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By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — In the arid, inhospitable climate of western Iran’s Zagros Mountains, life has found a remarkable way to survive. Circling above, a bird glimpses what at first glance looks like a plump spider climbing on the rocks. But as the avian predator swoops in, it becomes the prey as something

By Lianne Kolirin, CNN (CNN) — It’s something every dog owner knows — but now we have the science to prove it: Dogs really can tell when we’re happy or sad. Scientists have scanned the brains of dogs to reveal how they process various human expressions, including happiness, sadness, anger and fear, according to a

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — Telltale wrinkles that cover Mercury, the closest planet to the sun, suggest it was once a larger world that has shrunk in size — and it may be shrinking more than scientists realized. The smallest planet in our solar system is about 36 million miles (58 million kilometers) from

By Andrew Freedman, CNN (CNN) — The sea level along California’s coast will increase by about a foot by mid-October due to the influence of El Niño, which is driving a large volume of water northward from offshore of Mexico and Central America. This water is coming in the form of a coastal “Kelvin wave,”

By Jackie Wattles, CNN (CNN) — President Donald Trump is proposing the creation of a “United States Space Academy” designed to offer the same type of tuition-free, four-year degree as US military academies. But rather than requiring active-duty military service, graduates of this federally funded university may fulfill their post-graduation obligations by working at NASA

By Amarachi Orie, CNN (CNN) — The mundane work of clearing grass and stones in a backyard has led to the discovery of Denmark’s largest known hoard of Viking Age silver. The finder, a man based in the northern Danish municipality of Rebild who wishes to remain anonymous, was preparing his garden for the construction

By Laura Paddison, CNN (CNN) — A miles-long microalgae bloom in the Mediterranean Sea has been blamed for temporarily knocking offline many of Israel’s major desalination plants this week, threatening its main source of drinking water. Five of the country’s six coastal desalination plants — which convert seawater into drinkable water — shut down on

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — An ambitious mission to reveal the secrets of the least explored planet in the inner solar system is taking the initial big step in arrival at its cosmic destination after a lengthy journey. The BepiColombo mission, a joint effort between the European Space Agency and the Japan Aerospace Exploration

By Andrew Freedman, CNN (CNN) — In January 2025, the Trump administration cut off funding for a long-running natural hazards program that aimed to identify and monitor landslide hotspots in Nepal. While the program would not have been able to prevent the disaster that happened this past week, it represented a first step towards making

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — Hunters wiped out thylacines, commonly known as Tasmanian tigers, in Australia nearly a century ago. But a myth about these shy, semi-nocturnal predators may have been behind the species’ extinction. Thylacines had a strong resemblance to wolves — so much so that they were given the species name cynocephalus,

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — A massive observatory that scientists have called a “discovery machine” has launched toward the cosmos, beginning a journey that could mark a significant shift in our understanding of the universe. Designed to seek out otherwise invisible and faint space objects, NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope lifted off aboard

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — During a visit to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory three years ago, I stepped into a blinding white room. There, I came face-to-face with a space instrument that could one day be used to search for evidence of life beyond Earth. Each person who enters the clean room at the