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August 19, 2026

Top Headlines

Coffee Drinkers Have Less Fat, More Muscle, and Surprising Hormone Differences

Aug. 19, 2026 Coffee drinkers may be getting more than an energy boost. A Finnish study found that people who drank more coffee tended to have less total and abdominal fat, more muscle, and healthier metabolic ...

Tiny Quantum Engines Reveal Useful Energy Hiding in “Waste Heat”

Aug. 19, 2026 A tiny machine made from just an atom and particles of light may sound impossibly simple, but it raises a surprisingly difficult question: what counts as heat, and what energy can still do useful work? University of Basel researchers have developed ...

Pollen Has a Surprising Problem — And Honeybees Have Found a Way Around It

Aug. 19, 2026 Honeybees can apparently detect when their food has the wrong balance of essential nutrients and adjust how much they eat to avoid potentially harmful excesses. They also transform pollen into ...

This 23-foot Crocodylian May Have Ruled South America’s Food Chain

Aug. 19, 2026 Miocene South America was packed with giant prey—and the predators hunting them were just as spectacular. Fossil bite marks suggest crocodylians, especially the enormous Purussaurus neivensis, were more important predators than mammals in this ...

16 Mummies and a Dog Reveal a Hidden Order Inside an Ancient Egyptian Tomb

Aug. 19, 2026 A tomb in Egypt’s Theban Necropolis reveals a surprisingly organized story of burial, reuse, and changing beliefs spanning hundreds of years. Researchers found 16 mummified people, the remains of at least four more, and a mummified dog, with ...

Japanese Scientists Use Tiny Silver Particles to Make DNA Assembly Up to 5x More Efficient

Aug. 19, 2026 Silver nanoparticles can precisely slice DNA and create longer “sticky ends,” helping genetic fragments join up to five times more efficiently than conventional methods. The breakthrough could ...

Tiny Robots Powered by Light Can Hunt Down and Collect Bacteria

Aug. 18, 2026 Researchers have built microscopic, light-driven robots that can rapidly navigate through liquid, collect bacteria, and deposit them in chosen locations. These tiny “cleaners” could open new possibilities for manipulating cells and microbes with ...

Mysterious Waves Sweeping Across Your Brain May Help Turn Sensory Chaos Into What You See

Aug. 18, 2026 Traveling electrical waves sweeping across the brain may help determine what we notice, predict what comes next, and construct our internal picture of the world. Researchers now argue that these ...

Scientists May Have Finally Proved That “Empty” Space Isn’t Really Empty

Aug. 18, 2026 A magnetar’s colossal magnetic field may have revealed a quantum effect predicted by Werner Heisenberg nearly 90 years ago, in which seemingly empty space alters the behavior of light. If ...

Einstein’s Biggest “Mistake” Came Back — And Changed Cosmology Forever

Aug. 18, 2026 Einstein’s abandoned cosmological constant made a spectacular comeback when astronomers discovered that the universe’s expansion is accelerating. It now sits at the heart of our best cosmological ...

A Therapy That “Rewrites” Childhood Memories Can Ease Fear of Failure

Aug. 18, 2026 Childhood criticism can leave people carrying a fear of failure long into adulthood, but new research suggests those emotional patterns may be surprisingly flexible. Young adults who revisited painful memories through imagery-based therapy showed ...

The Bacteria That Make Cheese Taste so Good May Also Benefit Your Gut

Aug. 17, 2026 Scientists studying three artisan British cheeses found that the microbes responsible for their distinctive flavors may also offer surprising benefits for gut health. As the cheeses matured, helpful bacteria transformed their aromas and textures ...

Latest Headlines

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Webb’s Mysterious Little Red Dots May Be Hiding Entire Galaxies

Aug. 17, 2026 Astronomers may finally have a clue to what happens to the mysterious “little red dots” that crowded the early universe. By studying a spiral galaxy nicknamed the “Saguaro,” researchers found ...

