NATO — the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, to give it its full name — is a non-aggressive European and North American defense alliance set up to promote peace and stability and to safeguard the security of its members. The organization, which has its headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, was created as the Cold War escalated. Its…

Since the pandemic began, the arrival of each new year feels like a reprise of “let’s do the time warp again” from “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” Now, imagine if you lived in space. For those of us on Earth, adjusting to a new normal, like extended periods of working from home and disruptions to…

Some unusual creatures have an innate ability to regrow a limb: salamanders, starfish, crabs, lizards and newts. Such extraordinary powers elude most animals, including humans, although scientists have long sought to understand and replicate them in a quest to regenerate limbs for millions of patient amputees, including diabetics and victims of trauma. Now, researchers in…

The center of our Milky Way galaxy is home to a multitude of intriguing features — including nearly a thousand mysterious magnetic strands, according to a new telescope image. The pairs and clusters of strands stretch for nearly 150 light-years in length and are equally spaced. The bizarre structures are a few million years old…

Skin whitening is the use of cosmetic products or services to reduce the amount of melanin, or pigment, in the skin to make it appear lighter. It’s a big industry and predominantly targets women of color in every region of the world, with the Asia-Pacific region being the most lucrative. The practice dates back centuries,…

The James Webb Space Telescope has reached its final destination, almost a month after launch. Since lifting off from French Guiana on December 25, the telescope has unfurled its tennis court-size sunshield and unfolded a massive gold mirror that will help it study the universe in new ways and peer inside the atmosphere of exoplanets.…

The world feared the worst when a worrying new coronavirus variant emerged in late November and ripped through South Africa at a pace not seen before in the pandemic. But two months later, with Omicron dominant across much of the globe, the narrative has shifted for some. “Levels of concern about Omicron tend to be…

Black holes are best known for shredding stars, devouring light and acting like massive garbage disposals in space. In a twist, astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have discovered that these energetic celestial objects have a nurturing side, too. Hubble’s observation of a dwarf starburst galaxy, called Henize 2-10, revealed a gaseous umbilical cord stretching…

For the first time ever, a flight delay has occurred on another planet due to bad weather. The Ingenuity helicopter, which was slated to take to Martian skies on January 5, had to push its 19th flight back because of an unusually strong regional dust storm on Mars, according to NASA. Now, the team anticipates…

Life as a “living fortress” was a lonesome one for this dinosaur. A heavily armored nodosaurid, which sported elongated spikes on its neck and shoulders, was likely a sluggish loner who couldn’t hear very well, according to a new study. Researchers studied the braincase of the 80 million-year-old herbivorous dinosaur, which was related to the…

A restaurant in Alberta was forced to briefly close its dining room after the health department found patrons were showing photos of dogs instead of proof of vaccination or a negative Covid test, as mandated by the Canadian province. Alberta Health Services ordered The Granary Kitchen in Red Deer to temporarily close last Friday after…

An asteroid estimated to be around a kilometer (3,451 feet) wide will fly by Earth on Tuesday. It will pass within 1.2 million miles of our planet, moving at 47,344 miles per hour (76,193 kilometers per hour), according to NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies, which tracks potentially hazardous comets and asteroids that could…

Though massive volcanoes have the potential to affect global temperatures and weather, the eruption near Tonga on Saturday was likely not large enough to impact global climate, experts tell CNN. The Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha’apai eruption on Saturday was enormous; likely the largest in 30 years, according to experts. It injected a huge cloud of ash and sulfur…