Here’s how NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter has spent 1 year on Mars

One year ago, Ingenuity took its first flight on Mars. And its story since is that of a real-world little helicopter that could. Ingenuity traveled to the Red Planet attached…

A new nuclear imaging prototype detects tumors’ faint glow

A type of light commonly observed in astrophysics experiments and nuclear reactors can help detect cancer. In a clinical trial, a prototype of an imaging machine that relies on this…

A new nuclear imaging prototype detects tumors’ faint glow

A type of light commonly observed in astrophysics experiments and nuclear reactors can help detect cancer. In a clinical trial, a prototype of an imaging machine that relies on this…

Crumbling planets might trigger repeating fast radio bursts

Fragmenting planets sweeping extremely close to their stars might be the cause of mysterious cosmic blasts of radio waves. Milliseconds-long fast radio bursts, or FRBs, erupt from distant cosmic locales.…

Most bats don’t echolocate in broad daylight. Here’s an exception

Despite their excellent vision, one city-dwelling colony of fruit bats echolocates during broad daylight — completely contrary to what experts expected. A group of Egyptian fruit bats (Rousettus aegyptiacus) in…

Coastal cities around the globe are sinking

Coastal cities around the globe are sinking by up to several centimeters per year, on average, satellite observations reveal. The one-two punch of subsiding land and rising seas means that…

A newly discovered planet renews debate about how some giant worlds form

A young, massive planet is orbiting in an unusual place in its star system, and it’s leading researchers to revive a long-debated view of how giant planets can form. The…

This hieroglyph is the oldest known record of the Maya calendar

Buried within the Las Pinturas pyramid in San Bartolo, Guatemala, thousands of painted plaster mural fragments offer a window into ancient Maya civilization. Two of those fragments form the earliest…

This is the biggest known comet in our solar system

The nucleus of a comet discovered in 2014 is the largest ever spotted. The “dirty snowball” at the center of comet C/2014 UN271 is about 120 kilometers across, researchers report…

How ancient, recurring climate changes may have shaped human evolution

Recurring climate changes may have orchestrated where Homo species lived over the last 2 million years and how humankind evolved. Ups and downs in temperature, rainfall and plant growth promoted…