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By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — When Mount Vesuvius erupted in AD 79, it wiped multiple Roman towns off the map — but it also froze them in time. Ash raining down from the volcano blanketed Pompeii and surrounding cities, preserving frescoes, buildings and citizens where they fell. Over time, Pompeii was forgotten, and it

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — Scientists at Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History have peered beneath the wrappings of ancient Egyptian mummified human remains to uncover new details about their identities and how they were prepared for the afterlife — all without removing a single piece of linen. In September, staff members rolled 26

By Jackie Wattles, CNN (CNN) — Three of the astronauts who were unexpectedly hospitalized after returning from the International Space Station in late October discussed the SpaceX Crew-8 mission during a NASA news conference on Friday. The trio revealed some anecdotes about the trials of readjusting to life on Earth after spending more than 230

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — Ancient DNA has revealed surprises about the identities of some people who perished in the ancient Roman town of Pompeii after a volcanic eruption, overturning misconceptions about their genetic relationships, ancestry and sex. When Mount Vesuvius erupted in AD 79, the volcano spewed hot, lethal gases and ash into

By Ella Nilsen, CNN (CNN) — Hours after former President Donald Trump was declared the winner of the 2024 election, the Biden administration moved Wednesday to limit oil drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Oil drilling had been banned for decades in the Arctic refuge — a pristine natural region in northeast Alaska home

By Katie Hunt, CNN (CNN) — With a sickle across her neck and a padlock on her left big toe, the corpse of a young woman found in northern Poland would have been unable to rise from her unmarked grave, according to local 17th century folklore. But her identity and how she ended up in

By Brandon Miller and Ella Nilsen, CNN (CNN) — New data confirms 2024 will be the hottest year on record and the first calendar year to exceed the Paris Agreement threshold — devastating news for the planet that comes as America chooses a president that has promised to undo its climate progress both at home

By Jack Guy, CNN (CNN) — An emperor penguin surprised locals when it appeared on a beach in Australia after making an epic journey of thousands of miles from its home in Antarctica. The penguin arrived on Ocean Beach in Denmark, Western Australia, on Friday, according to a statement from Australia’s Department of Biodiversity, Conservation

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — Researchers have uncovered links between the precursor to the world’s oldest writing system and the mysterious, intricate designs left behind by engraved cylindrical seals that were rolled across clay tablets about 6,000 years ago. Scholars consider cuneiform the first writing system, and humans used its wedge-shaped characters to inscribe

By Taylor Nicioli, CNN (CNN) — A meteor shower known for blazing fireballs is set to peak on Monday night into early Tuesday and could present a dazzling display for patient sky-gazers. The Southern Taurids, the first branch of the Taurid meteors showers, will be optimally visible after midnight early Tuesday. Both showers tend to

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — The Mary Rose was a royal favorite when it first set sail as the flagship of King Henry VIII’s fleet in 1512. Nearly 500 years after the vessel sank in 1545 during a battle with a French fleet, the shipwreck is revealing what life was like in Tudor England.

By Mindy Weisberger, CNN (CNN) — For more than 1,000 years, dense forests in the Mexican state of Campeche concealed the region’s ancient human history. Scientists called Campeche an archaeological “blank spot” in the Maya Lowlands, an area spanning what is now Belize, El Salvador, Guatemala and southeastern Mexico, and which the Maya inhabited from

By Julianna Bragg, CNN (CNN) — For many people, prime numbers have faded into the background since distant grade school days. However, for Luke Durant, a 36-year-old former Nvidia programmer, prime numbers became an all-consuming passion. He devoted nearly one year and invested a considerable sum of his own money to uncover the world’s largest

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — The 47-year-old Voyager 1 spacecraft is back in touch with NASA — but not out of the woods — after a technical issue caused a days-long communications blackout with the historic mission, which is billions of miles away in interstellar space. Voyager 1 is now using a radio transmitter

By Taylor Nicioli, CNN (CNN) — The oldest known surviving tombstone in the United States is an elaborate display of wealth — an intricately carved slab of black limestone initially laid in the floor of the second church of Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent British settlement in North America. Often referred to as the “Knight’s Tombstone” due

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — The Perseverance rover spotted a quick glimpse of a cosmic “googly eye” on Mars during a recent solar eclipse. As Phobos, one of Mars’ two moons, passed in front of the sun, it cast a lumpy, potato-shaped shadow on the sun’s face as well as on the Martian surface.

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — Well-preserved bones recovered from an English shipwreck are shedding light on what life was like for the crew of the ill-fated Mary Rose — and offering surprising insights about changes in bone chemistry that could benefit modern medical research. The Mary Rose was one of the largest warships of

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — When a supernova was seen glittering in the night sky for six months in 1181, it was so bright that Chinese and Japanese astronomers recorded it as a “guest star” in the Cassiopeia constellation. Now, astronomers using the Keck Cosmic Web Imager, or KCWI, at the W. M. Keck