Stories by LiveScience

Dinosaurs — or at least their ancestors — may have gotten an earlier start than once believed

A tiny sponge camouflaged as a red blood cell could soak up toxins ranging from anthrax to snake venom, new research suggests

Brine-rich compartments within sea ice have properties that could have helped life originate

When salt-rich water leaks out of sea ice, it sinks into the sea and can occasionally create an eerie finger of ice called a brinicle. New research explains how these strange fingers of ice form and how the salty water within sea ice could have been a prime environment in which life may have evolved

People who anticipate discrimination do their best to represent their group well

Ammonium nitrate, frequently added to improve a fertilizer's nitrogen content, is relatively stable under most conditions. If it comes into contact with an ignition source, however, it explodes violently, decomposing rapidly into two gases

The West, Texas, fertilizer plant explosion on April 17 echoes an April 16, 1947, event when a ship loaded with ammonium nitrate, also a chemical fertilizer, docked at the Port of Texas City erupted in flames and exploded, killing nearly 600 people

Microbiome changes might explain how circumcision reduces HIV risk, possibly by eliminating bacteria that activate immune cells in the skin that themselves present the retrovirus to the immune system, making infection more likely

The first attempt to send 2,000 cherry trees to the U.S. did not go well. The trees were infested with pests. Diplomacy resolved the issue

From "significant" to "natural," here are seven scientific terms that can prove troublesome for the public and across research disciplines

Climate scientist James Hansen is retiring from NASA this week to devote himself to the fight against global warming

The discovery of the jaw of a 112-million-year-old mammal from the early Cretaceous Period suggests that small creatures were already evolving quickly

Certain gas-emitting microbes in our intestinal tract might determine our propensity for packing on pounds, leading to the presence of methane or hydrogen on one's breath

A new fossil discovery could shed light on why the number of penguin species plummeted on Africa's coastline from four species 5 million years ago to just one today—the jackass penguin

Despite detailed descriptions by Herodotus, very few mummies, if any, were eviscerated with cedar oil enemas, research suggests

More than three quarters of the adults showed signs of degenerative joint disease, likely from hauling heavy loads, and about two thirds of these adults had at least one broken bone

The fossils, three million years older than previous remains found to date, reveal that early colobine monkeys apparently coexisted with other, more archaic primates. Competition with colobines could have helped drive the other groups to extinction

The new find solves a puzzle about where these big-fanged felines arose

3-D glasses help doctors perform invasive surgery when their hands are obscured from view

The episode underscores the role that scientific peer review should play in vetting discovery claims

The cancer, which has wiped out 70 percent of devils, doesn't alert the animals' immune systems to its presence. On the up side, these genetic instructions are reversible

Mice can be cloned via somatic cell nuclear transfer from other mice indefinitely, a new technique suggests. The technique could be used for large-scale production of superior-quality animals for farming or conservation purposes

Doctors in medieval Europe weren't as idle as it may seem, as a new analysis of the oldest-known preserved human dissection in Europe reveals

Aquarium pets are showing up in some unlikely places, and that’s bad news for native species