Tiny 1.7-Billion-Year-Old Fossils Could Reveal How Complex Life Began

Aug. 17, 2026 Scientists are searching some of Earth’s oldest rocks for tiny fossils that could reveal how simple microbial life made the extraordinary leap toward plants, animals, and other complex organisms. ...

Scientists Uncover the Hidden Nerve Network Fueling Breast Cancer

Aug. 17, 2026 Researchers have uncovered a surprising way triple-negative breast cancer may turn the body against itself. Tumors appear to recruit macrophages—immune cells normally involved in healing and ...

Scientists Tracked Kids for 8 Years — the Screen Time Result Was Unexpected

Aug. 17, 2026 An eight-year Finnish study found that children who spent more time on screens tended to show better cognitive processing as teenagers, challenging ...

Animals Have Been Eating Nature’s Original Bioplastic for Millions of Years

Aug. 17, 2026 Nature invented biodegradable plastic long before humans did—and animals may have been feeding on it for hundreds of millions of years. Researchers ...

A Little-Known Protein May Be Fueling Alzheimer’s — and Scientists Found a Way to Block It

Aug. 16, 2026 An experimental Alzheimer’s compound prevented damaging protein clumps from forming in the brains of mice, helping nerve cells survive longer and ...

A Little Movement in Midlife Could Pay Off for Your Brain Years Later

Aug. 16, 2026 Exercise and healthy blood sugar levels in midlife may help slow cognitive decline decades later. Physical activity appeared especially beneficial for Mexican American adults, suggesting that some ...

Physicists Discover a Hidden Gluon Structure Inside Protons That Could Rewrite Textbooks

Aug. 16, 2026 Physicists may have uncovered a hidden feature inside protons that helps preserve one of matter’s most fundamental properties. RHIC collision data ...

Scientists Reveal Why Walking Gets So Much Harder With Age

Aug. 16, 2026 As we age, the body appears to sacrifice walking efficiency in exchange for stability. Older adults stiffen the ankle more with each step, which may help prevent falls but also forces the muscles to ...

A New Ice Age Species Was Hiding in La Brea Tar Pits Fossils for Decades

Aug. 16, 2026 Scientists have discovered a new extinct amphibian species hiding in the fossil collections of Los Angeles’ La Brea Tar Pits. Named Spea labreae, the Ice Age spadefoot toad is an exceptionally rare ...

The Atlantic Ocean Can Handle More Warming Than Expected — With One Big Catch

Aug. 14, 2026 Scientists have found that the AMOC may be far more vulnerable to rapid warming than to temperature alone. When warming happens slowly, the ocean can adapt, but at faster rates similar to today’s, ...

A 236-Million-Year-Old Fossil Could Rewrite the Story of Mammalian Birth

Aug. 13, 2026 Scientists may have uncovered evidence that a mammal ancestor was giving birth to live young 236 million years ago. A fossilized cynodont showed a neonatal growth line and an unusually large birth ...

A Surprising Brain Discovery Could Help Explain Why We Overeat Fatty Foods

Aug. 13, 2026 A protein inside appetite-controlling brain cells may play an important role in preventing overeating and obesity, particularly when high-fat foods are readily available. Unexpected differences ...

Tiny Graphene Wrinkles Create Surprisingly Powerful Electrical Effects

Aug. 16, 2026 Scientists have discovered that tiny, sharply curved wrinkles in graphene can dramatically alter its electrical behavior, creating surprisingly strong charge separation. The finding suggests future ...

Taking the Stairs Could Protect Your Heart and Help You Live Longer

Aug. 14, 2026 Simply choosing the stairs could have surprisingly big benefits for your heart and longevity. A large analysis involving more than 480,000 people found that regular stair climbers were 39% less ...

