Science News

Dec. 3, 2023: Our weekly roundup of the latest science in the news, as well as a few fascinating articles to keep you entertained.

The U.S. military's elusive X-37B space plane has postponed its next launch by three days. Based on the rocket its riding on, the secretive spacecraft is likely launching farther than ever before.

Chinese astronauts recently captured the first clear shot of the completed Tiangong space station as they were leaving the orbiting habitat to return to Earth.

Humans will likely die long before our planet does.

The massive, extinct millipede Arthropleura has been brought back to life in a stunning reconstruction for the Netflix series "Life on Our Planet."

Today's infrared lasers are only powerful enough to disable aerial targets, but scientists now have the keys to building high-powered laser weaponry that can 'melt' distant targets.

Researchers have discovered the first evidence that male tardigrades can find females by scent.

Ocean pout live in frigid waters from Labrador in Canada to North Carolina and have evolved a blood protein that serves as antifreeze.

In the furthest, deepest reaches of the ocean, there is a watery graveyard where the world's satellites and space stations go to rest.

Rarely seen orange auroras, which technically shouldn't exist, were recently photographed in the sky above Scotland after an explosive solar storm smashed into Earth.

Why does ice float in water, instead of sinking to the bottom? It has to do with water's density and molecular structure.

Among people on HIV meds, young children are the likeliest to die, often due to late diagnosis or treatment interruptions.

Malaria cases rose in 2022, in part due to climate change-related extreme weather events.

The site is part of a royal compound that archaeologists think may have been overseen by King Raedwald.

A weird phenomenon in which electricity flows like water was spotted in a nanowire made of "strange metal" — a bizarre metal phase that has stumped physicists for 40 years.

The massive planet LHS 3154b orbits a star much smaller than Earth's sun, and its discovery could upend everything we think we know about how solar systems form.

People with tinnitus may be wrongly classed as having "normal hearing" because standard tests don't detect the condition's true cause, a new study suggests.

A sample from the asteroid Bennu, collected by the OSIRIS-REx mission, has arrived at London's Natural History Museum for analysis. Scientists are optimistic that it could contain the seeds of life.

The penguins accrue 11 hours of cumulative sleep a day from a bizarre adaptation that enables them to doze as they guard their nests.

An AI model found that 28% of non-smokers are at high risk of developing lung cancer, with 2.9% of high-risk individuals developing the disease within six years.