The private space company SpaceX has launched its largest rocket yet Tuesday, sending a cherry red Tesla Roadster into an elliptical Earth-Mars orbit. The Falcon Heavy rocket lifted off from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center on the same launch pad from which NASA’s Apollo 11 lifted off in 1969 on the …

Somewhere in Boise, the 500-year-old skeletons of two Native Americans found last year when a badger apparently unearthed them from their resting place in Idaho’s high desert sagebrush steppe are being stored as three tribes seek to claim them as their own and anthropologists who study Native Americans lament what …

The maker of the Taser says the electroshock weapon is the safest tool on a police officer’s belt – with a few caveats. In pages of warnings, Axon Enterprise Inc advises police to beware that some people are at higher risk of death or serious injury from the weapons. Pregnant …

The director general of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said he is establishing what he calls a health reserve army to tackle emergencies and newly emerging diseases. Ghebreyesus said he has been spending the past seven months working on a strategic plan to reform and improve the World …

The world’s first space sports car is cruising toward the asteroid belt, well beyond Mars. SpaceX chief Elon Musk confirmed the new, more distant route for his rocketing Tesla Roadster, which was launched aboard the company’s Falcon Heavy from Florida. The Heavy became the most powerful rocket flying today with …

Researchers say DNA from a 10,000-year-old skeleton found in an English cave suggests he had dark skin and blue eyes. Scientists from Britain’s Natural History Museum and University College London have analyzed the genome of “Cheddar Man,” who was found in Cheddar Gorge in southwest England in 1903. It is …

Twin crises of measles and malnutrition have recently afflicted Indonesia’s easternmost province, Papua, inciting foreign and media scrutiny as well as internal review from the Indonesian government. Papua is an impoverished but mineral-rich province with a history of separatist struggle, which has been quashed for decades by the Indonesian military. …

Female circumcision is a common but brutal practice in some cultures, where it affects millions of women in 30 countries, mostly in Africa. That is why the U.N. has designated Feb. 6 as the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation. In Ethiopia alone, three quarters of women …

Tuesday is the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation, a U.N.-sponsored annual event. Female genital mutilation in Africa is an age-old tradition that involves the cutting of the clitoris of young girls and women. The United Nations estimates at least 200 million girls and women have undergone …

The private space company SpaceX is scheduled to test launch its largest rocket yet Tuesday, and, if all goes well, it will also send a sports car into orbit around the sun. ​WATCH: Falcon Heavy Test Flight LIVE The Falcon Heavy rocket is poised to blast off from Florida’s Kennedy …

SpaceX’s big new rocket stood ready to blast off on its first test flight Tuesday, as crowds began gathering at daybreak for the afternoon launch debut. As the sun rose at Kennedy Space Center, bright lights illuminated the Falcon Heavy, gleaming white on the same launch pad used by NASA …

A fake doctor treating poor villagers in northern India for colds, coughs and diarrhea has infected at least 21 of them with HIV by using contaminated syringes and needles, a health official said Tuesday.   Sushil Choudhury, the official, said police were looking for Rajendra Yadav, who fled Bangarmau, a …

Malawi farmers are under attack by armyworms, and government-provided pesticides are not effective. So farmers are fighting back with home-made concoctions. Faith Lapidus reports. …

There are nearly 44 million people suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. But a highly experimental new treatment may slow the advance of the disease. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports. …

SpaceX is bucking decades of launch tradition for the first test flight of its new megarocket.   The Falcon Heavy is set to become the world’s most powerful rocket in use Tuesday when it blasts off from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center. None of the usual, no-big-deal-if-it’s-destroyed launch ballast — like …

If you are not a fan of spiders, you may not like the creepy little arachnid scientists found entombed in chunks of amber from northern Myanmar. Unlike its spider cousins alive today, this guy had a tail. Scientists on Monday described four specimens of the arachnid, called Chimerarachne yingi, that …

Babies infected with Zika virus may suffer severe brain damage even if they do not display the signature symptom of an unusually small head, a study in monkeys suggested Monday. This meant that brain-damaged children may be walking around undiagnosed and missing out on life-bettering therapy, scientists reported in the …

A SpaceX “Starman” is aboard the company’s new rocket that’s set to make its launch debut from Florida SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk revealed pictures of the surprise passenger Monday. The figure is in the driver’s seat of Musk’s red Tesla Roadster, the cargo for Tuesday’s first test flight of …

Three quarters of women among India’s Dawoodi Bohra sect have undergone female genital mutilation (FGM), according to a study published on Monday which comes just weeks after government officials said there was no data to support its existence. Campaigners hope the survey – the largest of its kind – will …

The #MeToo campaign against sexual abuse should include the stories of survivors of female genital mutilation (FGM), activists said ahead of a global day on Tuesday to raise awareness about the internationally condemned ritual. Leyla Hussein, one of the first FGM survivors to come forward in Britain, urged people to …

Working for long hours as an IT consultant, Daniel Turissini used to always feel tired by the middle of his workday. He asked other business professionals around him about what they do and where they go to re-energize. The answers varied, from having a nap in their cars in the …

To mark World Cancer Day, the World Health Organization urges the adoption of healthy life styles as a way to lower cancer risks. WHO also emphasizes that early diagnosis and treatment for cancer can save many lives. Much progress has been made in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. But, …

Finding a cure for Alzheimer’s is an extremely complex task. Scientists still do not know what causes the disease. Once the symptoms appear, the gradual memory loss is inevitable and available drugs can only slow down the process. Researchers, however, believe the disease develops slowly, over years, so detecting it …

Researchers using a high-tech aerial mapping scanner have discovered the ruins of tens of thousands of ancient Mayan structures that have been hidden and preserved for centuries under northern Guatemala’s thick jungle.   The 60,000 newly discovered structures include raised highways, urban centers with sidewalks, homes, terraces, industrial-sized agricultural fields, …

Male rats exposed to very high levels of the kind of radiation emitted by cellphones developed tumors in the tissues around their hearts, according to a draft report by U.S. government researchers on the potential health risks of the devices. Female rats and mice exposed in the same way did not develop tumors, according to …