Stories by LiveScience

Orcas off the coast of Washington State are balancing dead fish on their heads like it’s the 1980s, but researchers still aren’t sure why they do it

Plate tectonics, or the recycling of Earth’s crust, may have begun much earlier than previously thought—and may be a big reason that our planet harbors life

An ancient temple made by Arabian immigrants from the Nabataean culture has finally been found off the Italian coast

The Heiltsuk of British Columbia are using a mix of traditional principles and modern implementation to protect salmon and bears in their territory

Scientists reveal the identity of a cannibalized captain from the doomed Northwest Passage expedition of 1845 to 1848

An underground Martian ocean could hold enough liquid to cover the Red Planet with a mile of water

New drugs may help patients with life-threatening "brain-eating" amoeba infections

Beneath the Antarctic ice, scientists find remnants of a giant river system that flowed for thousands of miles

A study of mice starts to unravel how the brain gets tricked by a particular optical illusion

Doctors have transplanted a genetically modified pig kidney into a living human patient for the first time ever

Microbes that lurk in decomposing human corpses could help forensic detectives establish a person's time of death

Scientists are finding ever-earlier examples of artistic expression in the archaeological record that reshape what we know about the abilities of Neanderthals and other archaic humans

Pink fairy armadillos evolved a unique double skin millions of years ago as they moved underground in response to a drying climate

Burials holding mummies with false heads have been discovered from the Wari Empire in Peru

A giant iceberg called A23a, which broke off from Antarctica in 1986, is finally moving away from the icy continent after being stuck on the seafloor for decades

Egypt’s famous Sphinx may have originated as a rock feature carved by erosion that ancient Egyptians further refined into the iconic monument

A new facial approximation brings to life an Incan girl who was killed 500 years ago as part of a sacrificial ritual

From sinking boats and feasting on shark livers to dining on whale tongue and tossing porpoises around for fun, orcas are displaying some fascinating—and sometimes terrifying—behaviors

A long-lost tectonic plate dubbed “Pontus” that was a quarter of the size of the Pacific Ocean was discovered by chance by scientists in Borneo

Traditional antibiotics drive bacteria toward drug resistance, so scientists are looking to viruses, CRISPR, designer molecules and protein swords for better superbug treatments

Researchers have discovered a pattern where diamonds spew from deep beneath Earth’s surface in huge, explosive volcanic eruptions

This child was buried 400 years ago in what is now Poland, face-down and with an iron padlock on their foot

A new type of chemistry performed at very cold temperatures on very small particles enables quick, precise reactions

Researchers have decoded more than half of the characters in the so-called Kushan script by comparing them with inscriptions in a known ancient language called Bactrian