Top Science News

Apr. 28, 2025 — A brisk walk, a splash of water aerobics, or even a light jog around the block -- if your heart rate goes up then so too will your brain health according to new ...

Apr. 30, 2025 — Breast cancer deaths among women ages 20-49 declined significantly between 2010 and 2020, according to a new ...

Apr. 28, 2025 — Researchers have uncovered multiple new genes and genetic pathways that could lead to repurposing hundreds of existing drugs for osteoarthritis, the most common form of ...

Apr. 30, 2025 — Researchers demonstrated extremely strong nonlinear light-matter coupling in a quantum circuit. Stronger coupling enables faster quantum readout and operations, ultimately improving the accuracy of quantum ...

Apr. 28, 2025 — Crystals -- from sugar and table salt to snowflakes and diamonds -- don't always grow in a straightforward way. Researchers have now captured this journey from amorphous blob to orderly structures. In exploring how crystals form, the researchers also came across an unusual, rod-shaped crystal that hadn't been identified before, naming it 'Zangenite' for the graduate student who discovered ...

Apr. 28, 2025 — The NASA New Horizons spacecraft's extensive observations of Lyman-alpha emissions have resulted in the first-ever map from the galaxy at this important ultraviolet wavelength, providing a new look at the galactic region surrounding our solar ...

Apr. 28, 2025 — Astrophysicists have discovered a potentially star-forming cloud that is one of the largest single structures in the sky and among the closest to the sun and Earth ever to be detected. The scientists have named the molecular hydrogen cloud 'Eos,' after the Greek goddess of mythology who is the personification of ...

Apr. 30, 2025 — In what could represent a milestone in ecological restoration, researchers have implemented a method capable of restoring peatlands at tens of thousands of oil and gas exploration sites in Western Canada. The project involves lowering the surface of these decommissioned sites, known as well pads, and transplanting native moss onto them to effectively recreate peatlands. This is the first time ...

Apr. 30, 2025 — An international team of scientists has moved beyond just 'scratching the surface,' to understand how microplastics move through and impact the global ocean. For the first time, scientists have mapped microplastic distribution from the surface to the deep sea at a global scale -- revealing not only where plastics accumulate, but how they ...

Apr. 30, 2025 — In 2013, a sea star wasting syndrome decimated populations of Pisaster along the west coast of North America and along the Monterey Peninsula in California, where this study was conducted. The orange and purple stars have a hungry appetite for mussels in the rocky intertidal. Without the voracious sea stars lurking around, mussel populations ...

Apr. 29, 2025 — Researchers have shown they can inexpensively nanomanufacture silk microneedles to precisely fortify crops, monitor plant health, and detect soil ...

Apr. 28, 2025 — The influenza virus manipulates the body's gene regulation system to accelerate its own spread. A new study also shows that an already approved drug could help strengthen immune defenses -- though its effect in humans remains to be ...

Apr. 28, 2025 — Falling off a horse at high-speed changes the impact to the rider's head and the parameters for a quality helmet, according to new research. The findings indicate that head impacts during falls at high speed generate unique head rotation, which in turn, directly affects helmet ...

Apr. 28, 2025 — Conflicting findings in environmental epidemiology have long stalled consensus on the health effects of toxic chemicals. A new study suggests that one major reason for these inconsistencies may be the limited exposure ranges in individual studies -- leading to underpowered results and unclear ...

Apr. 28, 2025 — New research sheds light on an understudied area of science: iron levels in the blood and their relationship to cognitive performance in women transitioning into menopause. The findings are good news for women experiencing brain fog and other ...

Apr. 28, 2025 — BU researchers develop a brain-inspired algorithm that can help people with hearing loss pick out conversations in noisy, crowded ...

Apr. 28, 2025 — Prions transmit their abnormally folded shape onto other proteins. Researchers designed a synthetic fragment of the tau protein that exhibits prion-like behavior. Misfolded tau proteins are the hallmark of many neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer's disease and frontotemporal dementia. Study revealed crucial role of water organization in the tau misfolding ...

Apr. 30, 2025 — Researchers explored how manual and keyboard practice influenced children's abilities in their reading and writing learning process. 5-year-olds were taught an artificial alphabet using different techniques, and the conclusion was that children who are trained with pencil and paper assimilate new letters and words ...

Apr. 30, 2025 — Every second counts when it comes to detecting and treating heart attacks. A new technology may be able to identify heart attacks faster and more accurately than traditional ...

