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August 21, 2026

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This Weight-loss Hormone May Protect the Liver Even Without Weight Loss

Aug. 21, 2026 A hormone already known for curbing appetite and supporting weight loss may have a surprising second job: protecting the liver from inflammation and scarring. Researchers at McMaster University found that GDF15 activates a previously unknown ...

2,200-year-old Roman Shipwreck Reveals Ancient Waterproofing Secrets

Aug. 21, 2026 Scientists analyzing a 2,200-year-old Roman shipwreck found that its hull was coated with pine tar and, in one area, a mixture of tar and beeswax. Pollen trapped in those ancient coatings acted like a geographic fingerprint, revealing the landscapes ...

A Strange New Quantum Droplet Can Hold Itself Together

Aug. 21, 2026 Two very different types of quantum particles may be able to form stable droplets that hold themselves together, challenging decades of conventional thinking. The prediction could soon be tested experimentally and may reveal an unexpectedly rich ...

Hidden Magnetism Inside Atoms May Explain Mysterious Gamma Rays

Aug. 21, 2026 For decades, scientists have puzzled over why certain atomic nuclei unexpectedly produce large numbers of low-energy gamma rays. A new experiment traced the effect to magnetic changes inside the nucleus, where protons and neutrons effectively flip ...

A Lost Mega-cliff May Explain the Grand Canyon’s Missing Billion Years

Aug. 20, 2026 A colossal cliff system created as the supercontinent Rodinia broke apart may have exposed the heart of the Grand Canyon nearly a billion years before the Colorado River carved it. The ancient landscape could also help explain why enormous sections ...

“One-in-a-million” Sea Creature Fossil Preserves Soft Tissue for 450 Million Years

Aug. 20, 2026 Scientists have identified exceptionally rare soft tissue preserved in a 450-million-year-old crinoid fossil, more than 200 million years older than the first dinosaurs. Its delicate tube feet offer ...

Ozempic Does Something Unexpected to the Brain’s Hunger Neurons

Aug. 20, 2026 Ozempic may work in the brain in almost the opposite way scientists expected, activating hunger-linked neurons that appear essential for sustaining fat loss. The surprising discovery in mice could reveal new targets for developing even more ...

Schizophrenia’s Lost Brain Connections Follow a Surprising Pattern

Aug. 20, 2026 Specialized brain scans reveal that schizophrenia is linked to widespread loss of the synapses that connect brain cells, with the left side of the brain hit especially hard. The damage follows a surprisingly organized pattern tied to the brain’s ...

Scientists Say the Human Family Tree May Need a Major Rewrite

Aug. 20, 2026 The human family tree may be due for a major rewrite. Researchers argue that Australopithecus and Paranthropus should be folded into the genus Homo because new fossils have blurred many of the traits once used to separate them. The proposed shake-up ...

Scientists Crushed Diamond Beyond Neptune-like Pressures—and Solved a 20-year Mystery

Aug. 20, 2026 Extreme experiments have revealed how diamond behaves at crushing pressures beyond those inside Neptune and Uranus, resolving a decades-old conflict between theory and observation. The results could ...

A SpaceX Rocket Smashed Into the Moon — NASA Just Revealed the Crater

Aug. 20, 2026 A discarded SpaceX Falcon 9 stage crashed into the Moon on Aug. 5, leaving behind a newly formed crater about 60 feet wide. NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter captured detailed images showing bright and dark streaks of debris blasted across the ...

This Total Solar Eclipse Looked Strangely Golden — Here’s Why

Aug. 20, 2026 Spain’s total solar eclipse delivered an unexpected sight: a corona glowing gold instead of its usual pearly white. Because the Sun was setting, its light passed through more atmosphere, while smoke from nearby wildfires filtered out even more ...

Latest Headlines

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MIT Physicists Discover Electrons Rebuilding Like Ice Inside a Quantum Material

Aug. 19, 2026 MIT physicists found that two electronic phases inside the same quantum material emerge through surprisingly different mechanisms—one smoothly and ...

Researchers Reveal Deeper Workings of Brain’s Information Hub

Aug. 19, 2026 The brain has a remarkably flexible system for handling uncertainty and changing situations. Researchers found that the frontoparietal cortex constantly shifts how it communicates with other brain ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

AI May Know How You’ll Respond to a Vaccine Before You Get It

Aug. 21, 2026 AI may be able to predict how strongly someone will respond to a vaccine before they receive it. By analyzing antibody patterns in more than 4,000 people, researchers found signs of “immune ...

A Simple at-Home Test Could Cut Colorectal Cancer Death Risk by 43%

Aug. 21, 2026 People who participated in colorectal cancer screening had a 43% lower risk of dying from the disease, according to long-term data from more than 376,000 people in Sweden. The findings suggest that ...

Knee Osteoarthritis Isn’t Inevitable — Here’s What You Can Do

Aug. 20, 2026 Knee osteoarthritis can seriously affect mobility and quality of life, but its progression isn’t completely out of your control. Exercise, stronger leg muscles, a healthier diet, and even modest ...

A Mother’s Age Can Shape Her Offspring Without Changing Their DNA

Aug. 19, 2026 Scientists have found evidence that the effects of a mother’s age on her offspring may be driven by reversible changes in gene activity rather than permanent DNA damage. The discovery raises the ...

3 Minutes of Sprinting Does Something 90 Minutes of Exercise Does Not

Aug. 21, 2026 A few minutes of sprinting may reshape the bloodstream far more dramatically than a much longer moderate workout. Six 30-second sprints altered nearly a quarter of the blood proteins measured and ...

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 suggest baryon number is carried not simply by ...

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 discovered that dozens of animal species possess ...

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 ...

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 common assumptions about screen use. Researchers ...

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 ...