Top Science News
May 5, 2025
May 1, 2025 — Animal research on biomusicality, which looks at whether different species are capable of behaving in ways that show they recognize aspects of music, including rhythm and beat, remains a tantalizing ...
May 1, 2025 — A new study links fossilized flying reptile tracks to animals that made them. Fossilized footprints reveal a 160-million-year-old invasion as pterosaurs came down from the trees and onto the ground. ...
Apr. 30, 2025 — An experiment seven years in the making has uncovered new insights into the nature of consciousness and challenges two prominent, competing scientific theories: Integrated Information Theory (IIT) and Global Neuronal Workspace Theory (GNWT). The ...
Apr. 30, 2025 — A new study traces a 120-million-year-old 'super-eruption' to its source, offering new insights into Earth's complex geological ...
Latest Top Headlines
updated 8:46pm EDT
May 5, 2025 — Physically punishing children in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) has exclusively negative outcomes -- including poor health, lower academic performance, and impaired social-emotional development -- yielding similar results to studies in wealthier nations, finds a new ...
May 5, 2025 — Researchers participating in the Cilento Initiative on Aging Outcomes or CIAO study will gather in Acciaroli (Pollica-Cilento) Salerno, Italy to review a decade of work and plan their next steps. Launched in 2016, the CIAO study seeks to identify key factors (biological, psychological and social) that promote healthy aging and extreme ...
May 5, 2025 — Friendship comes with complex pros and cons -- possibly explaining why some individuals are less sociable, according to a new study of ...
May 5, 2025 — Snuff tubes uncovered at Chavin de Huantar in Peru reveal how leaders used mystical experiences to cement their ...
May 5, 2025 — Researchers have developed a new quantum theory of gravity which describes gravity in a way that's compatible with the Standard Model of particle physics, opening the door to an improved understanding of how the universe ...
May 5, 2025 — In 1959, physicists James Terrell and Roger Penrose (Nobel laureate in 2020) independently concluded that fast-moving objects should appear rotated. However, this effect has never been demonstrated. Now, scientists have succeeded for the first time in reproducing the effect using laser pulses and precision cameras -- at an effective speed of light of 2 meters per ...
May 2, 2025 — Researchers have created a hairlike device for long-term, non-invasive monitoring of the brain's electrical activity. The lightweight and flexible electrode attaches directly to the scalp and delivers stable, high-quality electroencephalography (EEG) ...
Apr. 30, 2025 — Scientists have produced one of the most neutron-rich isotopes, hydrogen-6, in an electron scattering experiment. The experiment presents a new method for investigating light, neutron-rich nuclei and challenges our current understanding of multi-nucleon ...
May 5, 2025 — Higher intakes of black tea, berries, citrus fruits and apples could help to promote healthy aging, new research has ...
May 5, 2025 — Atmospheric and climate scientists show that biological particles may induce rain events that could contribute to flooding and snowstorms, owing to their ability to precipitate ice formation in clouds. They call for an update of meteorological and climate ...
May 5, 2025 — Could the artificial introduction of oxygen revitalise dying coastal waters? While oxygenation approaches have already been proven successful in lakes, their potential side effects must be carefully analysed before they can be used in the sea. This is the conclusion of researchers from GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel and Radboud University in the Netherlands. In an article in the ...
May 5, 2025 — The saola, an antelope-like bovine, is one of the world's rarest and most endangered mammals. In fact, it hasn't been observed in over 10 years. Researchers have now mapped the saola's complete genome, and they have used that knowledge to estimate the chances of saving it -- if it still ...
Health News
May 5, 2025
Apr. 29, 2025 — Daily exposure to certain chemicals used to make plastic household items could be linked to more than 356,000 global deaths from heart disease in 2018 alone, a new analysis of population surveys shows. While the chemicals, called phthalates, are in ...
Apr. 28, 2025 — A study analyzing data from nationally representative dietary surveys and mortality data from eight countries (Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, United Kingdom, and United States) ...
Apr. 25, 2025 — It's no secret that our waistlines often expand in middle-age, but the problem isn't strictly cosmetic. Belly fat accelerates aging and slows down metabolism, increasing our risk for developing diabetes, heart problems and other chronic diseases. ...
