Science News

May 14 (UPI) -- Modern plate tectonics, a defining feature of Earth and its unique ability to support life, first emerged roughly 3.6 billion years ago.

May 15 (UPI) -- China landed a rover on the surface of Mars for the first time Saturday, the China National Space Administration announced.

ORLANDO, Fla., May 7 (UPI) -- Two space companies that are protesting NASA's $2.9 billion lunar contract award to SpaceX allege the space agency would make future moon landings more risky, while the claims leave the timetable for a mission uncertain.

May 6 (UPI) -- New research suggests a small bird-like dinosaur exacting night vision and owl-like hearing to track down prey in the black of night.

May 6 (UPI) -- Scientists have created a new type of synthetic skin that uses luminogens and a bilayer structure to artfully alter its color in response to the environment.

May 6 (UPI) -- Human-caused methane emissions can be reduced by up to 45% this decade, keeping the global temperature within the bounds of the Paris Agreement on climate change, an environmental study released Thursday indicates.

May 6 (UPI) -- As the global temperature continue to climb and glaciers melt more rapidly, new research suggests the risk of flooding across the Himalayas and Tibetan Plateau could triple.

May 6 (UPI) -- New survey data suggests many consumers get mixed up when interpreting "USE By" and "BEST If Used By" labels, according to a study published Thursday in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior.

May 5 (UPI) -- SpaceX successfully launched and landed its Starship moon and Mars rocket for the first time in Texas on Wednesday.

May 5 (UPI) -- Humans living along the northern shores of East Africa's Lake Malawi were altering the local ecosystem with fire as early as 92,000 years ago, according to a new study.

May 5 (UPI) -- Washington-based spaceflight company Blue Origin opened up an auction Wednesday for a seat on its first crewed flight to the edge of space in July.

May 5 (UPI) -- Researchers have recovered the remains of a three-year-old child buried 78,000 years ago in an ancient pit north of Mombasa, Kenya. The human burial pit, dubbed Panga ya Saidi, is the oldest yet discovered in Africa.

May 5 (UPI) -- If world leaders and policy makers can't find a way to reduce emissions and limit warming to 2 degrees Celsius, new models suggest runaway Antarctic ice losses will trigger dramatic sea level rise.

May 5 (UPI) -- New research suggests Dunbar's number, which puts an upper limit on the human brain's capacity for social relations, is mostly bunk.

ORLANDO, Fla., May 4 (UPI) -- Elon Musk's SpaceX launched the company's 26th cluster of Starlink broadband communication satellites from Florida on Tuesday afternoon.

May 4 (UPI) -- Researchers have identified a complex combination of genes that control the human body's circadian rhythms, the rhythms that help synch a variety of biological processes with both day-night and seasonal patterns.