Kosmos 482 launched for Venus in 1972 but never left Earth orbit. The spacecraft has now lost enough energy that it can’t fight gravity anymore.

Rosettes made by scraping Tête de Moine, or “monk’s head,” cheese result from variations in the friction between the blade and the cheese.

Implanted tubes that transport bodily fluids can get gross. A lab prototype suggests a new vibration-based way to keep them clean and prevent infection.

The porpoise is critically endangered. Ancient Chinese poems reveal the animal’s range has dropped about 65 percent over the past 1,400 years.

Shape matters as well as size in the great range of male frog show-off equipment for competitive seductive serenades.

At 300 light-years away, the interstellar cloud is the closest of its kind ever found to Earth and the largest apparent single structure in the sky.

A scientist who worked on the National Climate Assessment explains how stopping work on it may make us more vulnerable to extreme weather disasters.

Sunflower sea stars discovered taking refuge in fjords may offer clues to saving the critically endangered species from sea star wasting disease.

A tailor-made version of Minecraft let researchers look at the success of learning individually or taking cues from others while foraging for fruit.

Introducing captive-bred axolotls to restored and artificial wetlands may be a promising option for the popular pet amphibian.

Knife-toothed reptiles called sebecids went extinct on the mainland 10 million years ago. New fossil evidence puts them on an island 4 million years ago.

In chess as in life, people use memory as a shortcut for decision-making. That strategy can backfire when the present doesn’t resemblance the past.