Science

A Dallas-based company claims to have brought back wolves that last roamed the Earth more than 12,500 years ago and became widely known due to the hit HBO series “Game of Thrones.”
Colossal Biosciences says it rebirthed three dire wolves using genome-editing and cloning technologies in what it says is now the world’s first successful “de-extincted animal,” although one expert believes the company merely genetically modified a wolf as opposed to bringing the apex predator back from extinction.
Dire wolves roamed the American midcontinent during the Ice Age and the oldest confirmed dire wolf fossil is 250,000 years old from Black Hills, South Dakota, according to Colossal Biosciences. In Game of Thrones, the wolves are bigger and smarter than normal wolves and fiercely loyal to their Starks, the most important noble family in the series.
TOP MIGRATORY SPECIES THAT ARE VULNERABLE AND THREATENED WITH EXTINCTION
The three litters of Colossal’s dire wolves include two adolescen..

Warning: This article contains graphic pictures. Reader discretion is advised.
Stunning pictures show a female baby mammoth, dating back over 130,000 years, recently being dissected by Russian scientists.
The mammoth, which has been nicknamed “Yana,” was dissected at the North-Eastern Federal University in Yakutsk, Russia, on March 27. The baby mammoth had been preserved in permafrost until she was dug up in the cold Russian province of Yakutia last year.
Pictures of the necropsy show a team of scientists huddled around the 397-pound animal, which closely resembles a modern baby elephant. The creature's mouth was open, and her trunk was curled as scientists opened up her skin.
Scientists initially believed that Yana lived 50,000 years ago, but that estimate was updated to over 130,000 years after scientists analyzed the permafrost layer where she was found.
ANCIENT SETTLEMENT REVEALS REMAINS OF 1,800-YEAR-OLD DOG, BAFFLING EXPERTS: ‘PRESERVED QUITE WELL’
Maxim Cherpaso..

A mysterious spiraling blue light illuminated the night skies over Europe on Monday.
The cosmic whirlpool was captured in stunning video and appears to have been created by the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket booster falling back toward Earth, according to experts.
Time-lapse video taken from Croatia at around 4 p.m. EST, or 9 p.m. local time, shows the glowing light spinning across the sky in what many social media commentators likened to a spiral galaxy. The full video at normal speed lasts for about six minutes.
ELON MUSK CONGRATULATES SPACEX, NASA FOR 'EXCELLENT WORK' RESCUING STRANDED ASTRONAUTS
The Met Office in the U.K. said it had received many reports of an “illuminated swirl in the sky” and said it was likely caused by the Space X rocket which launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida at around 1:50 p.m. EST as part of the government’s classified NROL-69 mission. The Elon Musk-owned SpaceX was launching a payload on behalf of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), the..

What happens when an octopus jumps on a shark for a ride around town?
A “sharktopus,” of course.
The rare sighting, captured on video off the coast of New Zealand and shared by scientists affiliated with the University of Auckland, shows a Maori octopus riding on top of a mako shark, which is the fastest in the world with the ability to swim up to 46 mph.
The university said the December 2023 encounter “was one of the strangest things University of Auckland marine scientists had ever seen. It was a mysterious sight indeed… octopus are mostly on the seabed while short-fin mako sharks don’t [favor] the deep.”
MASSIVE SHARK HEADED DOWN FLORIDA COAST AHEAD OF BUSY TRAVEL SEASON
The university researchers had been looking for shark feeding frenzies in the Hauraki Gulf near Kawau Island when a mako shark with an “orange patch” on its head was discovered.
The researchers launched a drone and put a GoPro camera in the water and “saw something unforgettable: an octopus perched a..

Even astronauts have a sense of humor, as shown during NASA's Crew-10 docking on the International Space Station (ISS), when they were met by an “alien” early Sunday morning.
Russian cosmonaut Ivan Vagner wore an alien mask while welcoming four newcomers after their SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule docked to the station at 12:04 a.m., about 29 hours after launching at 7:03 p.m. on Friday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
While ISS crew members were preparing the capsule for deboarding, Vagner could be seen floating around while wearing a mask, a hoodie, pants and socks during the “lighthearted moment,” a NASA spokesperson said in a statement to Fox News Digital.
“NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov entered the International Space Station shortly after opening the hatches between the space station and the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft at 1:35 a.m. EDT,” NASA said in..

