TEHRAN — Iran said Wednesday it sent a capsule into orbit carrying animals as it prepares for human missions in coming years. A report by the official IRNA news agency quoted Telecommunications Minister Isa Zarepour as saying the capsule was launched 130 kilometers (80 miles) into orbit. Zarepour said the launch of the 500-kilogram (1,000-pound) capsule is aimed at sending...

(DUBAI, United Arab Emirates) — The world this year pumped 1.1% more heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the air than last year because of increased pollution from China and India, a team of scientists reported. The increase was reported early Tuesday at international climate talks, where global officials are trying to cut emissions by 43% by 2030. Instead, carbon pollution keeps...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Astronomers have discovered a rare in-sync solar system with six planets moving like a grand cosmic orchestra, untouched by outside forces since their birth billions of years ago. The find, announced Wednesday, can help explain how solar systems across the Milky Way galaxy came to be. This one is 100 light-years away in the constellation Coma Berenices....

Researchers at Google DeepMind have used artificial intelligence to predict the structures of more than 2 million new materials, in a breakthrough that could have wide-reaching benefits in sectors such as renewable energy and computing. DeepMind published 381,000 of the 2.2 million crystal structures that it predicts to be most stable.  [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]...

Humans rely on a bevy of strange natural chemicals to liven up our food and drink, to endure pain, and to change our perspective. We use caffeine from coffee, tea, and yerba mate to stimulate our bodies and minds, capsaicin from red pepper flakes or isothiocyanates in horseradish or wasabi to enliven our food with spice, and codeine or morphine to endure the pain of injuries and surgeries....

Caviar has never gone out of style, but these days, it’s particularly in demand. In the last year or so, the upmarket delicacy has begun to make regular appearances in over-the-top stunt foods, such as garnishing fried fish sandwiches, and highbrow-lowbrow trendy pairings like caviar-topped Pringles. Market research suggests that U.S. sales are expected to surpass $400 million this...

The globe is speeding to 2.5 to 2.9 degrees Celsius (4.5 to 5.2 degrees Fahrenheit) of global warming since pre-industrial times, set to blow well past the agreed-upon international climate threshold, a United Nations report calculated. To have an even money shot at keeping warming to the 1.5-degree Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) limit adopted by the 2015 Paris climate agreement,...

SpaceX launched its mega rocket Starship but lost both the booster and the spacecraft in a pair of explosions minutes into Saturday’s test flight. The rocketship reached space following liftoff from South Texas before communication suddenly was lost. SpaceX officials said it appears the ship’s self-destruct system blew it up over the Gulf of Mexico. [time-brightcove...

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Revved-up climate change now permeates Americans’ daily lives with harm that is “already far-reaching and worsening across every region of the United States,” a massive new government report says. The National Climate Assessment, which comes out every four to five years, was released Tuesday with details that bring...

The world is off track in its efforts to curb global warming in 41 of 42 important measurements and is even heading in the wrong direction in six crucial ways, a new international report calculates. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] The only bright spot is that global sales of electric passenger vehicles are now on track to match what’s needed — along with many...

BILLINGS, Mont. — Astronaut Frank Borman, who commanded Apollo 8’s historic Christmas 1968 flight that circled the moon 10 times and paved the way for the lunar landing the next year, has died. He was 95. Borman died Tuesday in Billings, Montana, according to NASA. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Borman also led troubled Eastern Airlines in the 1970s and...

The last 12 months were the hottest earth has ever recorded, according to a new report by Climate Central, a nonprofit science research group. The peer-reviewed report says burning gasoline, coal, natural gas and other fossil fuels that release planet-warming gases like carbon dioxide, and other human activities, caused the unnatural warming from November 2022 to October 2023....

This October was the hottest on record globally, 1.7 degrees Celsius (3.1 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than the pre-industrial average for the month — and the fifth straight month with such a mark in what will now almost certainly be the warmest year ever recorded. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] October was a whopping 0.4 degrees Celsius (0.7 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer...

Cheetahs are usually daytime hunters, but the speedy big cats will shift their activity toward dawn and dusk hours during warmer weather, a new study finds. Unfortunately for endangered cheetahs, that sets them up for more potential conflicts with mostly nocturnal competing predators such as lions and leopards, say the authors of research published Wednesday in the journal Proceedings of...