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Smart News / Smart News Science

Researchers uncovered a cache of 12 right hands in the courtyard of an Egyptian palace in 2011.

Cache of Ancient Severed Hands May Have Been Part of a Ritual

Twelve right hands found in an Egyptian palace courtyard were likely battle trophies that warriors exchanged for gold

The T. Rex skeleton, named Trinity, in a photograph taken March 28. The skeleton's 293 bones come from three different specimens.

T. Rex Skeleton Sells for More Than $5 Million at Auction

Just over half the skeleton is made of actual fossils, which come from three different specimens

SpaceX's Starship is the tallest and most powerful rocket ever built.

Starship Explodes During Test Flight: What to Know About SpaceX’s Powerful Rocket

The 394-foot-tall Starship, the largest rocket ever built, flew for about four minutes on April 20

Zooplankton help clean Lake Tahoe by eating tiny particles that can make the water cloudy.

Why Lake Tahoe Is the Clearest It’s Been in 40 Years

Thanks to a “natural clean-up crew” of zooplankton, the large freshwater alpine lake is looking especially pristine

An illustration of Diamantinasaurus matildae

Rare 95-Million-Year-Old Dinosaur Skull Uncovered in Australia

The first-of-its-kind find reveals how sauropods may have moved between Australia and South America during the mid-Cretaceous

The hybrid eclipse will appear to viewers as a total solar eclipse, annular solar eclipse or partial solar eclipse depending on their vantage point.

How to Watch the Rare Hybrid Solar Eclipse From Your Home

This spectacle in the South Pacific will be visible in online livestreams on Wednesday. It is the last hybrid solar eclipse until 2031

Fortune cookies are now a mainstay of Chinese restaurant meals in the United States, but the tradition likely originated in ancient Japan.

A.I. Is Coming to Your Fortune Cookies

At least one fortune-writing company is using ChatGPT to come up with the clever messages that are a beloved staple of Chinese food in America

Melanoma cancer cells under a microscope

New mRNA Vaccine Shows Promise Against Skin Cancer

Research suggests the personalized vaccine, paired with an immunotherapy drug, can reduce melanoma recurrence in high-risk patients

Beatriz Flamini leaves a cave after spending 500 days underground in total isolation.

Spanish Athlete Emerges After 500 Days Alone in Underground Cave

Beatriz Flamini, 50, returned to the sunlight after more than 16 months of isolation

Kathleen Corradi, New York City's new director of rodent mitigation, at a press conference on April 12, 2023.

New York City’s First ‘Rat Czar’ Will Fight Its Rodents

Kathleen Corradi says she will “bring a science- and systems-based approach” to the job

An illustration of the Snowball Earth with some open water around the equator and a newly proposed patch of ocean at mid-latitudes

How Life Could Have Survived the Frozen ‘Snowball Earth’

During a prehistoric ice age when the planet was enveloped in glaciers, algae could have made a living in patchy, open oceans, study suggests

The rocket carrying the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer launches from French Guiana on April 14. 

Juice Mission Launches to Explore Jupiter and Its Icy Moons

The spacecraft will investigate oceans that might lie beneath the moons’ surfaces and study whether they could support life

The new image of the black hole in the Messier 87 galaxy.

See the Sharp New Image of a Supermassive Black Hole

Astronomers used machine-learning technology to improve a 2019 visualization of the M87 black hole, located some 54 million light-years away from Earth

It is expected that about 18 meteors per hour will light up the sky at the peak of the Lyrid meteor shower this year.

How to Watch the Spectacular Lyrid Meteor Shower

One of the oldest recorded annual showers, the Lyrids will peak on April 22

Despite making up roughly 14 percent of Cape Town's population, the wealthiest residents used 51 percent of the city's water—often for non-essential uses like swimming pools, gardens and car-washing.

Wealthy Residents’ Pools and Gardens Are Driving Water Crises

Urban elites use a disproportionate share of water compared to their lower-income peers, according to a new study

Records of lunar eclipses that appeared unusually dark are telling scientists when volcanic eruptions might have occurred in the past.

Medieval Eclipse Records Help Scientists Understand Volcanic Eruptions

Descriptions of lunar eclipses from monks and poets can shed light on how volcanoes affect Earth’s climate in a new study

Lake Mead in July 2021—the lighter colored rocks indicate how high water levels used to be. Last summer, the lake was filled to just 27 percent of capacity, its lowest water levels since 1937.

U.S. Proposes Cuts to Colorado River Water Usage

Negotiations between states have not produced an agreement on how to allocate the dwindling water, so the federal government has offered tentative plans

Volcanic ash covers the ground and houses in Klyuchi village on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia after the Shiveluch volcano's eruption. 

Volcanic Eruption Spews Ash 12 Miles Into the Air in Russia

The volcano Shiveluch coated villages in dust and prompted flight warnings

The supernova Cassiopeia A, as imaged by the James Webb Space Telescope's Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI)

See the James Webb Telescope’s Stunning New Snapshot of an Exploded Star

The supernova, known as Cassiopeia A, is located roughly 11,000 light-years from Earth and could offer insights into cosmic dust and star death

An artist's rendition of the runaway black hole with the stream of stars trailing behind it. Its former host galaxy is in the upper right of the image.

Black Hole Hurtling Through Space Leaves a Trail of Stars in Its Wake

Researchers theorize a stream of stars 200,000 light-years long came from a black hole ejected from its galaxy

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