US life expectancy drops dramatically due to COVID-19 By Rachael Rettner Black and Latino populations are disproportionately affected.
Watch NASA test the world's most powerful rocket ever on Saturday By Rafi Letzter NASA is going to light up the most powerful rocket it's ever built Saturday (Jan. 16), though it won't go anywhere.
Inauguration day: Why presidents must wait 2 months to start By Kacey Deamer Here's why inauguration day occurs months after an election.
Raven 'queen' missing from Tower of London, feared dead By Mindy Weisberger According to legend, six ravens must inhabit the Tower of London or the kingdom will fall. Now, one of the ravens, a matriarch named Merlina, is missing.
UK coronavirus variant could become dominant US strain by March, CDC says By Rachael Rettner Strict measures will be needed to prevent it from taking over.
2 infants inhaled cancer cells from mothers during birth By Yasemin Saplakoglu The infants who were born to mothers with cervical cancer may have developed lung cancer after "aspirating" tumor cells
Lizzie Borden's home, site of brutal axe murders, could be yours for $2 million By Mindy Weisberger The home where Lizzie Borden's father and stepmother were murdered is now a bed and breakfast, and a museum. Its retiring owner just put it on the market.
Broiling 2020 was the hottest year ever, NASA climate scientists say By Mindy Weisberger Researchers with NASA and NOAA released their annual assessments of global temperatures and climate trends, finding 2020 to be one of the hottest years in 140 years of record-keeping.
Quick guide: COVID-19 vaccines in use and how they work By Nicoletta Lanese Here's a guide to the vaccines being used in different countries.
Astronomers are still reeling from the loss of iconic Arecibo radio telescope By Meghan Bartels The collapse of the iconic radio telescope at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico last month has left astronomers with a host of questions about what went wrong and what comes next.
The planet is dying faster than we thought By Brandon Specktor A triple-threat of climate change, biodiversity loss and overpopulation is bearing down on Earth, a new paper from 17 scientists warns.
Mystery of massive, train-stopping millipede swarms solved By Yasemin Saplakoglu For over a century, hundreds to thousands of poisonous millipedes have swarmed train tracks in the thick, forested mountains of Japan, forcing trains to grind to a halt
Stash of late medieval gold coins discovered on a farm in Hungary By Yasemin Saplakoglu In the 16th century, an attack from the Ottoman Empire may have prompted panicked Hungarians to bury a stash of valuable silver and gold coins.
Electric eels can supercharge their attacks by working together By Patrick Pester Electric eels have been observed in the Amazon hunting in groups for the first time. By working together, they can send fish flying with a supercharged jolt of electricity.
Huntsman spiders eat tree frogs after luring them into leaf traps By Mindy Weisberger Tiny frogs in Madagascar are lured to their doom by spiders' ingenious silk-stitched leaf traps.
This might be the fastest magnetar in the whole galaxy By Rafi Letzter A rapidly twirling, ultramagnetic 500-year-old infant has been spotted zipping at never-before-seen speeds through the Milky Way. It belongs to a super-rare flavor of super-rare star.
How does impeachment work? By Stephanie Pappas Will President Trump be impeached? Here's a look at what impeachment means, how it works and who has been impeached.
CIA releases entire collection of UFO-related documents to truth-seeking website By Brandon Specktor The CIA just turned over 2,700 pages of UFO-related material to The Black Vault, a free repository of UFO records online.