This weekend, Curiosity lands on Mars. That's the name of a one-ton roving robotic laboratory, part of NASA's four-ton Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft now hurtling toward the planet.
What do the 2010 heat wave in Russia, last year's Texas drought, and the 2003 heat wave in Europe have in common?
Theoretical physicist Michio Kaku explains the larger implications of the God Particle's discovery.
Buz Marthaler with the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Northern Utah on golden eagle 'Phoenix's' story of survival.
A map of significant climate events for the United States in June looks almost apocalyptic: hellish heat, ferocious fires and severe storms leaving people injured, homeless and even dead.
Our understanding of physical reality ? of everything and nothing ? has changed forever. We don't yet know where we are heading, but nothing will ever be the same. As a scientist, I don't know what more I could ask for.
Scientists say they are almost certain they have proven the existence of the Higgs boson -- a never-before-seen subatomic particle long thought to be a fundamental building block of the universe.
Physicist Martin Archer discusses evidence that the so-called "God particle" actually exists.
"We are reaching the tipping point and the tipping point according to most scientists will be in less than 10 years. We don't have much time," says human rights and environmental campaigner, Bianca Jagger.
Black hole-hunting satellite NuSTAR launched from a plane over the Pacific Ocean.
In Ballroom E of the Den'aina conference center here Wednesday, a small group of astronomers and journalists listened to the NASA feed from Kwajalein island, between Hawaii and Australia, where a Pegasus rocket aboard an L1011 plane was about to launch the NuSTAR space telescope. I was there as a member of the science team for NuSTAR, which is part of NASA's Small Explorer program
It's hot out there. But this time, it's more than idle water cooler talk, according to weather scientists.
Tonight, Tuesday, June 5, as the sun set on the East Coast, the planet Venus began its "transit" across the face of the sun. Pay close attention: Barring a miracle of future medicine, this is your only chance to witness such a crossing. The next one will take place in 2117.
The director of the National Weather Service announced his sudden retirement last week after an internal investigation found the agency shifted some of its funding internally without asking Congress, according to officials familiar with the situation.
Despite some early storms this year, forecasters Thursday predicted a near-normal Atlantic hurricane season with nine to 15 named storms, including four to eight hurricanes and one to three major hurricanes.
An annular solar eclipse will be visible in the western U.S on May 20. The next one won't happen in the U.S. until 2023.
The shadow of the moon started sweeping across the globe from Hong Kong to the Texas Panhandle as a rare annular solar eclipse began Monday morning in Asia.
Thousands of people are planning viewing parties for the upcoming annular solar eclipse, a rare event in which the sun will appear as a thin ring behind the moon.
Thousands of people are planning viewing parties in the western United States for Sunday's annular solar eclipse, a rare event in which the sun will appear as a thin ring behind the moon.
A wooden ship believed to be over 200 years old was discovered during a recent exploration of the northern Gulf of Mexico, according to a press release from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
A science journal is poised to publish a study that some experts believe could give a recipe to bioterrorists.
Photographer Roger Moukarzel's exhibition showcases his work highlighting the effects of global warming in Sweden.
In the wake of the GSA convention scandal that is still reverberating across the government, officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Thursday pulled a help-wanted ad for a magician to appear at a leadership training event for its staff in the Washington area next month.
Eric Anderson and Peter Diamandis pioneered the business of sending millionaire tourists to space. Now they want to mine asteroids for what they say will be tens of billions of dollars worth of resources annually for use on Earth and beyond.
While tensions remain high between the United States and North Korea, the relationship is more cordial between their scientists.
Scientists recorded continuing volcanic activity Tuesday in Mexico's Popocatepetl volcano, which sits just southeast of Mexico City and its more than 19 million residents.
March 2012 will go down as the warmest March in the United States since record-keeping began in 1895, NOAA said Monday.
Mountain countries from around the world are seeking a common voice in global climate change negotiations to draw attention to the vulnerabilities of mountain areas.
Imagine you are sitting in your office simply doing your job and a nasty e-mail pops into your inbox accusing you of being a fraud. You go online and find that some bloggers have written virulent posts about you. That night, you're at home with your family watching the news and a talking head is lambasting you by name. Later, a powerful politician demands all your e-mails from your former employer.
Most Americans can put away winter coats and umbrellas and break out the short sleeves and sunglasses even though spring doesn't officially begin until next week, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Australia is emerging from the grip of its strongest La Nina weather pattern on record -- a meteorological event that brings either devastating floods or, in the case of its counterpart El Nino, scorching droughts.
CNN's Jenny Harrison reports on the effects of La Nina on the severe flooding in Australia.
It was more than 40 years ago, but Ken Nedimyer still remembers the first time he went diving in the Florida Keys.
