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Indian scientists working in a tropical forest in the country's remote northeast have found a rare medicinal plant last seen 115 years ago, a scientific journal reported.
Researchers on Thursday announced the discovery of the remains of a short-necked plesiosaur, a prehistoric marine reptile the size of a bus, that they believe is the first complete skeleton ever found.
Scientists combing through undersea fauna off Indonesia's Papua province said Monday they had discovered dozens of new species, including a shark that walks on its fins and a shrimp that looks like a praying mantis.
Pluto, beloved by some as a cosmic underdog but scorned by astronomers who considered it too dinky and distant, was unceremoniously stripped of its status as a planet Thursday.
Astronomers say they have found the best evidence to date for "dark matter," that mysterious invisible substance that is believed to account for the bulk of the universe's mass.
Scientists say it's a mirage, but others swear that when the weather is right, Clevelanders can see across Lake Erie and spot Canadian trees and buildings 50 miles away.
U.S. and German scientists on Thursday launched a two-year project to decipher the genetic code of the Neanderthal, a feat they hope will help deepen understanding of how modern humans' brains evolved.
Hundreds of laboratory mice and rats died when a power outage at Ohio State University produced sent room temperatures soaring as high as 105 degrees, the school said.
A grouping of granite blocks along a grassy Amazon hilltop may be the vestiges of a centuries-old astronomical observatory — a find archaeologists say indicates early rainforest inhabitants were more sophisticated than previously believed.
The seven crew members of the space shuttle Discovery will arrive at Kennedy Space Center on Tuesday to take one of the biggest risks of their lives. They have a 1-in-100 chance of dying during their spaceflight next month. Those, at least, are the official odds that NASA has long given.
The survival of the human race depends on its ability to find new homes elsewhere in the universe because there's an increasing risk that a disaster will destroy Earth, world-renowned physicist Stephen Hawking said Tuesday.
Scientists have found what might have been the ideal ancient vacation hotspot with a 74-degree Fahrenheit average temperature, alligator ancestors and palm trees. It's smack in the middle of the Arctic.
The surprising discovery of bones heralded as a new, hobbit-like human species may turn out to have simply been the remains of a human suffering from a genetic illness that causes the body and brain to shrink, according to researchers challenging the original report.
An Egyptian geologist who arrived to check on claims by an amateur researcher that a hill in central Bosnia is hiding an ancient pyramid said Wednesday the structure is man made and worth investigating.
The last male purebred Columbia Basin pygmy rabbit has died, leaving just two females in a captive breeding program created to try to save the endangered species from extinction.
Oil spilled by the Exxon Valdez 17 years ago extends farther into Alaska's tidal waters than previously thought and could be causing long-term harm to wildlife, a study concludes.
A female mummy with complex tattoos on her arms has been found in a ceremonial burial site in Peru, the National Geographic Society reported Tuesday.
The simplest grammar, long thought to be one of the skills that separate man from beast, can be taught to a common songbird, new research suggests.
A new spaceship could be ready to replace the nation's aging shuttle fleet by 2011 — three years ahead of schedule — if lawmakers added money to NASA's proposed budget, the head of the space agency told a congressional panel on Tuesday.
With gasoline hitting $3 per gallon, scientists have just found the most energy-efficient engines in the universe — black holes, those whirling super-dense centers of galaxies that suck in nearly everything.
Explaining Dark Matter and Contradicting the Big Bang It's well-known that "Big Bang" was a derogatory name given to the cosmological theory of the expanding (not exploding) universe in an attempt to discredit the idea.
We Have Life, Says VenterAfter causing a minor furore amongst scientific circles over his attempts to claim a patent on "life," Craig Venter, the maverick researcher who helped map the human genome, and his colleagues reached another major milestone earlier this week by becoming the first team to build a …
Esther Wojcicki: Google Lunar XPrize Takes OffOver three decades after humanity last put a representative on the Moon, a new era in space exploration begins today, September 13, in Los Angeles as the Google Lunar XPrize launches with $30,000,000 in prizes for the first private group to successfully put a robotic rover on the …
Cauldron discovered in bogA routine day cutting turf on the bog ended in a significant discovery for Louisburgh farmer Owen McNally last week, when he unearthed a perfectly intact 2,500-year-old Iron Age cauldron.