Women Taking Estrogen Had Fewer Signs of Alzheimer’s in Their Brains

Aug. 14, 2026 Women who used estrogen-only hormone therapy later in life were less likely to develop dementia and showed fewer signs of Alzheimer’s disease in their brains, according to a large study of more ...

JWST Spots a Bizarre “black Hole Star” 100 Billion Times Brighter Than a Star

Aug. 13, 2026 Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have discovered a bizarre object from just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang that looks like an enormous star but shines far too brightly ...

A Strange Crystal Made of Electrons Just Revealed Its Hidden Motion

Aug. 12, 2026 Physicists have found a new way to peer inside one of matter’s most elusive quantum states: the Wigner crystal, where electrons stop behaving like independent particles and organize into a ...

James Webb Captures a Cosmic Lion Sculpted by a Dying Star

Aug. 12, 2026 James Webb has captured a striking new infrared view of NGC 2392, the Lion Nebula, revealing the dramatic aftermath of a dying Sun-like star. At its center, a scorching white dwarf is blasting ...

A Surprising Triple Treatment Completely Clears Hiv in Newborn Primates

Aug. 13, 2026 Researchers have found a striking new way to potentially eliminate HIV soon after infection using a one-time combination of three therapies. In newborn nonhuman primates treated within three days of ...

The Adult Brain Can Repair Itself Better Than Scientists Thought

Aug. 12, 2026 The adult brain may be far better at repairing itself than scientists once believed. In mice, researchers discovered a special group of support cells called astrocytes that respond to damaged brain ...

Dogs Can Tell Fear from Sadness — and Scientists Saw It in Their Brains

Aug. 11, 2026 Dogs may understand our emotions more deeply than scientists realized. Brain scans show that happy human faces activate regions in dogs linked to higher-level processing and reward, suggesting that ...

King Harold May Have Lost England by Backing the Wrong Pope

Aug. 11, 2026 A forgotten fragment of a lost papal letter is offering a surprising new explanation for the Norman Conquest. England may have backed the wrong pope during a bitter religious power struggle, giving ...

Marine Heatwaves Are Harming Human Health in Surprising Ways

Aug. 11, 2026 Marine heatwaves are emerging as a threat not just to coral reefs and fisheries, but to human health and well-being. Researchers warn that unusually hot oceans can fuel stronger storms, trigger ...

For 15,000 Years, Humans and Dogs Have Been Changing Each Other

Aug. 10, 2026 Dogs have been shaping—and being shaped by—humans for about 15,000 years, evolving from early partners of hunter-gatherers into an astonishing range of specialized companions. Across the globe, ...

Scientists Discover a Hidden Switch Inside Silver Nanocatalysts

Aug. 10, 2026 Silver nanocatalysts have been found to switch where they perform their most important reactions depending on whether a solid oxide cell is making electricity or hydrogen. The discovery could enable ...

Low-Fat Vegan Diet Helps People Lose Weight Without Eating Less

Aug. 17, 2026 A low-fat vegan diet may help people lose weight without counting calories, shrinking portions, or feeling constantly hungry. In a 16-week clinical trial, people eating mostly fruits, vegetables, ...

New Fuel Cell Breakthrough Could Help Power Energy-Hungry Data Centers

Aug. 8, 2026 A new nanostructured carbon design lets fuel-cell catalysts use tiny amounts of platinum while remaining remarkably stable and efficient. The breakthrough could help hydrogen fuel cells become a more ...

Sunlight Creates Quantum Entanglement Once Thought to Require Lasers

Aug. 7, 2026 Scientists have generated quantum entanglement directly from sunlight, potentially offering a lower-energy alternative to the lasers normally used in quantum technology. Their outdoor experiment ...

A Drug Already Used for Osteoporosis Blocked Spinal Damage in a New Study

Aug. 6, 2026 Genetic changes may set off a chain reaction that causes the spine’s natural shock absorbers to harden and deteriorate. Zebrafish with a faulty collagen-related gene developed mineral buildup and ...