Apr. 30, 2025 — Aiming to address age-related cognitive decline, a growing global health challenge, a team of researchers has developed a VR-based smell-training system to help combat it. This innovative VR game activates memory pathways by incorporating olfactory stimulation in a virtual environment. This game-based method offers an engaging platform for maintaining cognitive function and reducing the risk of ...

Apr. 29, 2025 — Social singing and dance are often assumed to be hard-wired into the human condition; studies have supported the conclusion that these are common across cultures. But new research from an anthropologist challenges the idea that dance and lullabies are universal among humans. The study draws on 43 years of research with an Indigenous population in ...

Apr. 28, 2025 — Scientists have uncovered why vaccines can elicit a stronger immune response if they are administered in the same ...

Apr. 29, 2025 — For the first time, researchers can study the microstructures inside metals, ceramics and rocks with X-rays in a standard laboratory without needing to travel to a particle accelerator, according to ...

Apr. 28, 2025 — Researchers have created a light-powered soft robot that can carry loads through the air along established tracks, similar to cable cars or aerial trams. The soft robot operates autonomously, can climb slopes at angles of up to 80 degrees, and can carry loads up to 12 times its ...

Apr. 28, 2025 — With more than 181.5 billion tons of wood produced globally each year, a new method could revolutionize how we build sustainably. By infusing red oak with ferrihydrite using a simple, low-cost process, researchers strengthened the wood at the cellular level without adding weight or altering flexibility -- offering a durable, eco-friendly alternative to steel and concrete. The treated wood retains ...

Apr. 28, 2025 — For decades, scientists believed Vesta, one of the largest objects in our solar system's asteroid belt, wasn't just an asteroid and eventually concluded it was more like a planet with a crust, mantle and core. Now, new research flips this notion on its head. Astronomers reveals Vesta doesn't have a core. These findings startled researchers who, until that point, assumed Vesta was a protoplanet ...

Apr. 28, 2025 — New research has revealed that a massive meteorite struck northwestern Scotland about 200 million years later than previously thought, in a discovery that not only rewrites Scotland's geological history but alters our understanding of the evolution of non-marine life on ...

Apr. 18, 2025 — Researchers use the sophisticated technology on NASA's Perseverance rover to analyze volcanic rocks in Mars' Jezero Crater. Their findings show that some of the same volcanic processes that led to life on Earth happened long ago on Mars, a stunning step toward finding signs of ancient life on the Red ...

Apr. 24, 2025 — The world's largest solar telescope has reached an important milestone. The data published now were obtained during the technical commissioning of the ...

Apr. 28, 2025 — New research demonstrates how mathematical modeling can predict outbreaks of toxic fungi in Texas corn crops -- offering a potential lifeline to farmers facing billions in harvest ...

Apr. 23, 2025 — Addressing the challenges of fragrance design, researchers have developed an AI model that can automate the creation of new fragrances based on user-defined scent descriptors. The model uses mass spectrometry profiles of essential oils and corresponding odor descriptors to generate essential oil blends for new scents. This breakthrough is a game-changer for the fragrance industry, moving beyond ...

Apr. 25, 2025 — An interdisciplinary research team has unveiled the world's first artificial intelligence (AI) model designed to classify both the cancer stage and risk category of thyroid cancer, achieving impressive accuracy exceeding 90%. This innovative AI model promises to significantly cut frontline clinicians' pre-consultation preparation time by ...

Apr. 25, 2025 — As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to advance, researchers have identified a breakthrough that could make AI technologies faster and more ...

Apr. 24, 2025 — Like farmland in Australia, native forests struggle with drought and flooding, so future management decisions need more sophisticated systems to monitor and manage their water needs. A new study aims to provide a good estimate of water used by trees and plants and bushes under the treetops (or the forest understorey) to help improve management of native ...

Apr. 17, 2025 — Researchers have discovered that honey bees from the same colony have different preferences in terms of defensive behavior. While some are still hesitating, others are already ...

Apr. 29, 2025 — Imagine a crocodile built like a greyhound -- that's a sebecid. Standing tall, with some species reaching 20 feet in length, they dominated South American landscapes after the extinction of dinosaurs until about 11 million years ago. Or at least, that's what paleontologists thought. A new study shows the Caribbean Islands were a refuge for the last sebecid populations at least 5 million years ...

Apr. 28, 2025 — Flash floods resulting from extreme rainfall pose a major risk to people and infrastructure, especially in urban areas. Higher temperatures due to global climate change affect continuous rainfall and short rain showers in somewhat equal measure. However, if both types of precipitation occur at the same time, as is typical for thunderstorm cloud ...