Apr. 23, 2025 — A team of researchers has used advanced DNA sequencing to develop the most comprehensive atlas yet of genetic change through generations, laying the foundations for new insights into the roots of human disease and ...
Latest Health Headlines
updated 8:46pm EDT
May 5, 2025 — Urban rats spread a deadly bacteria as they migrate within cities that can be the source of a potentially life-threatening disease in humans, according to a six-year study that also discovered a novel technique for testing rat ...
May 5, 2025 — The mitochondrion, often referred to as the powerhouse of the cell, plays critical roles in cellular function, making it a prime organelle to target for fundamental studies, metabolic engineering, and disease therapies. With only a limited number of existing mitochondrial targeting sequences, a new study demonstrates the utility of generative artificial intelligence for designing new ...
May 5, 2025 — A new study suggests that artificial intelligence (AI) could help detect interval breast cancers before they become more advanced and harder to ...
May 5, 2025 — The fact that left-handedness resp. mixed-handedness are strikingly common in patients with certain neurological disorders such as autism spectrum disorders is a frequently reported observation in medical practice. The reason why handedness is associated with these disorders is probably because both are affected by processes in early brain development. Various studies have explored this link for ...
May 5, 2025 — One of the first studies in this area to use clinical-level diagnoses reveals a range of differences between young people with and without mental health conditions when it comes to social media -- from changes in mood to time spent on ...
Apr. 28, 2025 — A new study shows how a dopamine circuit between two brain regions enables mice to extinguish fear after a peril has ...
Apr. 28, 2025 — New research shows non-invasive sound wave therapy can directly target deep brain regions, significantly reducing depression, anxiety, and PTSD ...
Apr. 28, 2025 — Scientists have developed a problem-solving architecture modeled on neurobiology that leverages quantum mechanical behavior to guarantee optimal solutions to complex ...
May 5, 2025 — For the cautious -- or simply curious -- homeowner, an at-home water testing kit may seem reassuring. But there are high levels of variability between test kits' abilities to detect potential contaminants in water, a new study has ...
May 1, 2025 — Imagine trying to tell identical twins apart just by looking at their fingerprints. That's how challenging it can be for scientists to distinguish the tiny powdery pollen grains produced by fir, spruce and pine trees. But a new artificial intelligence system is making that task a lot easier -- and potentially bringing big relief to allergy ...
May 1, 2025 — A next-generation technology developed in 2023, conversational swarm intelligence (CSI), combines the principles of ASI with the power of large language ...
May 1, 2025 — A new study shows how damaging it can be for college students in introductory STEM classes to compare how hard they work to the extent of effort put in by their ...
Physical/Tech News
May 5, 2025
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,' ...
Apr. 28, 2025 — A technique to cool the planet, in which particles are added to the atmosphere to reflect sunlight, would not require developing special aircraft but could be achieved using existing large planes, according to a new modelling ...
Apr. 25, 2025 — Astronomers have discovered that super-Earth exoplanets are more common across the universe than previously thought. While it can be relatively easy to locate worlds that orbit close to their star, planets with wider paths can be difficult to ...
Apr. 23, 2025 — Inspired by the movements of a tiny parasitic worm, engineers have created a 5-inch soft robot that can jump as high as a basketball hoop. Their device, a silicone rod with a carbon-fiber spine, can leap 10 feet high even though it doesn't have ...
Latest Physical/Tech Headlines
updated 8:46pm EDT
May 5, 2025 — Researchers developed a framework to enable decentralized artificial intelligence-based building automation with a focus on privacy. The system enables AI-powered devices like cameras and interfaces to cooperate directly, using a new form of device-to-device communication. In doing so, it eliminates the need for central servers and thus the need for centralized data retention, often seen as a ...
May 5, 2025 — An international team has succeeded at BESSY II to elucidate how ultrafast spin-polarized current pulses can be characterized by measuring the ultrafast demagnetization in a magnetic layer system within the first hundreds of femtoseconds. The findings are useful for the development of spintronic devices that enable faster and more energy-efficient information processing and ...
