News Archive | May 2026

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May 31st
- Bronze Age 5-year-old's skull found in Uzbekistan is the oldest known evidence of surgery in Central Asia
- 'Astonishing': James Webb telescope spots the most chemically primitive galaxy in the ancient universe
May 30th
- Scientists got mouse eyes to perform photosynthesis ‪—‬ and no, they didn't turn green
- New device could make processors run 1,000 times faster without additional waste heat — scientists say it could reduce data center energy demands
- Science news this week: Exploding rocket overshadows NASA's next steps to the moon, 'Doomsday Glacier' faces big loss, quantum computer AI hybrid shows impressive results, and war deepens Iran's water crisis
- Blue Moon 2026: An extremely rare micromoon rises tonight
May 29th
- Skeletal remains of Queen Elisenda, one of the most powerful rulers in medieval Europe, unearthed in Barcelona — along with several others who bore unexplained stab wounds
- Japan hits 6G key milestone with high-frequency speeds topping 100 Gbps
- OpenAI's internal AI model just solved an 80-year-old math problem ‪—‬ and mathematicians verified it
- 'I would never have guessed it': Unexpected effect is squeezing Mars' atmosphere like toothpaste, experts say
- 'Very rough day': Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket explodes in gigantic fireball, days after being selected for NASA moon missions
May 28th
- Scientists found the optimal robot body, and it has 20 legs ‪—‬ watch it scale walls and move through trees
- A single day of attacks on Iranian oil refineries released as much sulfur dioxide as a volcanic eruption
- Chinese chemists test 'self-cleaning' fabric coating that can remove stains without laundry detergent
- 'It's being promoted like there's absolutely no risk': Why some experts say melatonin should be considered a drug rather than a supplement
- Controversial 'JuMBO' planets discovered by James Webb telescope may not be an illusion after all
- The 'Doomsday Glacier' is poised to lose its ice shelf this year. An Antarctic researcher explains what that means for global sea levels
May 27th
- 1,200-year-old gold hoard discovered in Saudi Arabia may have been buried by a medieval pilgrim
- 'Poised to disintegrate': Antarctica's 'Doomsday Glacier' is set to lose its ice shelf this year
- James Webb telescope discovers 'naked' black hole that somehow formed before its own galaxy
- NASA administrator hails 'Golden Age' of lunar exploration as Moon Base plans unveiled
- The Romans and Vikings left few genetic traces of their occupations of Britain, research suggests
May 26th
- Brilliant-green fireball meteor explodes over erupting volcano in the Philippines
- A new test could flag people at risk for anemia by filming their eyeballs — no needles required
May 25th
- Toxic plant on Ming dynasty-era surgical tools may be world’s oldest chemical evidence of topical anesthetic
- Rare genetic disease makes scientists reconsider what the 'seat of fear' in the brain really is
- Bizarre patterns on Venus have scientists puzzled
- The solar system's largest moon may be heating up — offering clues to its mysterious origins
- Scientists trained an AI model using an IBM quantum computer — and it answered questions correctly that the base model couldn't
May 24th
- China launches 'human artificial embryos' to space in bid to see whether reproduction is possible off-world
May 23rd
- Science news this week: Laotian 'death jar,' climate change threatens rice crops, and an asthma drug treats tough cancer
May 22nd
- Ebola outbreak in Central Africa will be a nightmare to contain, experts warn
- Landmark finding that showed brains of kids with ADHD mature later was actually a mirage in the data, new research finds
- Seal pups were dying from a 'corkscrew killer' on a Canadian island. It turned out to be cannibals.
- Scientists claimed the world's oldest rock art is 67,800 years old. But is the science behind that estimate flawed?
- Can AI really simulate human thinking? Research casts doubt on an influential study, suggesting an advanced model was just really good at memorizing patterns.
