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.

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

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

Societal upheaval can trigger uncertainty, which makes people susceptible to cognitive traps. Experts suggest some simple tools can help.

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.

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.

As calls to end fluoride in water get louder, changes to the dental health of children in Calgary, Canada, and Juneau, Alaska, may provide a cautionary tale.

A new antivenom relies on antibodies from the blood of Tim Friede, who immunized himself against snakebites by injecting increasing doses of venom into his body.

Warming temperatures can ramp up the activity of methane-producing bacteria in wetland soils, adding to methane emissions.

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