Ken Nedimyer and his nonprofit are working to restore endangered coral reefs in the Florida Keys.
What's the first thing you think of when you think of Hawaii? The foaming-white sea lapping at a golden-sand beach surrounded by palm trees swaying in the breeze? Well, sure -- Hawaii's one of the world's ultimate beach destinations, an island paradise made for basking in the sun sipping daiquiris or hitting the waves to surf some righteous tubes.
A restless volcano in northern Indonesia erupted Friday, spewing clouds of ash as high as 2 kilometers into the sky, the country's National Disaster Management Agency said.
The U.S. government wants medical journals to withhold bird flu test information over fear of bio-terror threats.
Details of a genetically altered strain of the deadly avian flu virus are "a grave concern" to public safety and should be kept under wraps, a federal advisory board declared Tuesday.
Officials are monitoring a remote Alaska volcano that could launch an ash cloud, potentially threatening intercontinental flights.
Tokyo faces the possibility of being hit by a massive earthquake within the next four years, according to Japanese researchers.
Debris from an earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan is making its way across the Pacific Ocean.
U.S. scientists want to expand research into climate change to focus on its social effects and ways to adapt to a changing planet, but tighter budgets may crimp those plans, the National Academy of Sciences reported Thursday.
Kepler-22b is the first planet in the "habitable zone" with liquid water on its surface discovered by NASA's Kepler mission.
Americans were enthralled by fake reports of an alien invasion in the Orson Welles "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast on Halloween Eve in 1938. Hundreds of science fiction movies from the 1902 silent epic "A Trip to the Moon" (featured in the current film "Hugo") to "Star Wars" to this year's "Cowboys and Aliens" have fed a deep curiosity about intelligent beings elsewhere in the universe.
For Canada, the cost of either meeting its commitments under the Kyoto Protocol, or failing to do so, was too much to bear.
China is open to accept a legally binding global agreement to reduce carbon emissions. CNN's Robyn Curnow explains.
An agreement reached Sunday in South Africa will help tackle the challenges of climate change for years to come, the United Nations' chief said.
The moon disappeared from view along the U.S. West Coast on Saturday amid a total lunar eclipse.
On a recent visit to Barcelona, Spain, my local translator, who told me he was becoming increasingly interested in physics as he listened to my responses to reporters' questions, commented that he couldn't believe the biggest advances in my field will come not from America but from Europe -- for him, an unexpected turn.
Nearly everyone I meet has heard of the Hubble Space Telescope. Many have seen its beautiful images of the birthplace of new stars and planetary systems, or of the "gravitational lenses" that reveal a mysterious "dark matter" that dwarfs the amount of matter bound up in stars or galaxies.
CNN's Robyn Curnow reports from the 17th U.N. Climate Change Summit in Durban, South Africa.
They are the world's cultural capitals, the nerve centers of innovation and the engine rooms of economic growth, but could cities also hold the key to cutting carbon emissions long-term?
A second batch of e-mails thought to originate from the UK research unit involved in the "Climategate" controversy in 2009 has been posted on the Internet.
A large part of how we relate to people emotionally may be hardwired into our DNA. A new study suggests that character traits such as being open, caring, and trusting are so strongly linked to a certain gene variation that a total stranger, simply by watching us listen to another person, may be able to guess whether we have the variation with a high degree of accuracy.
An asteroid the size of an aircraft carrier passed within the moon's orbit Tuesday, the closest approach by an object that large in more than 30 years.
Kevin Yates of the Near Earth Objects Information Centre discusses an asteroid that is to pass close to Earth.
Computer scientist Adrien Treuille explains how the science seen in video games can have an impact in the real world
Last weekend, another large piece of "space junk" tumbled to Earth, perhaps in Southeast Asia. Many people -- if they noted the event at all -- probably worried about being hit on the head, even though the odds are overwhelmingly against such a catastrophe (trillions to one).
An independent study of global temperature records has reaffirmed previous conclusions by climate scientists that global warming is real.
The Southern Plains of the United States are likely to see a continuation of a severe drought this winter, while the Pacific Northwest will be colder and wetter than average, according to data released Thursday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
With at least 1,488 tornadoes and 547 deaths, 2011 has been one for the record books. Although the tools forecasters use are getting better, concerns remain about whether residents have enough accurate information or are heeding warnings.
Climate change is shrinking many plant and animal species and is likely to have a negative impact on human nutrition in the future, according to a new study.
The astounding discovery that our universe apparently is expanding at an accelerating rate some 14 billion years after the Big Bang has earned three scientists the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced Tuesday.