Magnetic field found to stimulate brain cellsA magnetic field can stimulate the brain and promote the growth of new nerve cells, scientists have found, raising the possibility of treating conditions linked to neuron death such as Alzheimer's disease, and perhaps one day of enhancing humans' memory capacity.
Female Shark Reproduced Without Male DNA, Scientists SayA hammerhead shark that gave birth in a Nebraska aquarium reproduced without mating, a genetic analysis shows.
NASA Tries, Fails to Withhold Planetary Defense ReportThe National Aeronautics and Space Administration earlier this year attempted to block public access to a comprehensive report on planetary defense against asteroids, but the document found its way into the public domain anyway.
When Milky Way and Andromeda Collide, Earth Could Find Itself Far From HomeIf Homo sapiens can stick it out on Earth for another two billion years, our descendants may witness quite a show in the night sky.
Scientists Closer to Unfolding Mysteries of Prion Formation in Mad Cow DiseaseShort elements within a prion protein's sequence can cause it to activate and even cross the species barrier to spread neurodegenerative disorders such as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease to humans.
Brightest Star Explosion Ever SpottedA massive exploding faraway star — the brightest supernova astronomers have ever seen — has scientists wondering if a similar celestial fireworks show may light up the sky much closer to Earth sometime soon.
Famous Caymans coral reefs dying, scientists sayTo coral reef-driven tourism industries like those of the Cayman Islands, there could be a greater cost in ignoring climate change than fighting it.
Envision This: Mathematicians Design Invisible TunnelCall it Harry Potter's invisible sleeve. New calculations show how to make an electromagnetic "wormhole"—a tube that is invisible from the sides but allows light to shine down the center.
Interview: Paul AllenThe cofounder of Microsoft, one of the richest people in the world, is throwing his fortune at science ventures that would make Jules Verne and Stanley Kubrick proud. Make a list of common boyhood dreams and Paul Allen will very likely have lived most of them.
China experts identify cancer-preventing gene typeScientists in China have identified a gene variant which appears to protect Chinese people from various types of cancer.
Mexico finds bones suggesting Toltec child sacrificeThe grisly find of the buried bones of 24 pre-Hispanic Mexican children may be the first evidence that the ancient Toltec civilization sacrificed children, an archaeologist studying the remains said on Monday.
Einstein was right: space and time bendUnder his name in the Oxford English Dictionary is the simple definition: genius.
John Hawks: The incredible nonshrinking carnivoresThe "island rule" is the prediction that small bodied animals should evolve larger sizes on islands, while large bodied animals should evolve to be smaller.
Mathematical Formula Found for the Perfect Bacon SandwichShould it be slithery or scrunchy, glutinous or grilled? The answer, British scientists say, may be divined by a formula: N = C + {fb(cm) · fb(tc)} + fb(Ts) + fc · ta. That is the scientific answer to the question: what makes the perfect bacon sandwich?
'Spiteful' gene manipulation could combat malariaA new way to make specific genes spread faster through insect populations has been developed, paving the way for novel methods of combating insect-borne diseases such as malaria.
Is dark energy an illusion? The quickening pace of our universe's expansion may not be driven by a mysterious force called dark energy after all, but paradoxically, by the collapse of matter in small regions of space.
A Mathematical Solution for Another DimensionEver since 1887, when Norwegian mathematician Sophus Lie discovered the mathematical group called E8, researchers have been trying to understand the extraordinarily complex object described by a numerical matrix of more than 400,000 rows and columns.
Climate change shifts sheep shapeClimate change could have an impact on animal evolution and ecology, scientists believe. A 20-year study of Scottish sheep found weather patterns were driving changes in body shape and population size.
The Beginnings of Morality in Primate BehaviorSome animals are surprisingly sensitive to the plight of others. Chimpanzees, who cannot swim, have drowned in zoo moats trying to save others.
The Sound of Silencenew discoveries are showing that silent mutations appear to play an important role in dozens of human genetic diseases, a fact that is forcing biologists to discard a long-held evolutionary theory and to reexamine the very rules governing the transfer of information from DNA to p …
£25 fridge gadget that could slash greenhouse emissions It is made of wax, is barely three inches across and comes in any colour you like, as long as it's black. And it could save more greenhouse gas emissions than taxes on gas guzzling cars, low energy light bulbs and wind turbines on houses combined.
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