Apr. 28, 2025 — Even under today's climatic conditions, the long-extinct straight-tusked elephant could still live in Europe. This is the conclusion of a recent study. For this finding, the research group combined fossil finds with reconstructions of past ...

Apr. 28, 2025 — Scientists have collaborated to analyze the inner workings of Bolivia's 'zombie' volcano, Uturuncu. By combining seismology, physics models and analysis of rock composition, researchers identify the causes of Uturuncu's unrest, alleviating fears of an imminent ...

Apr. 28, 2025 — On Jan. 1, 2024, a 7.5-magnitude earthquake struck the Noto Peninsula in Japan, resulting in extensive damage in the region caused by uplift, when the land rises due to shifting tectonic plates. The observed uplift, however, varied significantly, with some areas experiencing as much as a 5-meter rise of the ground surface. To better understand how the characteristics of the affected fault lines ...

Apr. 23, 2025 — A new study found that some rattlesnakes are producing simpler venoms containing fewer and more focused toxin families than complex venoms -- a surprising discovery that challenges long-held ideas about how living alongside a variety of other species influences evolution in a world increasingly shaped by human ...

Apr. 23, 2025 — Ancient DNA analysis challenges our understanding of the ancient Phoenician-Punic civilization. An international team of researchers analyzing genome-wide data from 210 ancient individuals has found that Levantine Phoenician towns contributed little genetically to Punic populations in the central and western Mediterranean despite their deep cultural, economic, and linguistic ...

Apr. 21, 2025 — An international collaboration has published groundbreaking research, shedding light on the most significant increase in complexity in the history of life's evolution on Earth: the origin of the eukaryotic ...

Apr. 21, 2025 — What roils beneath the Earth's surface may feel a world away, but the activity can help forge land masses that dictate ocean circulation, climate patterns, and even animal activity and evolution. In fact, scientists believe that a plume of hot rocks that burst from the Earth's mantle millions of years ago could be an important part in the story of ...

Apr. 28, 2025 — Why do some people do more for the community than others? A new study now shows that personality traits such as extraversion and agreeableness correlate with volunteering and charitable ...

Apr. 23, 2025 — Study finds a 18.5% reduction in sick leave following LEZ implementation in Greater London compared to areas in England without low emission ...

Apr. 22, 2025 — In face-to-face conversations, speakers use hand movements to signal meaning. But do listeners actually use these gestures to predict what someone might say next? In a study using virtual avatars, scientists show that listeners used the avatar's gestures to predict upcoming speech. Both behavioral and EEG data indicated that hand gestures facilitate language processing, illustrating the ...

Apr. 22, 2025 — Researchers found that a brief episode of anxiety may have a bigger influence on a person's ability to learn what is safe and what is not. A new study used a virtual reality game that involved picking flowers with bees in some of the blossoms that would 'sting' the participant, simulated by a mild electrical stimulation on the hand. Researchers discovered that temporary feelings of anxiety had ...

Apr. 25, 2025 — A recent global survey of 156 institutions reveals strong interest in VR-haptic technology for dental training, yet significant barriers impede widespread ...

Apr. 24, 2025 — Mind blanking is a common experience with a wide variety of definitions ranging from feeling 'drowsy' to 'a complete absence of conscious awareness.' Neuroscientists and philosophers compile what we know about mind blanking, including insights from their own work observing people's brain ...

Apr. 23, 2025 — A new study by developmental scientists offers the first evidence that infants as young as 15 months can identify an object they have learned about from listening to language -- even if the object remains ...

Apr. 11, 2025 — The UK government needs to go beyond offering subsidies for low-carbon technologies (LCTs) like electric cars and solar panels for energy and heating, if it is to meet its net-zero targets by 2050, a report ...

Apr. 10, 2025 — DECOTA transforms open-ended survey responses into clear themes -- helping policymakers make better use of underutilised public ...

Apr. 14, 2025 — Researchers have developed a new forecasting model that helps companies more accurately estimate how many customers are interested in a product -- even when key data is missing. The study introduces a mathematical modeling method that enables businesses to estimate customer interest beyond just completed transactions and traditional forecasting techniques. The approach offers a more precise way ...

Apr. 9, 2025 — In a new article, researchers explored whether a worker can create a psychological contract with a non-human agent in the form of an algorithm that mediates their relationship with an ...