Apr. 28, 2025 — Researchers have developed a new machine learning algorithm that excels at interpreting optical spectra, potentially enabling faster and more precise medical diagnoses and sample ...
May 2, 2025 — Lithium-ion batteries have been a staple in device manufacturing for years, but the liquid electrolytes they rely on to function are quite unstable, leading to fire hazards and safety concerns. Now, researchers are pursuing a reliable alternative energy storage solution for use in laptops, phones and electric vehicles: solid-state electrolytes ...
May 2, 2025 — Space junk and meteoroids are falling to Earth every year, posing a growing risk as they re-enter the atmosphere at high speeds. Researchers are using infrasound sensors to track these objects, including bolides, which are meteoroids breaking apart in the sky. New research shows that infrasound signals can help track these objects, but the trajectory needs to be considered, especially for objects ...
May 1, 2025 — The European Space Agency's Gaia mission has spotted an unusual family of stars all strangely eager to leave home -- a family we couldn't have discovered without the star-surveying spacecraft, and one unlike all others we have spotted to ...
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 — 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 ...
May 1, 2025 — Researchers made a technique that improves the trustworthiness of machine-learning models, which could help improve the accuracy and reliability of AI predictions for high-stakes settings such health ...
May 1, 2025 — A research team has developed a new technique to rapidly and accurately determine the charge state of electrons confined in semiconductor quantum dots -- fundamental components of quantum computing systems. The method is based on Bayesian inference, a statistical framework that estimates the most likely state of a system using observed ...
May 1, 2025 — Estimating the pose of hand-held objects is a critical and challenging problem in robotics and computer vision. While leveraging multi-modal RGB and depth data is a promising solution, existing approaches still face challenges due to hand-induced occlusions and multimodal data fusion. In a new study, researchers developed a novel deep learning ...
Apr. 30, 2025 — Recent disease modeling research challenges public health guidelines recommending conservative antibiotic use for cholera, suggesting that for some outbreaks, prescribing antibiotics more aggressively could slow or stop the spread of the disease and even reduce the likelihood of antibiotic ...
Environment News
May 5, 2025
Apr. 24, 2025 — Female bonobos team up to suppress male aggression against them -- the first evidence of animals deploying this strategy. In 85% of observed coalitions, females collectively targeted males, forcing ...
Apr. 24, 2025 — A 113-million-year-old hell ant that once lived in northeastern Brazil is now the oldest ant specimen known to science, finds a new report. The hell ant, which was preserved in limestone, is a member of Haidomyrmecinae -- an extinct subfamily that ...
Apr. 23, 2025 — Bite marks found on a skeleton discovered in a Roman cemetery in York have revealed the first archaeological evidence of gladiatorial combat between a human and a ...
Apr. 23, 2025 — Scientists believe that the motion of Earth's continents through plate tectonics has been largely steady over millions of years. New research, however, suggests this drift can speed up or slow down ...
Latest Environment Headlines
updated 8:46pm EDT
May 5, 2025 — A study has demonstrated that pesticides can negatively affect non-target species living in agricultural environment. However, the effects varied greatly depending on the substance ...
May 5, 2025 — At a conference in Washington D.C. in 2000, the secretoglobin super family of proteins was named to classify proteins with structural similarities to its founding member uteroglobin. Now, 25 years later, there is still little known about the basic functions of these proteins, prompting a group of researchers to dive into their evolutionary origins. This bioinformatic survey reported that ...
May 5, 2025 — Some red algae exhibit structural color that gives their growth tips a blue hue and the rest of their bodies including their fruiting structures a white hue. Moreover, since the color-producing structures are located together with anti-herbivory chemicals, the discovery further suggests that red algae use colors for inter-species ...
May 5, 2025 — Deleting a cluster of genes in wheat may reduce wheat allergies without harming breadmaking, finds anew ...
May 5, 2025 — Endemic to China's Yangtze River, the Yangtze finless porpoise is known for its intelligence and charismatic appearance; it looks like it has a perpetual smile on its face. To track how this critically endangered porpoise's habitat range has changed over time, a team of biodiversity and conservation experts compiled 724 ancient Chinese poems ...
