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By Katie Hunt, CNN (CNN) — A glob of 99 million-year-old amber has preserved an ancient fly in horror show fashion: with the mushroom-like fruiting body of zombie fungus bursting forth from its head. The insect, along with a second specimen of a young ant infected with a similar fungus, are two of the oldest

By Marlowe Starling, CNN (CNN) — Behavioral ecologist Michael Weiss was browsing through new drone footage of the orca pods he studies in the Salish Sea when he spotted one of the killer whales carrying something green in its mouth and noticed an unusual behavior: Some orcas were rubbing against each other for up to

By Andrew Freedman, CNN (CNN) — The intensifying and expansive heat wave affecting around 150 million people in the United States from Wisconsin to Washington, DC, bears the hallmarks of human-caused global warming. Hundreds of daily temperature records are threatened during the next few days, particularly along the East Coast, and some all-time June high

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — The first test images from a groundbreaking observatory named for trailblazing astronomer Vera Rubin have captured the light from millions of distant stars and galaxies on an unprecedented scale and revealed thousands of previously unseen asteroids. While the National Science Foundation initially released only a couple of images and

CNN By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — The first test images from a groundbreaking observatory named for trailblazing astronomer Vera Rubin have captured the light from millions of distant stars and galaxies on an unprecedented scale and revealed thousands of previously unseen asteroids. While the National Science Foundation initially released only a couple of images

By Kameryn Griesser, CNN (CNN) — Whether it’s answering work emails or drafting wedding vows, generative artificial intelligence tools have become a trusty copilot in many people’s lives. But a growing body of research shows that for every problem AI solves, hidden environmental costs are racking up. Each word in an AI prompt is broken

By Jackie Wattles, CNN (CNN) — Tens of thousands of years ago, our species — Homo sapiens — mingled and interbred with other prehistoric humans: our distant cousins, the Neanderthals and Denisovans. Hundreds of Neanderthal fossils give us a good idea of their appearance, lives and relationships, but so little is known about Denisovans that

By Isabelle Rodney, CNN (CNN) — The turquoise water of Hōnaunau Bay in Hawaii, an area popular with snorkelers and divers, is teeming with spiny creatures that threaten to push the coral reef “past the point of recovery,” new research has found. Sea urchin numbers here are exploding as the fish species that typically keep

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — Scientists are trying to solve a decade-long mystery by determining the identity of anomalous signals detected from below ice in Antarctica. The strange radio waves emerged during a search for another unusual phenomenon: high-energy cosmic particles known as neutrinos. Arriving at Earth from the far reaches of the cosmos,

By Jacopo Prisco, CNN (CNN) — Each year, a tiny species in Australia makes a grueling 620-mile (1,000-kilometer) nighttime migration, and it’s pulling off the feat in a way only humans and migratory birds have been known to do, a new study has found. Bogong moths looking to escape the heat travel in the spring

By Ella Nilsen, Bill Weir, CNN Chief Climate Correspondent SOUTHERN MAINE (CNN) — Colin Goodson knows more about energy than most people. The tall, bearded Mainer is an engineer on an offshore oil drilling ship in the Gulf of Mexico. But when it came time for him to build a home in Southern Maine, Goodson

By Katie Hunt, CNN (CNN) — An enigmatic skull recovered from the bottom of a well in northeastern China in 2018 sparked intrigue when it didn’t match any previously known species of prehistoric human. Now, scientists say they have found evidence of where the fossil fits, and it could be a key piece in another

By Laura Paddison, CNN (CNN) — Rising global temperatures are set to devastate food crops across the world, with particularly alarming impacts projected for the United States, where production of key crops could plummet 50% by the end of the century, according to a sweeping new analysis. Of the many impacts of the fossil fuel-driven

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — Astronomers have used mysterious fast radio bursts, or millisecond-long bright flashes of radio waves from space, to help them track down some of the missing matter in the universe. Dark matter and dark energy make up most of the universe. Dark matter is an enigmatic substance that shapes the

By Andrew Freedman, CNN (CNN) — The human fingerprint on global warming was likely evident in Earth’s atmosphere far earlier than previously thought—even before the invention of modern cars, a new study says. Using a combination of scientific theory, modern observations and multiple, sophisticated computer models, researchers found a clear signal of human-caused climate change