CNN-other

By Jackie Wattles, CNN (CNN) — SpaceX is making another attempt to get Polaris Dawn — a risky mission that will send four civilians into the radiation belts and on a historic spacewalk — off the ground this week. The daring flight will aim to take off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida no earlier than

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — Well-preserved fossils of ancient large reptiles called pterosaurs have revealed that some species flew by flapping their wings, while others soared like vultures, according to a new study. Pterosaurs dominated the skies during the time of the dinosaurs and met the same deadly fate 66 million years ago after

By Ella Nilsen, CNN (CNN) — Inside a highly classified facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee — the same facility that enriched uranium for the first atomic bomb in the era of the Manhattan Project — workers are turning old, unexploded warheads into fuel that will power cities. The recipe to create advanced reactor fuel involves

By Laura Paddison, CNN (CNN) — Ties van der Hoeven’s ambitions are nothing if not grand. The Dutch engineer wants to transform a huge stretch of inhospitable desert into green, fertile land teeming with wildlife. His sights are set on Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, an arid, triangle-shaped expanse that connects Africa with Asia. Thousands of years

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — As astronauts and engineers are fond of saying, space is hard. But that has never stopped bright minds from dreaming big. A Seattle-based company has resurrected NASA’s plans for a space plane, abandoned in 2001 due to technical difficulties. Radian Aerospace wants to replace vertical rocket launches with planes that

By Laura Paddison, CNN (CNN) — The deep landslides beneath the multimillion-dollar homes in Rancho Palos Verdes moved at an almost glacial pace, until they didn’t. This affluent coastal city in Southern California, around 30 miles south of Los Angeles, has long enticed people with its Pacific Ocean views and lush greenery. But it sits

KABC, KCAL, KCBS, KCRA, CNN By Laura Paddison, CNN (CNN) — The deep landslides beneath the multimillion-dollar homes in Rancho Palos Verdes moved at an almost glacial pace, until they didn’t. This affluent coastal city in Southern California, around 30 miles south of Los Angeles, has long enticed people with its Pacific Ocean views and

By Jackie Wattles and Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — Boeing’s Starliner capsule returned from the International Space Station Friday evening — concluding its nearly three-month stay in space. But it flew back to Earth with an empty cabin, leaving behind two test pilots who must now remain on the station for another five or six

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — When scientists attached a tag to a pregnant porbeagle shark in October 2020 to learn more about the creature’s habitat, they didn’t expect their tracker to capture evidence of how large sharks hunt one another. But when the tracker registered some unexpected activity in March 2021, the scientists realized

By Katie Hunt, CNN (CNN) — In H.G. Wells’ 1897 science fiction novel, “The Invisible Man,” the protagonist invents a serum that makes the cells in his body transparent by controlling how they bend light. More than 100 years later, scientists have discovered a real-life version of the substance: A commonly used food coloring found

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — Jupiter’s moon Ganymede may have shifted on its axis when a massive asteroid smashed into it about 4 billion years ago, according to a new study. Ganymede, the largest moon in the solar system, is even bigger than Mercury and the dwarf planet Pluto. And past research has found

By Radina Gigova, CNN London (CNN) — A “remarkable” Pictish ring with “an intricate setting” was discovered in Scotland by an amateur archaeologist after being buried for more than 1,000 years. The “kite-shaped ring with a garnet or red glass center” was unearthed by a volunteer at the site of a fort in Burghead, in

By Monica Garrett and Steve Tuemmler, CNN (CNN) — A roughly 1-meter (3-foot) asteroid burned up in Earth’s atmosphere over the Philippines near Luzon Island early Wednesday afternoon, according to NASA. The European Space Agency estimated the impact occurred at 12:39 p.m. ET (4:39 p.m. UTC). The Catalina Sky Survey discovered the object, initially called

By Katie Hunt, CNN (CNN) — A wheeled bot rolls across the floor. A soft-bodied robotic star bends its five legs, moving with an awkward shuffle. Powered by conventional electricity via plug or battery, these simple robotic creations would be unremarkable, but what sets these two robots apart is that they are controlled by a

By Laura Paddison, CNN (CNN) — A team of NASA rocket scientists is developing autonomous underwater robots able to go where humans cannot, deep beneath Antarctica’s giant ice shelves. The robots’ task is to better understand how rapidly ice is melting — and how quickly that could cause catastrophic sea level rise. In March, scientists

By Amarachi Orie, CNN (CNN) — In the years since the Titanic sank after hitting an iceberg in 1912, we have become familiar with haunting images of the doomed passenger liner’s bow, lying at the bottom of the North Atlantic Ocean. Now, new photos taken this summer show that the view has changed dramatically. The

By Rachel Ramirez, CNN (CNN) — The largest dam removal project in US history is finally complete, after crews last week demolished the last of the four dams on the Klamath River. It’s a significant win for tribal nations on the Oregon-California border who for decades have fought to restore the river back to its natural

By Katie Hunt, CNN (CNN) — What lies beneath the waves is among the planet’s biggest mysteries. About half of Earth’s surface remains unknown and unexplored. That’s because humans have mapped only a quarter of the seafloor, which covers around 70% of the planet, to a high resolution. But how do you find what you