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August 12, 2026

Top Headlines

Ozempic May Have Revealed the Brain’s Hidden “Craving Center”

Aug. 12, 2026 Ozempic-like drugs appear to weaken more than hunger—they may also reduce cravings for alcohol and other addictive substances. Scientists are increasingly tracing this effect to the lateral septum, a brain region that helps connect memories and ...

Scientists Turn Starlink Into a Giant Scanner for Earth’s Upper Atmosphere

Aug. 12, 2026 Researchers have found a clever new way to map a part of Earth’s upper atmosphere that is notoriously difficult to observe. Using orbital data from roughly 1,200 Starlink satellites, they ...

Scientists Discover a Hidden Brain Rhythm That Could Improve Parkinson’s Treatment

Aug. 12, 2026 Scientists have pinpointed a brain network—and its distinctive electrical rhythm—that appears to drive the benefits of deep brain stimulation for Parkinson’s disease. The discovery could lead ...

3,500-year-old Skeletons Challenge What Scientists Thought They Knew About Syphilis

Aug. 12, 2026 Ancient remains from Vietnam suggest diseases like yaws may have been passed from mother to child thousands of years ago, a form of transmission often assumed to indicate syphilis. The discovery ...

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 tissue by rebuilding lost cellular networks. Rather ...

Scientists Turn Sheep’s Wool Into a Material That Helps Regrow Bone

Aug. 12, 2026 Keratin extracted from sheep’s wool helped damaged bone regenerate in animals, producing tissue that was more organized and structurally similar to healthy bone than tissue grown with conventional collagen scaffolds. The discovery could turn an ...

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 radiation into surrounding gas and dust, carving out the ...

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 crystal-like pattern. By shining light on an atomically ...

Scientists Find Evidence for Two Origins of Life on Earth

Aug. 12, 2026 Scientists probing life’s deepest origins have uncovered evidence that the first free-living cells may have emerged not once, but twice. The findings suggest a striking possibility: life may share one ancient genetic code, yet have undergone two ...

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 smiles carry special emotional significance for ...

MIT Neuroscientists Discover the Brain Can Reason Without Words

Aug. 11, 2026 MIT neuroscientists have found striking evidence that language and logical reasoning are powered by separate systems in the brain. Even people with severe language impairments caused by stroke were able to solve challenging logic puzzles as well as ...

“Cannot Be Explained” – New Super Steel Stuns Scientists

Aug. 11, 2026 Scientists have created an unusually corrosion-resistant stainless steel that could replace costly titanium components used to produce green hydrogen. The breakthrough could reduce structural material costs by roughly 40 times and make ...

Latest Headlines

updated 11:03am EDT

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 ...

Black Holes Older Than the Big Bang Could Explain Dark Matter

Aug. 11, 2026 Some black holes roaming the Universe today may actually be older than the Big Bang. A new cosmic “bounce” model suggests the Universe expanded from an earlier contracting phase, allowing ancient ...

150-Million-Year-Old Dinosaur Footprints Reveal Something Strange About Its Walk

Aug. 11, 2026 A spectacular 150-million-year-old trail of more than 130 footprints captures a giant sauropod making a complete loop before continuing on its way. ...

The Secret Hidden in These Ancient Manuscripts Isn’t Written in Ink

Aug. 10, 2026 Researchers can now recover DNA from centuries-old parchment without damaging the manuscripts, turning historic documents into unexpected genetic time capsules. The hidden clues could reveal ancient ...

Exercise May Help the Aging Brain “take out the Trash”

Aug. 10, 2026 Regular exercise may help the brain clear away harmful waste that can build up with age. Researchers found that physical activity supports several processes linked to the brain’s glymphatic cleanup ...

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 ...

240-Million-Year-Old Reptile Fossil Reveals a Lost Chapter Before Dinosaurs and Crocodiles

Aug. 10, 2026 A 240-million-year-old reptile discovered in Brazil is revealing what evolution looked like just before the rise of dinosaurs and crocodiles. The ...

Potatoes May Have Given Indigenous Andeans a Digestive Superpower

Aug. 10, 2026 The rise of the potato in the Andes appears to have left a lasting mark on human DNA. Indigenous Peruvians carry exceptionally high numbers of a starch-digestion gene, likely because people with more ...

The Sun Will Vanish Over Europe in a Rare Total Solar Eclipse: Watch Live

Aug. 10, 2026 A total solar eclipse will plunge parts of Europe into darkness on August 12, 2026, with Spain offering some of the best views. ESA will livestream the spectacle from the Javalambre Observatory, ...