A lunar lander made its touchdown on the moon earlier on Thursday, but controllers on the ground were unable to confirm the Athena lander’s condition upon landing, the Associated Press reported. In addition to its condition, the location of where the craft landed is also unclear.
The lander, which is owned by Intuitive Machines, was carrying an ice drill, a drone and two rovers. Athena was apparently able to communicate with its controllers, the Associated Press reported, citing officials.
Mission director and co-founder Tim Crain was heard telling the team to “keep working on the problem,” despite the craft sending apparent “acknowledgments” to the team in Texas.
FIRST COMMERCIAL MOON LANDER 'ODYSSEUS' LANDS ON MOON
NASA and Intuitive Machines ended the online live stream and announced that they would hold a news conference on the status of Athena later on Thursday.
PRIVATE LUNAR LANDER BLUE GHOST LANDS ON THE MOON WITH EQUIPMENT FOR NASA
Last year, Intuitive Machine saw its..

A private lunar lander carrying a drill, vacuum and other equipment to deliver for NASA touched down on the moon on Sunday, the latest of several companies seeking to kickstart business on Earth’s natural satellite ahead of astronaut missions.
Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lander descended from lunar orbit on autopilot, targeting the slopes of an ancient volcanic dome in an impact basin on the moon’s northeastern edge of the near side.
The company's Mission Control, located outside Austin, Texas, confirmed a successful landing.
SPACEX LAUNCHES FALCON 9 ROCKET TOWARDS LUNAR SOUTH POLE IN SEARCH OF WATER
“You all stuck the landing. We’re on the moon,” Firefly’s Will Coogan, chief engineer for the lander, said.
An upright and stable landing made Firefly the first private company to put a spacecraft on the moon without crashing or falling over. Some governments working on space flight have failed in the past, as only five countries — Russia, the U.S., China, I..

Mars’ distinctive red color comes from the mineral ferrihydrite, which only forms in the presence of cool water, a new study claims.
Ferrihydrite also forms at a lower temperature than other minerals that make up the aptly-named red planet’s surface, like hematite, which had previously been considered the main reason for its rouge hue.
“This suggests that Mars may have had an environment capable of sustaining liquid water before it transitioned from a wet to a dry environment billions of years ago,” NASA said in a news release this week.
NASA partially funded the study.
GRIFF JENKINS: ‘THE RACE TO MARS IS ON’
Researchers in the study, published in Nature Communications this week, analyzed data from several Mars missions, including several Mars’ rovers, and the findings were compared to lab experiments “where the team tested how light interacts with ferrihydrite particles and other minerals under simulated Martian conditions,” NASA said.
“The fundamental quest..

Why did humans start speaking? Scientists suggest genetics played a big role – and they say the evolution of this singular ability was key to our survival.
A new study links a particular gene to the ancient origins of spoken language, proposing that a protein variant found only in humans may have helped us communicate in a novel way. Speech allowed us to share information, coordinate activities and pass down knowledge, giving us an edge over extinct cousins like Neanderthals and Denisovans.
The new study is “a good first step to start looking at the specific genes” that may affect speech and language development, said Liza Finestack at the University of Minnesota, who was not involved with the research.
ARCHAEOLOGISTS UNCOVER ANCIENT 'CITY OF THE DEAD' IN ITALY: 'PERFECTLY PRESERVED'
What scientists learn may someday even help people with speech problems.
The genetic variant researchers were looking at was one of a variety of genes “that contributed to the eme..

A NASA astronaut at the International Space Station (ISS) on Saturday reported hearing a “strange noise” coming from the Boeing Starliner spacecraft just days before it is set to leave the station and return to Earth on autopilot.
The astronaut, Butch Wilmore, radioed Mission Control at Johnson Space Center in Houston to inquire about the noise.
On an audio recording of the exchange, Wilmore holds up a phone to the speakers so that Mission Control could hear the noise he was referring to. A pulsating sound emanating at steady intervals can be heard through Wilmore’s device.
“Butch, that one came through,” Mission Control says after not hearing it the first time. “It was kind of like a pulsating noise, almost like a sonar ping.”
NASA PLANS TO SEND 2 ASTRONAUTS INSTEAD OF 3 TO ISS SO PAIR STRANDED BY TROUBLED BOEING STARLINER CAN RETURN
“I’ll do it one more time and let you all scratch your heads and see if you can figure out what’s going on,” Wilmore tells Mission Control..