Science News: Recent scientific discoveries and expert analysis
Read the latest science news and recent scientific discoveries on Live Science, where we've been reporting on groundbreaking advances for over 20 years. Our expert editors, writers and contributors are ready to guide you through today's most important breakthroughs in science with expert analysis, in-depth explainers and interesting articles, covering everything from space, technology, health, animals, planet Earth, and much more.
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Melting glaciers could trigger volcanic eruptions around the globe, study finds
By Ben Turner published
Glacial melt could increase volcanic activity in North America, New Zealand and Russia, spewing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Rare form of leprosy infected people in Americas before European arrival, 4,000-year-old bones suggest
By Perri Thaler published
Roughly 4,000-year-old bones from Chile contain genetic evidence of leprosy, suggesting that a rare form of the bacteria that causes the disease may have been circulating in the Americas and long before the Europeans arrived.

'Ash-winged dawn goddess' is oldest pterosaur ever discovered in North America — and it was small enough to sit 'on your shoulder'
By Patrick Pester published
A cache of Triassic fossils in Arizona has revealed Eotephradactylus mcintireae, or "ash-winged dawn goddess," the oldest pterosaur ever discovered in North America.

Earth is going to spin much faster over the next few months — so fast that several days are going to get shorter
By Amy Arthur published
Differences in the gravitational pull between the Earth and the Moon will make July 9, July 22 and August 5 unusually short.

Scientists burned, poked and sliced their way through new robotic skin that can 'feel everything'
By Owen Hughes published
New, gelatin-based material could let robots feel everything from a light poke to a deep cut.

Full 'Buck Moon' rises next week: Why it's so special
By Jamie Carter published
July's full "Buck Moon" will be at its fullest on Thursday, July 10, and will be best seen at moonrise. It is the farthest full moon from the sun all year and one of the lowest in the sky.

BANG! James Webb telescope catches stray galaxies in the Bullet Cluster: Space photo of the week
By Shreejaya Karantha published
This unprecedented view of the Bullet Cluster provided by the James Webb Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory reveals how the dark matter is distributed.

AI chatbots oversimplify scientific studies and gloss over critical details — the newest models are especially guilty
By Lisa D. Sparks published
More advanced AI chatbots are more likely to oversimplify complex scientific findings based on the way they interpret the data they are trained on, a new study suggests.

Spacecraft carrying cannabis and human remains crashes into the ocean
By Matthew Williams published
A capsule created by German aerospace startup The Exploration Company crash-landed in the ocean with a payload that included human remains and cannabis seeds.

Scientists transform pee into material fit for medical implants
By Ben Turner published
A new method for chemically altering human urine could be used for producing medical implants and construction materials, scientists claim.

Oldest wooden tools unearthed in East Asia show that ancient humans made planned trips to dig up edible plants
By Sascha Pare published
The 300,000 year-old tools show that hominins in East Asia made planned foraging trips to lakeshores and designed instruments for specific purposes.

Astronaut snaps giant red 'jellyfish' sprite over North America during upward-shooting lightning event
By Harry Baker published
NASA astronaut Nichole Ayers captured an electrifying image of a giant lightning "sprite" shooting up over Mexico and southern U.S. states. The red "jellyfish" could help researchers learn more about this rare phenomenon.

Giant radio telescope in the Utah desert could reveal hidden corners of the cosmos — and brand-new physics
By Paul Sutter published
Scientists say that the construction of a vast new radio telescope array in the Utah desert — known as the Deep Synoptic Array 2000 — could uncover some of the biggest outstanding mysteries in astronomy.

Small, room-temperature quantum computers that use light on the horizon after breakthrough, scientists say
By Owen Hughes published
Scientists say they’ve cracked a key challenge in scalable quantum hardware after generating an error-correcting, light-based qubit on a chip for the first time.

Can adults make new brain cells? New study may finally settle one of neuroscience's greatest debates
By Theresa Sullivan Barger published
Scientists say they have very strong evidence that the adult human brain is capable of making new neurons, a point of ongoing controversy in neuroscience.

RFK's proposal to let bird flu spread through poultry could set us up for a pandemic, experts warn
By Ben Turner published
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins have expressed interest in letting H5N1 outbreaks spread unchecked through U.S. poultry farms. Health experts warn it could lead to a new pandemic.

Neanderthal DNA may refute 65,000-year-old date for human occupation in Australia, but not all experts are convinced
By Kristina Killgrove published
A new DNA model suggests humans didn't reach Australia until 50,000 years ago, but archaeological data disagrees.
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