Most Emailed Science News

A study of top-selling laundry products and air fresheners found the products emitted dozens of different chemicals. All six products tested gave off at least one chemical regulated as toxic or hazardous under federal laws, but none of those chemicals was listed on the product labels.

FORT STANTON CAVE, N.M. - Hundreds of feet beneath Earth's surface, a few seasoned cave explorers venture where no human has set foot. Their headlamps illuminate mud-covered walls, gypsum crystals and mineral deposits.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Scientists have exposed some of the mystery behind the northern lights. On Thursday, NASA released findings that indicate magnetic explosions about one-third of the way to the moon cause the northern lights, or aurora borealis, to burst in spectacular shapes and colors, and dance across the sky.

Magicians are way ahead of psychologists when it comes to understanding and exploiting the human mind and our perceptual quirks.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Meditation may slow the worsening of AIDS in just a few weeks, perhaps by affecting the immune system, U.S. researchers reported on Thursday.

MADRID (AFP) - The remains of several unknown insect species which became extinct long before dinosaurs stopped roaming the earth have been discovered in pieces of 110-million-year-old amber found in Spain, researchers said Thursday.

Many miles inside the Arctic Circle, scientists have found elusive vents of scalding liquid rising out of the seafloor at temperatures that are more than twice the boiling point of water.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The multicolored aurora borealis and aurora australis -- the Northern Lights and Southern Lights -- represent some of Earth's most dazzling natural displays.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A new, highly efficient material that converts heat into electricity may one day help cars get the most out of a gallon of gas, U.S. researchers said on Thursday.

Online bankers, beware. More than 75 percent of bank Web sites surveyed by a research team had at least one design flaw that could make customers vulnerable to cyber thieves.

The human male releases about 66 million sperm during each ... encounter. If that act involves a woman with an egg waiting in her fallopian tubes, it's really a crapshoot as to whether one of those sperms fertilizes her egg and fathers a child; since it takes only one sperm to make a baby, there are 59,999,999 extras along for the ride. And yet, many men with millions of sperm to spare are considered infertile; a "low" sperm count is anything under 20 million. ...

A flotilla of NASA probes has solved the 30-year mystery behind the most colorful aurora displays on Earth and the explosive magnetic "substorms" that spawn them.

A recent study made headlines across the country: The "Tween and Teen Dating Violence and Abuse Study" was commissioned by Liz Claiborne and the National Teen Dating Abuse Helpline. Among the headlines: 62 percent of 11- to 14-year-olds know someone in an abusive dating relationship, and one in five of those age 13 to 14 knows someone who has been struck in anger by a dating partner.

Eight new natural wonders, including the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve in Mexico and what has been dubbed "the Galápagos of the Indian Ocean," have been added to the World Heritage List. World Heritage Sites are named by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The sites, both cultural and natural, added to the list are deemed "of outstanding value to humanity" and deserve protection and preservation, according to the UNESCO Web site. ...

MOSCOW (AFP) - Russian scientists leading a submarine expedition to probe the world's deepest lake on Thursday carried out test dives ahead of the start of the operation next week, reports said.

A college student's new discovery of fossils collected in the East Antarctic suggests that the frozen polar cap was once a much balmier place. The well-preserved fossils of ostracods, a type of small crustaceans, came from the Dry Valleys region of Antarctica's Transantarctic Mountains and date from about 14 million years ago. The fossils were a rare find, showing all of the ostracods' soft anatomy in 3-D. The fossils were discovered by Richard Thommasson during screening of the sediment in research team member Allan Ashworth's lab at North Dakota State University. ...

SOLOVETSKY ISLANDS, Russia (AFP) - A young whale pokes its melon-shaped head into the cool morning air near this remote island, a sign its herd is thriving despite mounting threats in Russia's melting Arctic.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Disease spread to wild bees from commercially bred bees used for pollination in agriculture greenhouses may be playing a role in the mysterious decline in North American bee populations, researchers said on Tuesday.

Researchers studying life in the deep subsurface of our planet have discovered a unique bacterium living 1 mile (1.7 km) below the Earth's surface. The tiny bacteria live in a community of subsurface microbes inhabiting a South African platinum mine.

NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander might be digging up the surface of the red planet for longer than expected. Mission controllers have requested an extension to the spacecraft's work on the planet's surface, SPACE.com has learned.

The Jurassic Period's Archaeopteryx is famous as the world's first known bird, but now-extinct reptiles such as pterosaurs and kuehneosaurs were flying as far back as 225 million years ago, during the Triassic and before large dinosaurs roamed the Earth.

Scientists have discovered a new Jupiter-sized planet orbiting around a distant sun-like star.

Friday, August 1 is a red-letter day for eclipse enthusiasts. On that date, the sun will be partially eclipsed over an immense area that includes western and central Asia, parts of northern and central Europe, all of Greenland and even a small slice of northeastern North America.