Science

Snakes – the Chinese krait and the Chinese cobra – may be the original source of the newly discovered coronavirus that has triggered an outbreak of a deadly infectious respiratory illness in China this winter.

Gathered inside a small shed in the midst of a peaceful meadow, my colleagues and I are about to flip the switch to start a seemingly mundane procedure: using a motor to shake a wooden board. But underneath this board, we have a swarm of roughly 10,000 honeybees, clinging to each other in a single magnificent pulsing cone.

Experienced anglers recognize that for a trout, the ultimate “steak dinner” is a stonefly or mayfly. That’s why fly fishing enthusiasts will go to extreme lengths to imitate these graceful, elegant and fragile insects.

Glaciers nestled in the lofty crags of the Pyrenees mountains separating France and Spain could disappear within 30 years as temperatures rise, upending ecosystems while putting local economies at risk, scientists say.

A remarkable combination of artificial intelligence (AI) and biology has produced the world’s first “living robots”.

SpaceX successfully tested its emergency abort system on an unmanned spacecraft moments after launch Sunday, according to a live broadcast of the event, the last major test before it plans to send NASA astronauts to the International Space Station.

Australia's bushfires have burned more than half the known habitat of 100 threatened plants and animals, including 32 critically endangered species, the government said Monday.

Not all patients who fall into a coma return, and when they do it can mark a moment of joy for their loved ones -- but their troubles are rarely over.

It's a game familiar to most people: you throw an object a short distance, and wait as your joyful canine companion leaps to intercept and return the missile, encouraged by words of praise or a pat on the head.

The common guillemot (known as the common murre in North America) breeds in both the Pacific and the Atlantic and is among the most abundant seabirds in the northern hemisphere. But like many other seabirds, its numbers have declined over the last few decades. Part of that decline is due to the marine environment – a seabird’s home and hunting ground – becoming increasingly unpredictable and difficult to survive in.

"If a woman is having little or infrequent sex when approaching midlife, then the body will not be receiving the physical cues of a possible pregnancy," Megan Arnot and Ruth Mace, scientists at University College London, wrote.