams. The long saltwater clams, resembling old-fashioned razors, normally burrow into sand to avoid predators. But when Bennett, an ecologist, visited South Australia’s Great Southern Reef last month, he saw thousands of them rotting on the sea floor. “100% of them
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By Katie Hunt, CNN (CNN) — Neanderthals had a voracious appetite for meat. They hunted big game and chowed down on woolly mammoth steak as they huddled around a fire. Or so thought many archaeologists who study the Stone Age. Fresh meat was far from the only thing on the menu, according to a growing
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By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — The asteroid known as 2024 YR4 is out of sight yet still very much on scientists’ minds. The building-sized object, which initially appeared to be on a potential collision course with Earth, is currently zooming beyond the reach of telescopes on its orbit around the sun. But as scientists
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