NASA's Mars InSight Lander may be resting on the Red Planet in retirement, but data from the robotic explorer is still leading to seismic discoveries on Earth.

Two NASA astronauts will stay longer at the International Space Station as engineers troubleshoot problems on Boeing's new space capsule that cropped up on the trip there.

The coolest news this week concerns anthropological research combining state-of-the-art imaging technology, medical diagnostics, genetics and sociology. We covered the implications of a black hole in an expanding universe and the eternal question researchers like to ask about children: Are they actually good people? We could go back and forth on that, but current research has landed on "yeah, pretty good, we guess." Also: Forget everything you ever knew about armadillos, the Abrams tank of mammals.

In 2020, astronomers discovered a large hourglass-shaped structure in or near the center of our Milky Way galaxy. Dubbed "eROSITA bubbles," there have been a few different hypotheses proposed to explain their precise nature. Now, a research team of scientists from China and Europe has constructed a high-resolution map of the region and found evidence that two of the most prominent features are not independent.

An ancient burial ground consisting of 41 circular stone formations with cremated bone remains in the center has been unearthed near Fredrikstad in southeastern Norway. The overwhelming majority of the graves, more than 30, contained the burned bones of infants and children between the ages of three and six. The child graves date to between 800 and 400 B.C., the Early Nordic Bronze Age and the Pre-Roman Iron Age. The graves were discovered last year by accident. Archaeologists were investigating the area because it was a near a known Stone Age settlement. The stone markers were not visible on the landscape, obscured beneath a thin 2-4-inch layer of peat, so archaeologists had no idea they were there until they began clearing the site. The round or oval formations are between three and six feet in diameter. They are composed of smaller stones placed in a single layer in a wheel or spiral pattern with a large stone or slab in the middle. Cremation on a pyre was the predominant funerary practice in the Early Nordic Bronze Age and pre-Roman Iron Age. The burned bones would then be buried in a hole or spread on the ground and covered with a flat paving stone. The circle of smaller stones was then arranged around it. The excavation found burned bones, pottery fragments and what may be a buckle. The pottery fragments were not solely from cinerary urns, as they were also found between the graves, so the pottery had other purposes as well. While many burial sites have been found, there was something particularly intriguing about this one. “There was something special about the whole site. The graves are very close together. They must have been in an open landscape, with thoroughfares nearby, so everyone would have known about them. Cooking pits and fireplaces around the site suggest that gatherings and ceremonies were held in connection with burials. Additionally, all the graves were so nice and meticulously crafted. Each stone was sourced from a different location and placed precisely in the formation. We wondered who put in so much effort,” [excavation leader Guro Fossum] says. “When the analysis results came in, it made sense: They were small children’s graves. This was done with so much care,” says Fossum.“It seems that the social structure was more egalitarian, as there wasn’t much difference between the graves. The same type of graves, grave goods, and burial method were used. This suggests a society where community was important,” she says. Because the burial ground was in use for centuries — the last grave dates to the first years of the 1st century A.D. — the deaths cannot have been caused by a single event like a catastrophe, war or infectious illness. The graves are largely the same, no matter the age and gender of the deceased, with the egalitarian treatment of all the dead continuing consistently for 800 years. The stone circles are the same; the grave goods are the same; the burial method is the same. This likely reflects a less hierarchical society than the one that followed which introduced large burial mounds for high-status individuals that would dominate the landscape.

A fascinating study of the skeletal remains of ancient Egyptian scribes from the third millennium BC has revealed the physical costs of this job. While the type of work they did might seem relatively non-stressful, in fact these men suffered from skeletal damage and degenerative osteoarthritis that affected the joints in many different parts of their bodies, which undoubtedly turned writing into a surprisingly painful profession for many. In this new study published by Nature, a team of researchers from the Czech Institute of Egyptology in Prague examined the skeletal remains of 69 adult males who lived in ancient Egypt between the years 2,700 and 2,180 BC, during the Old Kingdom period. The skeletons were recovered from a multigenerational elite necropolis unearthed near the village of Abusir, which is adjacent to an ancient pyramid complex. Cross Profession Study Group The skeletal remains belonged to men from two different groups: those who had worked as scribes, and those who had not. There were 30 individuals who belonged to the first group, and a close analysis of their remains showed clear anatomical anomalies that were not present in the members of the control group. Read moreSection: NewsHistory & ArchaeologyHistoryAncient TraditionsRead Later 

Following President Joe Biden's debate oversight regarding military deaths under his watch, members of gold star families shared their frustration with the New York Post.

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - A federal judge granted a motion Friday to temporarily stop Oklahoma from enforcing its new anti-immigration law that would make it a crime to live in the state without legal immigration status.U.S. District Judge Bernard M. Jones issued a preliminary...

The U.S. and its allies challenged North Korea at the United Nations on Friday over claims Pyongyang is breaching arms control measures by supplying weapons to Russia to use in its war in Ukraine.

The Iowa Supreme Court on Friday ruled the state's six-week abortion ban is constitutional, overturning a lower-court's decision that placed a temporary injunction on the law.