With sea ice levels in the Arctic at record lows this month, a new report comparing scientists’ predictions calls for caution in over-interpreting a few weeks worth of data from the North Pole.
The Sea Ice …

Like vacationers taking a pit stop on a long road trip, zircon mineral grains from the northern Appalachians may have stopped off in Michigan before ending up on the Colorado Plateau, a new study suggests. …

Honeybee remains found in a 3,000-year-old apiary have given archaeologists a one-of-a-kind window into the beekeeping practices of the ancient world.
“Beekeeping is known only from a few Egyptian sources, from a few tombs and paintings. …

The Cassini spacecraft made its deepest dip ever into the atmosphere of Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, at 8:28 p.m. Eastern time on June 20. The data it collected will help determine whether the moon has …

BOULDER, Colorado — Oil gushing from the Deepwater Horizon site in the Gulf of Mexico will reach the Atlantic Ocean within six months, says oceanographer Synte Peacock. Exactly when is all down to an eddy …

While the oil disaster’s terrible toll on birds and turtles will at least be measured, less charismatic creatures tend to be ignored. That’s why conservationists are organizing a citizen science project to count the Gulf …

Giant planets with wonky orbits mostly circle blistering-hot stars, two new studies find. This pattern could explain why some “hot Jupiters” — planets from a third to 12 times the mass of Jupiter that sit …

Wear patterns on ancient antelope teeth have allowed researchers to reconstruct Europe’s environment 8 million years ago, when the continent’s great apes vanished.
One of those ape species could have given rise to the human lineage, …

New fossils have provided a snapshot of proto-human diets during a critical evolutionary moment, when better fare helped our small-brained ancestors boost their cognitive capacity.
Two-million-year-old bones that belonged to fish, crocodiles and turtles — aquatic …

Human eyes can detect the spooky phenomenon of quantum entanglement — but only sometimes, a new study on the physics preprint website arXiv.org claims. While eyes can help determine if two individual photons were recently …

A landmark decision has excluded fMRI lie-detection evidence from a federal court case in Tennessee.
The defense tried to use brain scans of the defendant to prove its client had not intentionally defrauded the government. In …

Oyster shells excavated from a well in Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent British settlement in North America, bolster the notion that the first colonists suffered an unusually deep and long-lasting drought.
sciencenewsThe shells reveal that water …

An Alaskan bay bitterly contested by fishermen and miners has become the site of a landmark study on population dynamics — and the findings favor the fish.
Published June 2 in Nature, the analysis of Bristol …

A thick haze of organic material let the early Earth soak up the sun’s warmth without absorbing harmful ultraviolet rays, according to a new study.
The model offers a new twist on an old puzzle: Although …

Elderly people who care for a spouse who has dementia are at increased risk of developing dementia themselves, a study finds. The stress of attending to a mentally incapacitated spouse may somehow contribute to the …

The Environmental Protection Agency ordered British Petroleum to change the type of dispersant the company is using to keep oil from reaching American shores.
The EPA gave the company 72 hours to switch to a less …

The flashes of white light accompanying some solar flares are caused by the sun’s acceleration of electrons to speeds greater than half the speed of light.
The phenomenon’s new explanation derives from data recorded from a …

A new vaccine may be able to provide some protection against all strains of influenza.
Current immunizations create antibodies that target a specific piece of a molecule on the surface of the virus that researchers call …

Detailed Hubble images reveal a single supermassive black hole wandering away from its host galaxy’s center where it belongs. The misplaced black hole is probably the result of a merger between two smaller black holes, …

Mysterious clouds of gas hovering above the plane of the Milky Way may be the fractured remnants of superbubbles blown by stellar winds and exploding stars.
“There’s a fundamental, interesting connection between gas far away from …