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Crystal discArchaeologists in China have discovered two 800-year-old tombs belonging to Hu Hong and his wife née Wu. The crystal disc seen in this photo was found within the coffin of née Wu's tomb. The body of née Wu was completely decayed, but many treasures from her tomb were found intact. [Read more about the ancient China tombs] Gold pendantThis gold pendant was also found in née Wu's tomb. Archaeologists believe that it would have been attached to a vest. [Read More]

Updated at 11:14 a.m. ET In Texas, there's no avoiding this year's record drought. Trees, parched of water, are dying. Fires are springing up in areas used to moist, almost swampy, conditions. Without enough grass to eat, even the longhorns are growing scrawny, their ribs showing through their hides. A new set of photographs released by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) reveal the drought in stark images, including a West Texas lake that turned blood red. [Read More]

This story was updated on July 18 at 2.48 p.m. ET. Recent reports have claimed that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is trying to save endangered ferrets by firing vaccine-laced M&Ms from drones into the animals' habitats. Though the bizarre-sounding scheme caught the media's attention, agency officials say the reports are misleading. Yes, the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) is investigating drones as a way to distribute vaccinations — but not using M&Ms, and not for ferrets directly, agency officials told Live Science. [Read More]

Into the spotlightPhotographer Bruno Van Saen travelled to Romblon in the Philippines in search of this tiny sea slug, the Cyerce nigra, after seeing the colorful marine invertebrate on social media. Van Saen used a Nikon D 810 camera with a 105 mm lens, lighting the scene with an underwater strobe light. Judge Alex Mustard, a marine biologist and underwater photographer, noted "this photo allow us to enjoy the visual feast" [Read More]

There are no longer summer camps geared toward children with cystic fibrosis. Though the genetic disease is not contagious, doctors found that children who attended the camps put each other at risk, spreading potentially deadly infections among their vulnerable lungs. With the lessons of those camps in mind, schools now take special care to separate children with cystic fibrosis. But the administrators of a California middle school have taken these precautions one step further, ordering a boy to transfer schools not because he suffers from cystic fibrosis but because he has genetic markers associated with the disease, a decision that seems to conflict with medical understanding of the condition. [Read More]

Not all cellphone conversations create the same amount of distraction for drivers. Recent research found talking about spiders turned spider-phobic people into more error-prone, less-aware drivers.  Questions such as "Are you able to remove a spider from a room if required?" and "Are you able to imagine the feelings of having a spider near or on you?" coming through a hands-free mobile phone distracted arachnophobic drivers markedly more than nonphobic drivers having the same conversation. [Read More]

Dr. Mitchell Roslin is chief of obesity surgery at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York. He holds several patents for the treatment of obesity and designed a method for treating relapse after gastric bypass surgery. Roslin has expertise in laparoscopic obesity surgery, duodenal switch surgery and revisional bariatric surgery. He contributed this article to LiveScience’s Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Recently, while driving to work, I heard a very sad story: Boy Scouts who were morbidly obese would be excluded from this year’s National Scout Jamboree, an event that occurs every four years and is considered a highlight for young scouts. [Read More]

The threat of punishment actually does stamp out freeloaders, tending to transform them into rule-following members of a society, a new study suggests. The research results show how established norms and rules in a society could keep freeloaders in check and increase pro-social behavior, such as helping others or sharing with them rather than looking out for number one. In the past, studies have found that while punishing freeloaders can increase their cooperation with others, the punishment itself was too costly and in the end, punishment wouldn't be worth it. [Read More]

A dinosaur that lived in Australia 220 million years ago left behind footprints that hinted that it was a fierce predator. But a new analysis of the tracks suggests that the animal wasn't a hefty meat eater, as scientists thought when they first analyzed the tracks more than 50 years ago. Rather, it was a smaller, long-necked vegetarian, the new study discovered.  Scientists previously estimated that the alleged carnivore that left the prints had legs measuring at least 7 feet (2 meters) tall at the hip and a body at least 20 feet (6 m) long. [Read More]

What does a splintering iceberg sound like underwater? Imagine the cracks and pops of an ice cube melting in a glass of lemonade multiplied on a colossal scale, say researchers from Oregon State University, who recorded a thawing berg near Antarctica. "It turns out there's an unbelievable amount of ice noise," said Robert Dziak, a marine geologist at OSU's Hatfield Marine Science Center. "There are indications that the ice noise we're detecting can be heard as far north as the equator. [Read More]