Each week we uncover the most interesting and informative articles from around the world, here are 10 of the coolest stories in science this week.
Life in the Rocks

Microscopic images of geyserite taken from the Dresser Formation in Australia provide evidence for microbial life that lived 3.48 billion years ago. The ripply "palisade" texture could have been formed when long filaments of bacteria were entombed by the silica from the mineral-rich water from a hot spring.
Credit: Tara Djokic
Ancient rocks found in a remote stretch of Western Australia may contain the world's oldest known evidence of life on land, a new study finds.
The findings hint that early life may have gotten its start in hot springs on land, as opposed to deep inside ocean hydrothermal vents, as is commonly believed, Djokic told Live Science. [Read more about the oldest evidence.]
Sunbathing Toddlers
A group of great white sharks, babies and 1- and 2-year-olds, was spotted off the coast of Dana Point, California, on May 10, 2017.
Credit: Orange County Sheriff’s Department
A group of more than a dozen great white sharks were spotted swimming in the surf off a Southern California beach, but beachgoers shouldn't panic, say shark experts.
These are not bloodthirsty predators, but rather a group of "toddlers," said Chris Lowe, director of the Shark Lab at California State University, Long Beach. They are babies and 1- and 2-year-olds, probably 5 to 7 feet (1.5 to 2 meters) long, that are likely moving into the shallow waters because the area is safe and there's plenty of their favorite food, stingrays, Lowe said. [Read more about the swarming sharks.]
Early Printing Specimen
This 540-year-old page, ripped from a medieval priests' handbook, was found in a library at the University of Reading.
Credit: University of Reading
A librarian in England has stumbled upon a rare page from the early days of book printing.
The double-sided page has black-letter typeface and red paragraph marks that gave it away as an early western European printing, according to the university. [Read more about the ancient text.]
AI Struggles
World Chess champion Garry Kasparov (left) ponders a chess move during the sixth and final game of his match with IBM's Deep Blue computer on May 11, 1997.
Credit: Roger Celestin/Newscom
When the IBM computer Deep Blue beat the world's greatest chess player, Garry Kasparov, in the last game of a six-game match on May 11, 1997, the world was astonished. This was the first time any human chess champion had been taken down by a machine.
Despite those incredible computations, however, machines still fall short in other areas. [Read more about artificial intelligence.]
Mystery Solved
Archaeologists have reached the burial chamber of the 3,800-year-old pyramid discovering the remains of a poorly preserved sarcophagus and a wooden box inscribed with three lines of hieroglyphs.
Credit: Courtesy of Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities
Inside a 3,800-year-old pyramid at the site of Dahshur in Egypt, archaeologists have discovered a burial chamber that may have held the mummy of a princess named Hatshepset. A wooden box inscribed with hieroglyphs was also found within the chamber.
The wooden box is inscribed with "Hatshepset," which likely does not refer to the pharaoh Hatshepsut but rather someone else with a similar name, the researchers said. Last month, another inscription, written on an alabaster block, was also found in the pyramid. [Read more about the discovery.]
Poop Diet
Studies in mice have garnered attention for a remarkable result: When the feces of one mouse was transplanted to another mouse, the recipient mouse either gained or lost weight.
All of the patients in the study received stool from OpenBiome, a company that provides stool from healthy donors who have healthy BMIs, said Dr. Valery Muenyi, a resident physician in internal medicine at the University of Miami and the lead author of this study. [Read more about the strange procedure.]
Open and Shut
This illustration, based on computer models, shows how the hanging wall (right) of a thrust fault can twist away from the foot wall (left) during an earthquake.
Credit: Harsha Bhat
Like a crocodile's jaw opening and snapping shut, Earth's crust can rip apart and then violently close back up during an earthquake, a new study finds.
The study focused on a particular paradox associated with thrust faults, a crack in Earth’s crust, where geologic forces are slowly pushing a huge slab of continental crust up and over an oceanic layer. [Read more about the mega-quakes.]
Marijuana and Memory
Marijuana's main psychoactive compound, THC, may improve memory, according to a new study in mice.
Previous research in people — in teens and young adults — as well as in young animals has suggested that THC may actually impair cognition, but it was not clear how the compound might affect the aging brain in older individuals. [Read more about the mind-altering blend.]
What Lies Beneath
Forrest Follet from the Cobb Institute of Archaeology at Mississippi State University, removes the soil from the lid of one over 35 graves uncovered during construction in 2013.
Credit: The University of Mississippi Medical Center
An estimated 7,000 bodies are thought to be buried under The University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC), according to radar scans of the campus grounds.
Exhuming and reburying 7,000 bodies could be very expensive — about $3,000 per corpse, or a total of about $21 million — and UMMC is currently investigating options that could relocate the bodies and create both a memorial center and a dedicated lab for analyzing the remains, UMMC representatives added. [Read more about the buried secrets.]
Ghostbusting Dinosaur

An ankylosaur discovered in Montana in 2016 looks eerily like Zuul, a fictional monster from the movie "Ghostbusters."
Credit: Brian Boyle/Copyright Royal Ontario Museum; Columbia Pictures Corporation
What's as long as a pickup truck, as heavy as a white rhinoceros and as weird-looking as Zuul, the monster from the 1984 "Ghostbusters" movie? A newfound species of ankylosaurus.
Like Zuul in "Ghostbusters," Z. crurivastator has a short, rounded snout, large horns and a gnarled appearance, the researchers said. They found the beast in 2016 in Montana's Judith River Formation, a site known for its vast array of dinosaur fossils. [Read more about the ghostly dino.]
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