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, ...

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 ...

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 ...

The Dodo Bird Had a Secret Sensory World Scientists Are Only Now Discovering

Aug. 8, 2026 CT scans of the world’s rarest dodo skulls suggest the extinct bird may have had a stronger sense of smell, a highly sensitive beak, and a lifestyle that extended into dawn and dusk. The ...

The Sun Is Covered in Tiny Whirlpools We’ve Never Seen Before

Aug. 8, 2026 Scientists have discovered incredibly tiny plasma whirlpools swirling across the Sun’s surface, some just 20 kilometers wide. These previously invisible vortices may twist magnetic fields and help ...

Dinosaurs Became Giants — So Why Did They Never Become Tiny?

Aug. 9, 2026 Dinosaurs conquered the land at enormous sizes, but strangely, they almost never evolved into truly tiny animals. New research suggests that physiology alone can’t explain this missing miniature ...

Dirty Air May Trigger Painful Rheumatoid Arthritis Flares

Aug. 5, 2026 Tiny pollution particles from smoke, soot, and dust may worsen rheumatoid arthritis and raise the risk of painful flares, particularly after prolonged exposure. The findings suggest that avoiding ...

THC Medication Made PTSD Nightmares Disappear for More Than a Third of Patients

Aug. 5, 2026 A prescription form of THC helped many people with PTSD escape recurring trauma-related nightmares, with more than one-third reporting that the nightmares disappeared completely after ten weeks. The ...

NASA’s Moon Base Is Taking Shape With 20+ Lunar Landings Planned

Aug. 11, 2026 NASA is assembling the foundations of a future Moon Base through a wave of robotic missions and powerful new commercial landers. More than 20 landings are planned through 2029, testing everything ...

Voyager 2 Was Running out of Power. NASA Just Bought It More Time

Aug. 10, 2026 NASA engineers have found a clever way to squeeze more life out of Voyager 2, nearly half a century after it left Earth. In an operation nicknamed the “Big Bang,” the team simultaneously shut ...

A 0.42-Nanometer Breakthrough Could Push Transistors Beyond Silicon

Aug. 9, 2026 Atomically thin semiconductors could enable dramatically smaller and more efficient chips, but a stubborn problem at the boundary between materials has limited their performance. Researchers have now ...

The AMOC Stayed Strong Even as a Major Ocean “lifeline” Nearly Shut Down

Aug. 6, 2026 Ancient seafloor sediments have revealed a surprising twist in how the Atlantic’s massive circulation system works. During a cold period about 3.4 million years ago, the flow of warm, salty water ...

Sitting Up Straight May Improve Your Mood and Decision-Making

Aug. 5, 2026 A simple change in posture may subtly affect how people feel and make decisions. Participants who sat upright reported greater feelings of pride and took more successful risks in a virtual balloon ...

Scientists Discover the Brain Cells That Keep You Motivated

Aug. 5, 2026 A group of brain cells called orexin neurons appears to help us keep working when reaching a reward becomes increasingly difficult. Blocking their activity weakened motivation in rats, pointing to a ...

80-Million-Year-Old Snake Brain Reveals a Surprising Evolutionary Secret

Aug. 5, 2026 An exceptionally preserved snake fossil from Brazil reveals that early snakes were far more diverse than scientists once thought. Detailed brain reconstructions show that Tametara mirim was adapted ...

Forget the Sperm Race: Fertilization May Depend on Teamwork

Aug. 6, 2026 Millions of sperm do not always compete alone—some species send them into action as coordinated teams. A sweeping evolutionary study found that this cooperation is widespread among arthropods and ...

Europe’s Wildfires Became So Intense They Created Their Own Storm

Aug. 5, 2026 Historic wildfires scorched huge areas of Spain and France, with one Spanish blaze burning an area about the size of New York City and a French fire generating a rare, towering fire cloud. A ...

A Solar Eclipse and the Perseid Meteor Shower Arrive on the Same Day

Aug. 5, 2026 August brings four major celestial events, including a solar eclipse and the peak of the Perseid meteor shower. Dark New Moon skies could make the Perseids especially impressive, while Venus will ...

Ancient Arctic Carbon Is Pouring Into the Sea, but the Seabed Captures Most of It

Aug. 3, 2026 Thawing Arctic permafrost is releasing ancient carbon into the ocean, raising fears that microbes could turn it into greenhouse gases and accelerate climate change. But sediment cores collected near ...