The trial for seven people accused of manslaughter in connection to an earthquake that killed more than 300 people in the Italian city of L'Aquila was pushed back Saturday to mid-October.
CNN's Atika Shubert reports on the possible discovery of a particle able to travel faster than the speed of light.
Scientists in Switzerland say an experiment appears to show that tiny particles traveled faster than the speed of light -- a result that would seem to defy the laws of nature.
Motherboard.tv visits the Large Hadron Collider, the world's biggest, most expensive and most feared science experiment.
Did you hear about the 6-ton NASA satellite expected to fall to on Earth on Friday?
Seven people went on trial for manslaughter Tuesday in Italy, accused of failing to predict an earthquake that killed more than 300 people in L'Aquila in April 2009.
The summer of 2011 was the second hottest on record for the United States, and the hottest in 75 years, government weather experts said Thursday.
At one time or another, Hurricane Irene posed a risk to almost everyone living along the Eastern Seaboard, from Florida to the Canadian Maritimes. Where would Irene track? Which communities would be affected, and how badly?
Hurricane warnings have been issued for North Carolina. CNN's John Zarrella is in Atlantic Beach as that town prepares.
Before the last drops of rain from Hurricane Irene had dried, the attacks began on meteorologists for not accurately forecasting the exact strength of this weather system.
FEMA Director Craig Fugate says a little more than 5 million are without power after Hurricane Irene.
It's easy enough to take for granted how much we know about the weather these days. Take Hurricane Irene: There are plenty of weather maps showing the path of that storm, which is churning through the Caribbean on its way to the East Coast of the United States. We have a pretty good idea of where Irene is heading and how strong it will be when it hits land.
A 5.8-magnitude quake rattled nerves all along the East Coast Tuesday. CNN's Brian Todd reports.
Earthquakes of the intensity felt Tuesday along a vast corridor of the East Coast don't come along too often in this region, geophysicist Rowena Lohman says. They are so rare "that it is very difficult for earth scientists to identify specific faults (in the area) that are 'active,' " she says, "where over time we would expect significant earthquakes to occur."
It was much too late on a Tuesday when a fellow astronomer friend and I found ourselves catching a cab back to Berkeley, having missed the last train home. My friend promptly dozed off in the taxi, leaving me to chat with our driver -- who wondered how we could be out so late with jobs to go to in the morning.
Lucianne Walkowicz discusses the techniques she is using to find planetary systems, including those similar to Earth's.
A teen girl dies from a microscopic amoeba she inhaled while swimming in a river. Her mother speaks about the tragedy.
It's eerie but it's true: Three people have died this summer after suffering rare infections from a waterborne amoeba that destroys the brain.
A few years ago I came across a newspaper article about illegal human trafficking into the EU.
We're nearing the peak of the 11-year solar cycle, so double-check your GPS and watch where you're going.
Astronomers just discovered the largest reservoir of water ever, roughly 140 trillion times the volume of the Earth's oceans. With severe drought afflicting Africa, Asia and the southern United States, you might ask whether this offers a solution to earthly afflictions.
On Tuesday, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed a new ordinance requiring cell phone retailers to display and distribute a state-produced fact sheet that explains radio frequency emissions from cell phones and how consumers can minimize their exposure.
NASA celebrates as shuttle Atlantis returns home from its final mission.
Atlantis, the last space shuttle, returned to Earth on Thursday and will go to its post-retirement gig at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. After more than 30 years and 135 shuttle flights by literally hundreds of astronauts, NASA has reason to be proud.
While searching for rings around the dwarf planet Pluto, NASA astronomers made an unintentional discovery -- Pluto has a fourth moon.
Massive global greenhouse gas pollution is changing the chemistry of the world's oceans so much that scientists now predict it could severely damage shellfish populations and the nations that depend on the harvests if significant action isn't taken.
More than 4,000 residents have been evacuated from a central Indonesian province after a volcano erupted, sending smoke high into the sky.
CNN's Zain Verjee talks with Alex Rogers about a new report warning that the world's oceans are at a risk of extinction.
Marine life is under severe threat from global warming, pollution and habitat loss, with a high risk of "major extinctions" according to a panel of experts.
No matter what race you consider yourself to be, you have a unique genetic makeup.
An ash cloud from a Chilean volcano is disrupting air travel in Australia and New Zealand once again, airlines said Wednesday.
An ash cloud from a Chilean volcano is drifting around the world for a second time, grounding flights in Australia.
An ash cloud drifting around the world for a second time after spewing from a Chilean volcano more than two weeks ago is once again grounding commercial jets and stranding passengers in Australia.
The Supreme Court on Monday unanimously tossed out a massive lawsuit brought by several states against private power companies whose greenhouse-gas emissions are accused of presenting a "public nuisance."
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