Most Emailed Science News

Researchers have simulated a mini black hole in the lab, though luckily not the kind that could swallow up the Earth.

GOLDEN, Colo. A space rock explosion earlier this month over an island region of Indonesia is now being viewed as perhaps the biggest object to tangle with the Earth in more than a decade.

Big orange veggies are pretty strange as far as holiday symbols go, but there are actual historical reasons that we carve pumpkins every Halloween.

GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) - Scuba divers are exploring the depths of a volcanic lake in Guatemala to find clues about an ancient sacred island where Mayan pilgrims flocked to worship before it was submerged by rising waters.

A mass phishing email scheme aims to steal banking information under the guise of the FDIC, just the most recent in a long line of scams, bilking millions from consumers.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Two of three parachutes malfunctioned in the test flight of a prototype moon rocket earlier this week, causing major damage to the booster, NASA said Friday.

When they do their thing, female Chinese fruit bats add oral sex to get the males to prolong the act, scientists now find, suggesting the behavior confers evolutionary benefits.

Some people really are just bad drivers. That's according to new research suggesting individuals born with a certain variant of a gene don't stay on the road as well as their counterparts.

We're often told, "You should sleep on it" before you make an important decision. Why is that? How does "sleeping on it" help your decision-making process?

A new panoramic image of the full night sky — with the Milky Way as its centerpiece — has been made by piecing together 3,000 individual photographs.

There's a special treat waiting for you this Halloween.

A husband and wife team of paleontologists has discovered a newfound species of armored dinosaur that lived 112 million years ago in what is now Montana.

NASA's gleaming new Ares I-X rocket grew an odd-looking hood Wednesday as it launched skyward on a suborbital test flight — a telltale sign of a rocket going supersonic.

BEIJING - Qian Xuesen, a rocket scientist known as the father of China's space technology program, died Saturday in Beijing, the official Xinhua News Agency said. He was 98.

On Oct. 29, 1969, UCLA student Charles Kline sent the first message over the ARPANET, the computer network that later became known as the Internet. Though only the "l" and "o" of his message ("login") were successfully transmitted, the interactive exchange ushered in a technological revolution that has - as anyone alive long enough to witness the shift knows - revolutionized human interaction.

NASA's Mars rover Spirit is suffering a new bout of amnesia, one that comes after months of being stuck in deep Martian sand.

Motion control and multi-touch have become common in devices ranging from Nintendo's Wii to Apple's iPhone. But a muscle-sensing system could someday allow gamers to play air "Guitar Hero" without a controller, or help harried parents with full hands open car doors.

Volcanic eruptions were responsible for a deadly ice age 450 million years ago, as well as - in an ironic twist - a period of global warming that preceded it, a new study finds.

BEIJING (AFP) - China and India could use their growing clout to shame developed countries into committing to a climate change deal in Copenhagen in December, the UN's top climate scientist said on Friday.

NASA has discovered a large dent on its brand-new moon rocket after the booster splashed into the Atlantic Ocean at the end of a test flight this week.

The pitter-patter of little feet running from door to door this Halloween, dressed to the nines in their creepiest costumes sounds, like good old-fashioned fun.

There is no shortage of people seeking to turn ghosts into gold and spooks into silver. Hundreds of amateur ghost-hunting groups across the country offer tours of local haunts, allegedly spirit-infested hotels, mansions, cemeteries, and so on.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — The apparent success of NASA's first test flight of a new experimental moon rocket has the American space agency beaming with joy.

Each year at Halloween, parents have concerns about trick-or-treating, and many believe that a danger far graver than chocolate overdose awaits their children in quiet neighborhoods: sex offenders.

TOKYO (AFP) - Japan's Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has revealed he dislikes whale meat, a newspaper reported Saturday, in an unusual confession for the prime minister of a country that defies Western criticism of whaling.

Light from a star that exploded 13 billion years ago has been detected, becoming the most distant object in the universe ever observed.

The skin from your Jack-o'-Lantern could contain a fungus-fighting medicine, according to a new study.

A new set of images made with three different telescopes are some of the best ever taken of the sparkling "Jewel Box" star cluster, showcasing the evolution of the stars within.

SYDNEY (AFP) - A massive oil leak off Australia's northwest coast poses an "immediate risk" to dozens of marine species, with untold numbers possibly dying and sinking to the Timor Sea floor, a report has said.

At times, NASA's attempts to launch a new Ares I-X rocket Tuesday seemed surreal — with bad weather, a stuck sensor sock and a wayward cargo ship offshore appearing to conspire to prevent the booster's liftoff. But believe it or not, there have been stranger things to pop up in NASA's launch history.