Apr. 28, 2025 — New research has revealed that expected, extreme changes in India's summer monsoon could drastically hamper the Bay of Bengal's ability to support a crucial element of the region's food supply: marine life. The scientists examined how the monsoon, which brings heavy rains to the Indian subcontinent, has influenced the Bay of Bengal's marine ...
Apr. 28, 2025 — The arrival of new plant pests and diseases is likely to severely damage UK trees and woodlands in the coming decades, new research ...
Apr. 28, 2025 — Researchers have identified crucial structural variations that determine seed size and weight in peanuts, paving the way for the development of higher-yielding crop ...
Apr. 28, 2025 — New research questions the evolutionary history of some of our most peculiar ...
May 2, 2025 — The highest trophic niches in Mesozoic oceans were filled by diverse marine reptiles, including ichthyosaurians, plesiosaurians, and thalattosuchians, dominating food webs during the Jurassic and Early Cretaceous. Yet during the mid-Cretaceous, ichthyosaurs, thalattosuchians, and pliosaurids vanished, replaced by mosasaurs, xenopsarian plesiosaurians, and new groups like sharks, fish, turtles, ...
May 1, 2025 — Why do some ancient animals become fossils while others disappear without a trace? A new study reveals that part of the answer lies in the body itself. The research shows that an animal's size and chemical makeup can play an important role in determining whether it's preserved for millions of years -- or lost to ...
Apr. 30, 2025 — The very first cells obtained their energy from geochemical reactions. Researchers have now managed to recreate this ancient metabolic process in their ...
Society/Education News
May 5, 2025
Apr. 8, 2025 — The intermittent fasting diet, which involves periods of severe calorie restriction, may be on the way out, as research is suggesting that rather than drastically reducing calories, people can achieve similar metabolic benefits by cutting back on ...
Apr. 8, 2025 — Just steps from the center of Tikal, a 2,400-year-old Maya city in the heart of modern-day Guatemala, a global team of researchers has unearthed a buried altar that could unlock the secrets of a ...
Apr. 7, 2025 — A web platform uses a chatbot to enable any chemist -- including undergraduate chemistry majors -- to configure and execute complex quantum mechanical simulations through ...
Mar. 25, 2025 — By watching the ebb and flow of the brain's chemical signals, researchers are beginning to disentangle the molecular mechanisms underlying the intrinsic motivation to learn. In a new study of zebra finches, researchers show that a hit a dopamine ...
Latest Society/Education Headlines
updated 8:46pm EDT
May 1, 2025 — Urgent action must be taken to reduce the ever-rising number of people killed by extreme temperatures in India, say the authors of a new 19-year study which found that 20,000 people died from heatstroke in the last two decades. Cold exposure claimed another 15,000 ...
Apr. 30, 2025 — A national survey of 2,600 nurses and nursing students reveals a profession under severe strain, with widespread stress, burnout, and staffing shortages threatening both nurse well-being and patient care. Despite increased attention since the pandemic, little progress has been made, with 65% of nurses reporting high stress, 40% unsure they'd ...
Apr. 30, 2025 — Trees, parks, wetlands and green roofs can no longer be seen as a 'nice-to-have' aesthetic enhancement but a vital component for creating climate-resilient, healthier and more equitable cities, according to an international ...
May 1, 2025 — A groundbreaking study reveals that North American bird populations are declining most severely in areas where they should be thriving. Researchers analyzed 36 million bird observations shared by birdwatchers to the Cornell Lab's eBird program alongside multiple environmental variables derived from high-resolution satellite imagery for 495 bird species across North America from 2007 to ...
May 2, 2025 — New findings suggest neurons have much more functional dexterity than scientists previously ...
Apr. 29, 2025 — New research finds that tropical cyclones reduce years of schooling for children in low- and middle-income countries, particularly in areas unaccustomed to frequent storms. Girls are disproportionately ...
Apr. 30, 2025 — Researchers have been putting ChatGPT essays to the test against real students. A new study reveals that the AI generated essays don't yet live up to the efforts of real students. While the AI essays were found to be impressively coherent and grammatically sound, they fell short in one crucial area -- they lacked a personal touch. It is hoped that the findings could help educators spot cheating ...
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. 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 ...