830 million-year-old organisms found locked in ancient crystals could be resurrected

The comet won't come near us, but will present a rare chance to closely observe an Oort Cloud comet that carries clues to our origins.

A PREHISTORIC Megalodon shark has been declared the world's 'ultimate predator of predators' by scientists. In a new study, researchers from Princeton University ranked predators from the past and revealed that Megalodon sharks reigned supreme. Megalodons are an extinct species of mackerel shark that lived approximately 23 to 3.6 million...

Researchers have rediscovered a fossil site in Brazil that was found and then lost 70 years ago. Fossils uncovered at the location could help paleontologists learn more about a massive extinction event around 251 million years ago.

It's springtime on Mars and the mysterious polygons are in bloom, a new image from the orbiting High Resolution Imaging Experiment (HIRISE) camera shows. Recorded on March 30, 2022, the image reveals a patchwork of white zig-zags cracking across the Martian soil at high latitudes, with occasional sprays of black and blue mist fanning out between them. The zig-zags and colorful sprays are signature features of Martian spring, when hidden reservoirs of subterranean ice butt up against the dry Martian surface, researchers at the University of Arizona — which manages the HIRISE mission — wrote in a statement on Monday (June 20).

Archaeologists have revealed a complex of hidden passageways and galleries deep inside the ancient Chavín de Huántar temple complex in the Peruvian Andes. The researchers think the network of chambers and galleries was used in religious rituals, possibly involving psychedelic drugs. It's the first time in about 3,000...

A bronze sculpture of a snake with a human head, along with a large number of other artifacts including finds made of bronze, jade and gold, have been discovered in a series of pits at the archaeological site Sanxingdui in Sichuan, China. The discoveries also include a bronze box with...

There are trillions of cells in your body, but the cells that you have today are not all the exact same cells that you had yesterday. Over time, cells age and become damaged, so your body's cells are constantly replicating, creating their own replacements. This constant cellular activity has sparked...

A gigantic sunspot has swelled to twice Earth's size, doubling its diameter in 24 hours, and it's pointed right at us. The sunspot, called AR3038, grew to 2.5 times Earth's size — making the sunspot roughly 19,800 miles, or 31,900 kilometers, in diameter — from Sunday (June 19) to Monday night (June 20), according to Spaceweather.com, a website that tracks news about solar flares, geomagnetic storms and other cosmic weather events.

Death comes for all, but aging doesn’t — at least for some animal species. Two new studies published Thursday (June 23) in the journal Science found that turtles and tortoises have remarkably slow rates of aging. In captivity, without the stress of finding food and avoiding predators, some may not age at all.

A near-perfectly mummified, 30,000 year-old baby woolly mammoth has been unearthed from Canadian permafrost by a miner in the Klondike region's gold fields. The stunningly preserved baby, which measured just 4.5 feet (1.4 meters) long and has much of its hair and skin intact, was described by officials as "the most complete mummified mammoth found in North America."

In the waters off of South Africa, a killer whale killing spree is raging. Since 2017, a pair of male orcas (Orcinus orca) have slaughtered at least eight great white sharks (Carcharodon carcharias) near the Gansbaai coast, tearing the fearsome fish apart and eating their livers in all but one case. Some of the sharks — which scientists periodically find dead and shredded on nearby beaches — were even missing their hearts.

NASA has photographed the crash site of the mysterious rocket that smashed into the far side of the moon in March, and the unidentified spacecraft left behind a weird double crater that has scientists puzzled. Images of the crash site were taken by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) on May...

A surprise solar storm hit Earth on June 25 causing unexpected auroras that lit up the sky during a rare 5-planet alignment.

NASA has requested the safe return of moondust and cockroach samples that were scheduled to be sold in a private auction that ended June 23. Earlier this month, the space agency contacted RR Auction, a Boston-based auction house, to stop the sale of moondust that was collected by astronauts during the 1969 Apollo 11 mission. Shortly after the lunar dust was brought back to Earth in 1969, NASA sent some samples to a University of Minnesota (UM) researcher, who experimented with feeding the moondust to cockroaches "to determine if the lunar rock contained any sort of pathogen that posed a threat to terrestrial life," The Washington Post reported.

In 2012, a shriveled white star in a nearby galaxy reached the end of its life and exploded in a violent, thermonuclear supernova. Such explosions — known as type 1a supernovas — are a common end for billions of stars in our universe, typically resulting in the utter obliteration of the old star at the heart of the blast.

Like some other metals, copper oxidizes when left out in the elements, but the coloring process is complicated.

The early bird catches the spectacular skywatching this week, as five planets march across the predawn sky. This rare planetary alignment has been visible since early June. But the view should be particularly impressive this week, as Mercury is at its brightest and the waning moon joins the parade of planets.

A crab species that was recently discovered in Australia fashions itself massive hats and coats made from living sponges, which makes the crustacean look like a wonderfully squeezable stuffed toy. A family first spotted the crab, the newly named Lamarckdromia beagle, when it washed up on a beach near the...

Look up at the sky on a clear night in a dark area, and the stars appear to twinkle. The concept is so well established that it's the premise of one of the most popular children's songs of all time. But what's the science behind this sparkly sight? What is...

A solar flare is an intense burst of electromagnetic radiation generated in the sun's atmosphere — the layers of sparse but hot gas that lie above its visible surface, or photosphere. The vast amounts of energy released by a typical solar flare are mostly radiated away in the ultraviolet...