Science News: Recent scientific discoveries and expert analysis

A recent update caused ChatGPT to turn into a sycophant, with the chatbot excessively complimenting and flattering its users with reassurances — even when they said they'd harmed animals or stopped taking their medication. OpenAI has now reversed the changes.

Vesta, thought to be the second-largest asteroid in the solar system, could be a piece of an ancient, unknown planet, a new study hints.

University of Zurich researchers secretly unleashed an army of manipulative chatbots on the r/changemyview subreddit — and they were more persuasive than humans at getting people to change their minds.

A unique Bronze Age cemetery in China has revealed a high frequency of injuries suggestive of intense, violent interactions.

The annual Eta Aquariid meteor shower, linked to Halley's Comet, will peak overnight on May 5 and 6.

New genetic research confirms what the oral traditions of the Picuris Pueblo people of New Mexico have long described — that they're related to the Indigenous people of Chaco Canyon.

Geologists have found that an ancient meteorite hit Scotland 200 million years later than previously thought, which has massive implications for the geological history of the region and some of the U.K.'s earliest land life.

The dinosaurs were not in decline before the asteroid hit, a new study finds. Instead, poor fossilization conditions and unexposed late Cretaceous rock layers mean they're either not preserved or hard to find.

Researchers have discovered a way to make tiny robots act like a material, mirroring embryonic tissue cells to adjust their structure on command.

May's full moon is the Flower Moon, rising May 12. It will also be a micromoon, appearing slightly smaller than usual.

The geology of the Cascadia subduction zone has largely staved off climate-related sea-level rise in the Pacific Northwest, but that could reverse in an instant.

The discovery of Eos, the closest known molecular cloud to Earth and one of the largest structures in the night sky, hints at the presence of many previously unseen clouds throughout the galaxy.

A Celtic burial site from the Second Iron Age in France contains two rare, well-preserved swords.

Researchers have found that wounds heal three times more slowly in humans than in other primates and rodents, suggesting we may have evolved slower healing at some point in our ancestry.

Dead stars may have started churning out vast amounts of gold much earlier in the universe than previously thought, a new study hints. Powerful magnetar flares may be the reason.

The lander section of the Kosmos 482 probe was launched in 1972 and designed to survive on Venus. Now it's due a fiery reentry to Earth.

We may have gotten the evolutionary origins of the echidna backward, as new research suggests its ancestors probably lived in the water, not on land.

Recent findings indicate that dire wolves and gray wolves are distantly related, having diverged about 5.7 million years ago and, as far as scientists can tell, never interbred since then.

Companies claim that Tyrannosaurus rex leather could soon be entering the luxury fashion market, but dinosaur researchers say you can't make genuine T. rex skin.

Advances in materials and architecture could lead to silicon-free chip manufacturing thanks to a new type of transistor.