Stories by LiveScience

A study of mice starts to unravel how the brain gets tricked by a particular optical illusion

Doctors have transplanted a genetically modified pig kidney into a living human patient for the first time ever

Microbes that lurk in decomposing human corpses could help forensic detectives establish a person's time of death

Scientists are finding ever-earlier examples of artistic expression in the archaeological record that reshape what we know about the abilities of Neanderthals and other archaic humans

Pink fairy armadillos evolved a unique double skin millions of years ago as they moved underground in response to a drying climate

Burials holding mummies with false heads have been discovered from the Wari Empire in Peru

A giant iceberg called A23a, which broke off from Antarctica in 1986, is finally moving away from the icy continent after being stuck on the seafloor for decades

Egypt’s famous Sphinx may have originated as a rock feature carved by erosion that ancient Egyptians further refined into the iconic monument

A new facial approximation brings to life an Incan girl who was killed 500 years ago as part of a sacrificial ritual

From sinking boats and feasting on shark livers to dining on whale tongue and tossing porpoises around for fun, orcas are displaying some fascinating—and sometimes terrifying—behaviors

A long-lost tectonic plate dubbed “Pontus” that was a quarter of the size of the Pacific Ocean was discovered by chance by scientists in Borneo

Traditional antibiotics drive bacteria toward drug resistance, so scientists are looking to viruses, CRISPR, designer molecules and protein swords for better superbug treatments

Researchers have discovered a pattern where diamonds spew from deep beneath Earth’s surface in huge, explosive volcanic eruptions

This child was buried 400 years ago in what is now Poland, face-down and with an iron padlock on their foot

A new type of chemistry performed at very cold temperatures on very small particles enables quick, precise reactions

Researchers have decoded more than half of the characters in the so-called Kushan script by comparing them with inscriptions in a known ancient language called Bactrian

Scientists have discovered that once mammals, such as dolphins or orcas, have become fully aquatic, they pass a threshold that makes a return to terrestrial landscapes almost impossible

A scientist claims elephants’ cancer-preventing genes may have evolved to protect their sperm from the scorching hot habitats the pachyderms’ live in

The sun is quickly approaching a major peak in solar activity. Experts warn it could potentially begin by the end of 2023, years before initial predictions suggested

The cold and mysterious Oort cloud at the edge of our solar system may be hiding a rogue planet

Horses are specially built to snooze on their hooves, but there’s a catch

Astronomers recently identified asteroid 2023 FW13 as a quasi-moon, a space rock orbiting the sun nearly in tandem with Earth

Crablike bodies are so evolutionarily favorable that they’ve evolved at least five different times

The last caldera-forming eruption at Yellowstone “was much more complex than previously thought,” according to the annual report about activity at the supervolcano