How do our brains wake up?
How do we go from sound asleep to awake in the blink of an eye?
Planet Earth
CO2 levels reach record new high, locking in more global warming
Greenhouse gas concentrations increased by a record amount in 2024 as more carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide became locked in Earth's atmosphere, a World Meteorological Organization report finds.
Methane leaks multiplying beneath Antarctic ocean spark fears of climate doom loop
Researchers have discovered dozens of new methane seeps littering the ocean floor in the Ross Sea coastal region of Antarctica, raising concerns of an unknown positive climate feedback loop that could accelerate global warming.
LATEST ARTICLES
Space
Orionids 2025: Meteor shower caused by Halley's Comet peaks as two new comets cross the sky
Comets Lemmon and SWAN will be at their brightest just as the annual Orionid meteor shower produced by Halley's Comet reaches its peak.
Record-breaking 'dark object' found hiding within a warped 'Einstein ring' 10 billion light-years away
Researchers have found a suspected clump of dark matter lurking within the luminous halo of a well-known "Einstein ring." The mysterious object, the smallest of its kind ever seen, could help shed light on the universe's missing matter.
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Science Spotlight
Discover the research changing our understanding of the world
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Space photo of the week
Extraordinary images of our sublime universe
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Life's Little Mysteries
Science questions, answered
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Live Science crossword puzzle
Test your knowledge on all things science with our weekly, free crossword puzzle!
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Science quizzes
Test your knowledge of everything from space to nature
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Amazing animals
A look at the weird and wonderful species that live on our planet
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Diagnostic dilemma
Unusual case reports from the medical literature
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Incredible places
A window onto extraordinary landscapes on Earth
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Rare diseases
Medical conditions you may never have heard of before
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Astonishing artifacts
A glimpse into how people lived in the past
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Earth from space
Incredible images of our planet from above
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Science news this week
Our roundup the biggest discoveries and top science in the news each week
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Health
Could simple blood tests identify cancer earlier?
Blood tests that detect early cancer are coming to market. Could they lead to earlier diagnosis and treatment?
Animals
Can you actually get high from licking a toad?
There's some truth to the urban legend that certain toads have psychedelic properties, but licking them isn't a good idea.
Human Behavior
Live Science crossword puzzle #15: Explosive death of a star — 11 down
Science crossword Test your knowledge on all things science with our weekly, free crossword puzzle!
Citation cartels, ghost writing and fake peer-review: Fraud is causing a crisis in science — here's what we need to do to stop it
Opinion Thousands of scientific papers are retracted every year because of fraudulent activity, with both authors and journals gaming a system to gain academic acclaim through deceit, dishonesty and false representation.
'When people gather in groups, bizarre behaviors often emerge': How the rise of online social networks has catapulted dysfunctional thinking
Opinion The pervasive spread of misinformation can be tracked to cognitive limitations, social influence and the global spread of online networks. Combatting it has become an "arms race" between truth and lies.
Physics & Mathematics
Physicists capture rare illusion of an object moving at 99.9% the speed of light
For the first time, physicists have simulated what objects moving near the speed of light would look like — an optical illusion called the Terrell-Penrose effect.
Einstein's relativity could rewrite a major rule about what types of planets are habitable
Planets that orbit white dwarf stars should be too hot to host alien life, theories suggest. But a new study accounting for Einstein's general relativity may rewrite that rule.
Nobel Prize in physics goes to three scientists who discovered bizarre quantum effect on large scales
The 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret and John M. Martinis "for the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit."
Chemistry
Why does slicing onions make you cry?
Here's why you may start tearing up while slicing an onion.
Technology
'This moves the timeline forward significantly': Quantum computing breakthrough could slash pesky errors by up to 100 times
Researchers used a new technique called algorithmic fault tolerance (AFT) to cut the time and computational cost of quantum error correction by up to 100 times in simulations of neutral-atom architecture.