- One of Neptune's 16 moons is not like the others, James Webb telescope finds — and it could be key to fully understanding the solar system
May 21st
- There's a new T. rex from the dinosaur age — and it ruled the seas with a skull-crushing bite
- 800-year-old 'hugging skeletons' are genetically confirmed as Poland's only medieval same-sex double burial
- Great Pyramid of Giza is remarkably resilient to earthquakes —‬ and it's due to the ancient Egyptians' 'extraordinary' engineering knowledge
- China's real-life 'transformer' mech is a giant humanoid robot that can switch from bounding on 4 legs to walking on 2
- How can we prevent AI models from cannibalizing themselves when human-generated data runs out? Scientists say they've found the answer.
May 20th
- Complex animals evolved up to 10 million years earlier than previously thought, fossil discovery shows
- Scurvy-plagued whalers' remains discovered at 'Corpse Point' in Svalbard
- Common asthma drug helps fight hard-to-treat cancers, including aggressive breast cancers, early study finds
- Physicists confirm 'negative time' is real by asking the atoms themselves
- The Appalachian Mountains hold enough lithium to make 500 billion cellphones, researchers discover
- 800-year-old notebook and fancy silk toilet paper discovered in medieval latrine in Germany
- China installs world's largest floating wind turbine in deep water test — it generates enough energy to power 4,200 homes annually
- A transition may be coming for a massive Italian volcano
- More young people are getting colorectal cancer — here's what scientists think might be happening
May 19th
- Scientists discover deadly, highly venomous box jellyfish near Singapore's 'Island of Death Behind'
- World's first 'native' color lidar will let robots and self-driving cars map the world in full color 3D
- The planet may become too hot for rice to be cultivated in many areas it currently exists
May 18th
- 1,200-year-old giant 'death jar' in Laos contains generations of human skeletons
- Doctor's kit found on Mount Vesuvius victim in Pompeii
- 950-year-old burial of a pet dingo reveals unique archaeological evidence of humans ritually 'feeding' a grave
- Deadly Ebola outbreak is a public health emergency of international concern, WHO declares
- 'Truly significant': James Webb telescope reveals largest-ever map of the universe's hidden megastructures
May 17th
- 'Last titan' of Thailand discovered, and it's the longest-necked dinosaur on record from Southeast Asia
May 16th
- 8-year-old African American boy from Colonial Maryland found buried with white Colonists, and it's unclear if he was enslaved
- What counts as 'close contact'? Why the risk of hantavirus transmission is tricky to define
- Science news this week: PCOS has a new name, Neanderthals were the world's oldest dentists, and the first nuclear bomb explosion spawned an 'alien' crystal
- Newly discovered, blue-whale-size asteroid will fly super close to Earth today — and you can watch it live
May 15th
- 'The biggest El Niño event since the 1870s': 'Super' El Niño is now the most likely scenario by the end of this year ‪—‬ and the humanitarian cost could be huge
- Antarctica’s sudden sea ice loss is one of the most extreme and confusing events in the modern climate record. Scientists now know why it's happening.
- 'I heard gasps' and 'oh my God': Artemis II astronauts reveal inside story of their mind-bending solar eclipse
May 14th
- A pill can stop people from developing COVID after being exposed to the virus, trial finds
- High-status Roman woman was buried in a lead coffin with jet hairpins and exotic resins, archaeologists find
- 'Extreme' crystal that formed in 1945 nuclear bomb test is unlike anything scientists have seen
May 13th
- SpaceX prepares to launch next-generation Starship, the tallest and most powerful rocket ever built
- 'Exceptional' drilled tooth reveals Neanderthals practiced dentistry in Siberia 60,000 years ago
- The Milky Way ate a galaxy called Loki, and scientists think they found its bones
- Homo erectus genetic material sequenced for the first time, and it shows 'deep genetic links' with modern humans
- AI self-replication hacks 'no longer purely theoretical,' study finds —‬ ‪but experts say it's too soon to panic
May 12th
- Hantavirus outbreaks could become more likely as virus-carrying rodents expand their range, model finds
- Physicists find evidence that the universe isn't perfectly uniform — potentially unraveling a 100-year-old model of cosmology
- 'A combination of amazement and horror': Hitchhiker fish hide in manta ray buttholes
- Eruption blows hole in sun's atmosphere, unleashing solar flare and potentially triggering northern lights
- Once-in-a-century 'super' El Niño in the cards as ocean temperatures reach near record highs in April
- 'Speculation' and 'egregious failure': 30 researchers publish scathing critiques of study that questioned date of early human occupation of Monte Verde in Chile
- Microplastics absorb heat in the atmosphere and contribute to global warming — as if they weren't bad enough
- 'The name was inaccurate': PCOS gets a new name after years-long effort
May 11th
- 'Insect apocalypse' is already fueling malnutrition in some regions, first-of-its-kind study reveals
- New 'trick' fixes major flaw with lasers in neutral-atom quantum computers — inching us closer to more powerful systems
- A 2025 Alaskan tsunami was one of the largest on record, new research finds
May 10th
- 'More than 100 million years of evolution': How snakes evolved and lost their legs
- James Webb telescope zooms in on a black hole that could reveal the truth about 'little red dots'
May 9th
- Science news this week: The latest on the cruise ship hantavirus infections, a shortcut to Mars, and a fast-charging quantum battery
- 'Feuding tech bros' go head to head in legal showdown. But what does it mean for the future of AI?
