AP Science

Three astronauts return to Earth after a year in …

In this photo taken from video released by Roscosmos space corporation, NASA astronaut Frank Rubio sits in chairs shortly after the landing of the Russian Soyuz MS-23 space capsule about 150 km (90 miles) south-east of the Kazakh town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023. The Soyuz capsule carrying NASA astronaut Frank Rubio, Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev, and Dmitri Petelin, touched down on Wednesday on the steppes of Kazakhstan. (Roscosmos space corporation via AP)

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We carry DNA from extinct cousins like Neanderthals. Science …

People visit the exhibits inside the Smithsonian Hall of Human Origins, Thursday, July 20, 2023, at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington. DNA research has found that our Homo sapiens ancestors mated with Neanderthals and Denisovans long ago. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Biologists in slow and steady race to help North America’s …

Two Bolson tortoises are seen at Armendariz Ranch in Engel, New Mexico on Friday, Sept. 22, 2023. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)

Historians race to find Great Lakes shipwrecks before …

This Aug. 15, 2021 photo, videographer Nicholas Lusardi investigates the wing of a downed P-39 Airacobra in Lake Huron, Mich. The plane that crashed during a training mission in April 1944, killing Lt. Frank Moody, a Tuskegee airman. Archaeologists are racing to document Great Lakes shipwrecks and downed planes before quagga mussels disintegrate them. (Wayne Lusardi via AP)

NASA’s first asteroid samples land on Earth after release …

This image taken from video provided by NASA TV shows the capsule released by the Osiris-Rex spacecraft Sunday Sept. 24 2023. (NASA via AP)

Science paints a new picture of the ancient past, when …

Busts of Neanderthal and hominins line a table at the studio of paleoartist John Gurche in Trumansburg, N.Y., Wednesday, May 31, 2023. Along with more fossils and artifacts, DNA findings are pointing us to a challenging idea: We're not so special. For most of human history we shared the planet with other kinds of early humans — and those now-extinct groups were a lot like us. (AP Photo/Heather Ainsworth)

Workers uncover eight mummies and pre-Inca objects while …

Archaeologists uncover vessels and bones discovered by city workers who were digging a natural gas line for the company Calidda in the district of Carabayllo on the outskirts of Lima, Peru, Friday, Sept. 22, 2023. Eight burial offerings from the pre-Inca Ychsma culture have been identified by archeologists so far, according to lead archeologist Jesus Bahamonde. (AP Photo/Martin Mejia)

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The fall equinox is here. What does that mean?

FILE - The sun sets beyond the downtown skyline of Kansas City, Mo., as the autumnal equinox marks the first day of fall Sunday, Sept. 22, 2013. During the equinox, the Earth’s axis and its orbit line up so that both hemispheres get an equal amount of sunlight. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File)

Ancient ‘power’ palazzo on Rome’s Palatine Hill reopens …

A visitor admires archeological finds inside the newly restored domus Tiberiana, one of the main imperial palaces, during the press preview on Rome's Palatine Hill, in Rome, Italy, Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2023. The Domus Tiberiana will reopen to the public on Sept. 21. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

Governments and individuals debate: Are mandates …

A beach club destroyed by Superstorm Sandy on the sea wall on Nov. 15, 2022, in Sea Bright, N.J. New Jersey, like places around the world, is setting ambitious goals to deal with climate change, but it wrestling with how much to actually require of businesses and individuals to fulfill those goals. (AP Photo/Wayne Parry)

This simple log structure may be the oldest example …

This photo provided by researchers shows Kalambo Falls in Zambia in 2019. A pair of crossed logs found on a riverbed nearby may be the oldest evidence of early humans building with wood, nearly half a million years old, according to a study published Wednesday, Sept. 19, 2023 in the journal Nature. (Geoff Duller/Aberystwyth University via AP)

Sponsor an ocean? Tiny island nation of Niue has …

A person sits on a rock face overlooking the ocean in Niue in this 2018 photo. The tiny Pacific island nation of Niue has come up with a novel plan to protect its vast and pristine territorial waters — it will get sponsors to pay. Under the plan, which was being launched by Niue's Prime Minister Dalton Tagelagi on Tuesday Sept. 19, 2023 in New York, individuals or companies can pay $148 to protect 1 square kilometer (about 250 acres) of ocean from threats such as illegal fishing and plastic waste for a period of 20 years. (Richard Sidey/Galaxiid via AP)

Hundreds of flying taxis to be made in Ohio, home …

In this 2022 photo provided by Joby Aviation is Joby’s pre-production prototype aircraft at the company’s flight test facility in Marina, Calif. The same Ohio river valley where the Wright brothers pioneered human flight will soon manufacture cutting-edge electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft. An agreement announced Monday, Sept. 18, 2023, between the state and Joby Aviation Inc. will bring air taxi production to a 140-acre site at Dayton International Airport by 2025. (Eric Adams/Joby Aviation via AP)

Climate change could bring more storms like Hurricane …

In this satellite image provided by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration via NASA, Hurricane Lee continues its slow west-northwest trajectory across the Atlantic Ocean on Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2023. (NOAA/NASA via AP)