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More than 300 million years ago, during the Carboniferous Period, much of northern Illinois outside Chicago — including what is now the Mazon Creek (“muh-ZAHN”) fossil site — was alive with ancient creatures thriving in lush, tropical swamps, river deltas and shallow seas. Now, researchers at the University of Missouri’s College of Arts and Science…

Maddie Molloy Climate and science reporter Getty Images Stargazers will soon be treated to what could be one of the year’s most dazzling displays, with the Perseid meteor shower reaching its peak on Tuesday night. The shower lights up the skies each summer, and is known for its bright, fast-moving meteors – often dubbed “shooting…

The obesity rate has more than doubled in the last 30 years, affecting more than one billion people worldwide. This prevalent condition is also linked to other metabolic disorders, including type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, chronic kidney disease, and cancers. Current treatment options include lifestyle interventions, bariatric surgery, and GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic or Wegovy,…

Astronomers have discovered potentially the most massive black hole ever detected. The cosmic behemoth is close to the theoretical upper limit of what is possible in the universe and is 10,000 times heavier than the black hole at the center of our own Milky Way galaxy. It exists in one of the most massive galaxies…

It sounds like science fiction: a spacecraft, no heavier than a paperclip, propelled by a laser beam and hurtling through space at the speed of light toward a black hole, on a mission to probe the very fabric of space and time and test the laws of physics. But to astrophysicist and black hole expert…