May 8th
- Some gene therapies no longer require clinical trials, thanks to new FDA rule. Is this safe, and who will it help?
- US government declassifies dozens of additional UFO files, including strange military videos
- Flowering plants transformed into 'hopeful monsters' in 9 dire bursts across evolutionary time, study finds
- 500-year-old gold dental bridge is earliest known oral care of its kind in Scotland — and it likely held a fake tooth
- Live 'quantum network' being tested in New York — overcoming key hurdles could bring us closer to an 'unhackable' internet
- Mangroves clean up $8.7 billion of nitrogen pollution every year, study finds
May 7th
- New AI model spots pancreatic cancer up to 3 years earlier than human doctors in test
- Watch NASA's Curiosity rover 'struggle' to remove a rock that got stuck on its robotic arm for nearly a week
- Gold sword scabbard discovered under toppled tree in Norway was likely 'sacrificed' by an elite warrior 1,500 years ago
- More doomed Franklin expedition sailors identified, revealing clues about how they tried to find safety
- Hantavirus cruise: 41 people in the United States being monitored as investigation into outbreak source continues
- 'Extremely rare' English coins meant to ward off Vikings found in Denmark — because the Vikings wore them as jewelry
- Andes virus — the only hantavirus that can spread between people — identified as culprit on cruise ship
- New water battery could last until the 24th century — and it can be safely discarded in the environment
May 6th
- Happy 100th birthday, David Attenborough! 13 surprising facts about the famous naturalist
- The night sky could get three times brighter as new satellites launch — all but ruining the Vera C. Rubin Observatory's survey of the universe
- The brain's memory center doesn't start as a blank slate, study suggests
- Quantum battery charges in a quadrillionth of a second with a laser — larger prototypes could last for years after charging for just a minute
- Clean hydrogen created from plastic waste using battery acid from old cars and solar power
May 5th
- Both very low and very high heart rates may be linked to higher stroke risk, study says
- Icy object beyond Pluto has an atmosphere that shouldn't exist, study suggests
- 'I was not looking for this': Scientist accidentally finds shortcut to Mars that could slash travel time in half
- Mysterious green rocks in Pyrenees cave hint that prehistoric people were working copper there for 4,000 years
May 4th
- NASA just released 12,000 more Artemis II photos ‪—‬ here are a dozen of our favorites
- Hantavirus infects at least 2 on cruise ship, while 5 others fall ill: Here's what we know
- Centuries-old Christian Nubian murals inspire gorgeous fashion reconstructions
May 3rd
- The Eta Aquariid meteor shower peaks this week: How to see 'shooting stars' dropped by Halley's Comet
May 2nd
- Scientists identify 10,000 'impossible' exoplanet candidates, potentially tripling the number of known alien worlds
- Yellowstone's volcano may be fueled in a very different way than we thought
- Science news this week: Risky, lifesaving surgery performed on a baby in the womb, AI agent deletes a company database in 9 seconds, and the universe may end much sooner than expected
May 1st
- City birds appear to like men more than women, but experts have no idea why
- Full moon alert: May's Flower 'micromoon' will look extra small tonight, with a rare Blue Moon following