SCIENCE

A federal judge plans to deny SpaceX's challenge to U.S. Air Force contracts awarded to its rivals, writing in a Thursday court filing that the Pentagon properly assessed the development of SpaceX CEO Elon Musk's Starship rocket system as "too risky and expensive."

Fossils of a mastodon, a giant prehistoric relative of today's elephants, have been discovered at an artisanal gold mine in central Colombia in a find which researchers say could herald a trove of similar specimens.

Roughly 80 million years ago in the shallow inland sea that once split North America into eastern and western land masses, a fearsome 33-foot-long (10-meter-long) marine reptile with powerful jaws and tremendous bite-force was one of the apex predators.

Rotten bananas? Mushy avocados? Pulped oranges? Talash Huijbers wants them all.

A Dutch start-up has created a biodegradable "living coffin" made of a fungus, instead of wood, which it says can convert a decomposing human body into key nutrients for plants.

Archaeologists in Egypt have discovered 27 coffins at the ancient necropolis of Saqqara, a burial ground that is also home to one of the world's oldest pyramids, the ministry of tourism and antiquities said.

The following is a roundup of some of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus.

Scientists are providing a fuller understanding of the essential role that sleep plays in brain health, identifying an abrupt transition at about 2.4 years of age when its primary purpose shifts from brain building to maintenance and repair.

China aims to set up a space programme operating thousands of flights a year and carrying tens of thousands of tons of cargo and passengers by 2045, state news agency Xinhua quoted an official as saying on Friday.