Latest Science News

Child welfare algorithm faces Justice Department scrutiny
PITTSBURGH (AP) — The Justice Department has been scrutinizing a controversial artificial intelligence tool used by a Pittsburgh-area child protective services agency following concerns that the tool could lead to discrimination against families with disabilities, The Associated Press has...

Monarch butterflies wintering in California rebound
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The population of western monarch butterflies wintering along the California coast has rebounded for a second year in a row after a precipitous drop in 2020, but the population of orange-and-black insects is still well below what it used to be, researchers announced Tuesday....

Bring back dodo? Ambitious plan draws investors, critics
WASHINGTON (AP) — The dodo bird isn’t coming back anytime soon. Nor is the woolly mammoth. But a company working on technologies to bring back extinct species has attracted more investors, while other scientists are skeptical such feats are possible or a good idea. Colossal...

AI: World likely to hit key warming threshold in 10-12 years
The world will likely breach the internationally agreed-upon climate change threshold in about a decade, and keep heating to break through a next warming limit around mid-century even with big pollution cuts, artificial intelligence predicts in a new study that's more pessimistic than previous...

Dolphins, humans both benefit from fishing collaboration
A fishing community in southern Brazil has an unusual ally: wild dolphins. Accounts of people and dolphins working together to hunt fish go back millennia, from the time of the Roman Empire near what is now southern France to 19th century Queensland, Australia. But while historians...

Australia mining company sorry for losing radioactive device
PERTH, Australia (AP) — A mining corporation apologized for losing a highly radioactive capsule over a 1,400-kilometer (870-mile) stretch of Western Australia, as authorities combed parts of the road looking for the tiny but dangerous substance. The capsule was part of a device...
Tiny radioactive capsule lost in Australia triggers search
PERTH, Australia (AP) — Authorities in Western Australia were searching for a tiny but potentially deadly radioactive capsule that got lost while being transported on a truck from a mine to a depot in the city of Perth, officials said Saturday. Emergency services said they were...

Camera captures night sky spiral after SpaceX rocket launch
HONOLULU (AP) — A camera atop Hawaii’s tallest mountain has captured what looks like a spiral swirling through the night sky. Researchers believe it was from the launch of a military GPS satellite that lifted off earlier on a SpaceX rocket in Florida. The images...

Study: Enough rare earth minerals to fuel green energy shift
The world has enough rare earth minerals and other critical raw materials to switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy to produce electricity and limit global warming, according to a new study that counters concerns about the supply of such minerals. With a push to get more...

Green comet zooming our way, last visited 50,000 years ago
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A comet is streaking back our way after 50,000 years. The dirty snowball last visited during Neanderthal times, according to NASA. It will come within 26 million miles (42 million kilometers) of Earth Wednesday before speeding away again, unlikely to...
