Feb 28th, 2026 - MEXICO CITY – A prehistoric skeleton has been found in an intricate along Mexico's Caribbean coast, an area that flooded at the end of the last ice age 8,000 years ago, according to a cave-diving archaeologist who made the find with others. Octavio del Río, who collaborates with the National Institute of Anthropology and History, said it is the over the last three decades between the tourist destinations of Tulum and Playa del Carmen. Some of the oldest human remains in North America have been discovered in the known as "cenotes," with some earlier skeletons dating to around ... [Read More]

Feb 28th, 2026 - In the middle of the 7th century, a plague swept through the walled city of Jerash, in what is now modern-day Jordan. Ceramicists abandoned their workshops under the Hippodrome, leaving unfired pottery in their haste. Young and old alike succumbed to a bacteria called Yersinia Pestis , the same microbe responsible for the Black Death seven centuries later. The city, unable to manage the dead and dying, converted those workshops into a mass grave. "It was filled within days — hundreds of bodies," says Rays Jiang , a University of South Florida geneticist and lead author of a new study ... [Read More]

Feb 27th, 2026 - Reading time 3 minutes NASA is overhauling its plan to return astronauts to the lunar surface, adding another test flight to prepare for landing on the Moon while attempting to standardize its Space Launch System (SLS) rocket for more frequent launches. During a press conference on Friday, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman announced major changes to the agency's ongoing Artemis program in an attempt to alleviate some risks and kinks. The agency is planning on launching an additional flight in 2027 to attempt a rendezvous of the Orion spacecraft with commercial landers in Earth orbit ... [Read More]

Feb 27th, 2026 - Jupiter, Saturn, Venus, Mercury, Neptune and Uranus will all be visible at same time in curved line across sky Six planets will parade across the sky this weekend in a rare celestial spectacle, experts have said. For the next few days, Jupiter, Saturn, Venus, Mercury, Neptune and Uranus will all be visible at the same time in the night sky – although binoculars or a telescope will be needed to spot the latter two planets. In celebration of the event, Nasa has released new sonifications – astronomical data from its Chandra X-ray Observatory translated into sound – for ... [Read More]

Feb 27th, 2026 - Several years ago, scuba divers were exploring coral reefs around Kumejima Island in Japan's Ryukyu archipelago when they saw what looked like a graveyard of tiny panda skeletons. Well, not exactly skeletons – more like skeletons with the living heads of pandas still attached. These things are, at most, around 2cm (3–4in) long – about the length of a fingernail. At one end, there's a white 'head' with a black nose spot and two black panda-like eye patches. Visible through the transparent body is a stack of white horizontal lines, which look like bony ribs. There's even a ... [Read More]

Feb 26th, 2026 - WASHINGTON (AP) — Billions fewer birds are flying through North American skies than decades ago and their population is shrinking ever faster, mostly due to a combination of intensive agriculture and warming temperatures, a new study found. Nearly half of the 261 species studied showed big enough losses in numbers to be statistically significant and more than half of those declining are seeing their losses accelerate since 1987, according to Thursday's journal Science . The study is the first to look at more than the total bird population by examining the trends in their decrease, ... [Read More]

Feb 26th, 2026 - NEW YORK (AP) — Humans and Neanderthals cozied up from time to time when they lived in the same areas tens of thousands of years ago . But we don't know much about who got with whom, or why. A new genetic analysis offers some ancient gossip: The pairings were more often female humans with male Neanderthals. How exactly this happened remains a huge question mark. Did human women venture into Neanderthal populations , or were the Neanderthal males drawn to larger human enclaves? Were these interactions peaceful, confusing, secretive or even violent? "I don't know if we'll ever get a ... [Read More]

Feb 26th, 2026 - About 30 seals had died as of Thursday, nearly all of them weaned pups, amid the rise of avian influenza An outbreak of a highly pathogenic strain of bird flu has killed more than two dozen elephant seal pups in California , leading to the temporary closure of seal-viewing areas at a popular Bay Area park. California's Año Nuevo state park is home to an elephant seal colony with about 5,000 seals during the marine mammals' breeding season, which runs from mid-December through March. Researchers said about 30 seals had died as of Thursday, nearly all of them weaned pups, amid the rise ... [Read More]