Is a sun a star or a planet? While science now agrees the sun is a star, new telescopes may soon challenge how we define solar objects.

Learn why food can contain both good and bad bacteria. Here’s the difference, and how to avoid the bad ones.

Learn how rainy and cold weather may be linked with joint pain, impacting those with arthritis or other musculoskeletal conditions.

Detected in three drug samples during community checks, the little-known opioid cychlorphine may be as potent as fentanyl, with its true effects still unknown.

Prehistoric trees like Ginkgo and monkey-puzzles still have close relatives that go back at least to the time of the dinosaurs.

Learn how three new toad species from Tanzania’s Eastern Arc Mountains evolved to skip the tadpole stage — revealing one of nature’s rarest reproductive strategies.

Learn more about the discovery of the electron and why J.J. Thomson often gets the credit. 

Learn about the collection of ritualistic items unearthed at the largest and oldest known Maya monument, Aguada Fénix. 

Learn how super recognizers don’t memorize extra details but instinctively focus on the most telling facial features, a skill now helping train better recognition software.

Learn more about the “Marree Man,” a gigantic geoglyph carved into the Australian outback whose creator still remains a mystery.

Learn how the fossils of ancient organisms help scientists navigate deep time — and uncover Earth’s hidden history.

Learn how nanobodies from camels and llamas could unlock safer, more precise treatments for Alzheimer’s and schizophrenia.

The world’s smallest neural implant is powered and connected entirely by light, opening new possibilities for long-term brain monitoring.

Learn more about the recent Listeria outbreak and how to keep your kitchen safe from this resilient bacterium.

Learn how early hominins crafted the same sharp-edged Oldowan tools through 300,000 years of climate change, revealing one of the longest-lasting technologies in human history.

A 14th-century teenager died from the Black Death in Edinburgh. Learn how researchers discovered the pathogen in his teeth, and how this may be the first scientific evidence of the plague in the city.

Learn how chemists were studying a known antibiotic when they discovered a molecule 100 times more potent at defeating drug-resistant superbugs.

Learn about the closest black hole from Earth, Gaia BH1. This recently discovered black hole is dormant, but it’s only 1,600 light-years away.

Learn how tardigrades are able to tolerate extreme radiation with a unique protein that unwinds their DNA.

Learn more about the connection between nighttime light exposure and heart disease, and how you can help protect yourself.

Learn more about Maya daykeepers and how they created lunar calendar tables to predict celestial events.

Learn more about bowhead whales and how they routinely see out their 200th birthday — and this DNA-repair protein might just be how.

Learn more about the ways viral infections can impact people with and without chronic diseases.

Learn how scientists uncovered a surprising link between long-term melatonin use and heart failure in chronic insomnia patients.