Month: April 2023

By Madeline Holcombe, CNN There is something in the air today. Maybe you’ve noticed. April 20, or 4/20, is known as “Weed Day” in some circles because the date corresponds with a numerical code for marijuana. Yes, it seems arbitrary. So how did the number 420 come to represent smoking pot? First, let’s get the

By Ashley Strickland, CNN Northern elephant seals might be masters of multitasking in the animal kingdom because they’ve learned how to sleep and dive at the same time — all while avoiding predators. The elephant seals can spend seven or eight months on foraging trips in the North Pacific Ocean and travel for thousands of

By Katie Hunt, CNN One Friday afternoon, not long after Oregon made cannabis legal in 2015, some lab researchers in the state embarked on a quirky experiment. The team worked with a type of tiny nematode worm called Caenorhabditis elegans, smaller than a human eyelash, to understand its food preferences and, on a whim, decided

By Jack Guy, CNN The Earth’s ice sheets lost enough ice over the last 30 years to create an ice cube 12 miles high, according to new research. The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, which hold almost all of the world’s freshwater ice, are shrinking at a frighteningly rapid pace, according to a report on

By Jackie Wattles and Ashley Strickland, CNN SpaceX’s Starship, the most powerful rocket ever built, took off from a launchpad in South Texas at 9:33 a.m. ET Thursday but exploded midair before stage separation. Thursday’s launch marked the vehicle’s historic first test flight. “As if the flight test was not exciting enough, Starship experienced a

By Jackie Wattles, CNN Business SpaceX’s Starship, the most powerful rocket ever built, took off from a launch pad on the coast of South Texas on Thursday morning, kicking off the vehicle’s historic first test flight. The massive Super Heavy rocket booster, which houses 33 engines, lifted off Thursday morning, sending a massive boom across

By Heather Chen, CNN A contest planned for children in New Zealand to hunt and kill feral cats as part of a drive to protect native species has been axed following backlash from the public and animal rights groups. The event would have been part of a fundraiser organized by the North Canterbury Hunting Competition

By Jackie Wattles, CNN SpaceX is once again gearing up for the inaugural test flight of Starship, the most powerful rocket ever created and the vehicle that could one day return astronauts to the moon or — perhaps — propel the first trip to Mars. The rocket could lift off as soon as Thursday, during