https://planckstandard.com/science/ Science news: space, biology, climate, medicine and the research changing how we live. en-us Thu, 24 Sep 2026 07:04:28 GMT https://planckstandard.com/assets/logo-512.pnghttps://planckstandard.com/science/ https://planckstandard.com/article/bennus-dust-says-a-young-jupiter-helped-build-the-asteroid-n.html https://planckstandard.com/article/bennus-dust-says-a-young-jupiter-helped-build-the-asteroid-n.html Thu, 24 Sep 2026 07:03:37 GMT Science ETH Zurich isotope measurements on half a gram of NASA's OSIRIS-REx sample overturn the idea that Bennu formed late and far out, and suggest it holds the original recipe for rocky planets. https://planckstandard.com/article/human-brain-is-two-separate-organs-stanford-finds.html https://planckstandard.com/article/human-brain-is-two-separate-organs-stanford-finds.html Mon, 21 Sep 2026 17:22:05 GMT Science Forebrain and midbrain come from cells expressing Otx2; the hindbrain, which runs breathing and heartbeat, from cells expressing Gbx2. The finding, in Nature Neuroscience, explains why no one could grow human hindbrain neurons in a dish, and now they can, opening a path for ALS and spinal muscular atrophy research. https://planckstandard.com/article/dead-sea-scrolls-364-day-calendar-used-then-abandoned.html https://planckstandard.com/article/dead-sea-scrolls-364-day-calendar-used-then-abandoned.html Mon, 21 Sep 2026 17:22:05 GMT Science Nearly 20 of the Qumran scrolls deal with calendars and astronomy. Prof. Eshbal Ratzon argues the calendar was live in the sect's second-century BCE founding fight with Jerusalem, became unworkable as the seasons slid, and was set aside as relations warmed under Alexander Jannaeus, without ever losing its place in the community's identity. https://planckstandard.com/article/capybara-tooth-atacama-desert-wet-9-million-years.html https://planckstandard.com/article/capybara-tooth-atacama-desert-wet-9-million-years.html Mon, 21 Sep 2026 14:27:33 GMT Science The University of Arizona-led team says the world's largest rodent, a wetland animal that lives nowhere in Chile today, must have walked around the top of South America along a coastal corridor rather than over the 18,000-foot Andes, and that the coast was once 'sunny Southern California full of palm trees.' https://planckstandard.com/article/the-only-volcano-on-earth-that-erupts-black-carbonate-lava-b.html https://planckstandard.com/article/the-only-volcano-on-earth-that-erupts-black-carbonate-lava-b.html Mon, 21 Sep 2026 05:16:00 GMT Science Six GNSS stations installed in 2016 track the ground to within a millimeter, and two seismometers listen for the kind of magnitude-5.9 quake that preceded the last explosive eruption. The mountain blows up roughly every 10 to 15 years, and the researchers expect one 'within our lifetime.' https://planckstandard.com/article/astronomers-found-a-giant-planet-circling-a-star-hotter-than.html https://planckstandard.com/article/astronomers-found-a-giant-planet-circling-a-star-hotter-than.html Mon, 21 Sep 2026 05:16:00 GMT Science TOI-1355 b gave itself away when its secondary eclipse arrived early, a sign the orbit is not circular. The University of Tokyo team says the planet was probably flung inward by other giants and is now being slowly reeled into a circle by its star's tides. They are already writing a JWST proposal. https://planckstandard.com/article/men-lose-the-y-chromosome-from-their-cells-as-they-age-arizo.html https://planckstandard.com/article/men-lose-the-y-chromosome-from-their-cells-as-they-age-arizo.html Mon, 21 Sep 2026 01:14:07 GMT Science The JCI Insight study maps 'loss of Y' from healthy tissue through precancerous cells to full malignancy for the first time and finds it strongest around colon, rectal, esophageal, pancreatic and lung cancers. Its senior author says it may be 'one of the earliest signposts of cancer forming.' https://planckstandard.com/article/a-man-outside-la-paz-found-a-kitten-fed-it-noodles-and-eggs.html https://planckstandard.com/article/a-man-outside-la-paz-found-a-kitten-fed-it-noodles-and-eggs.html Sun, 20 Sep 2026 01:22:24 GMT Science The tilcayo weighs about three pounds, lives in Bolivia's Yungas cloud forest and has never been found anywhere else. The Current Biology study that names it also carves the tiger cats of South America into five distinct species, all of them, one author says, 'in habitats that are vanishing fast.' https://planckstandard.com/article/the-solar-system-s-first-solid-bodies-were-83-to-92-fire-for.html https://planckstandard.com/article/the-solar-system-s-first-solid-bodies-were-83-to-92-fire-for.html Sun, 20 Sep 2026 01:22:24 GMT Science Two independent tracers in outer-solar-system iron meteorites both point to matrix levels of 8% to 17%, lower than in any known chondrite. 'Both tracers independently tell the same story,' said lead author Damanveer Grewal. The result pushes the aerodynamic sorting that built the planets back to the very beginning. https://planckstandard.com/article/no-earthquake-had-been-recorded-within-50-kilometers-of-moun.html https://planckstandard.com/article/no-earthquake-had-been-recorded-within-50-kilometers-of-moun.html Sat, 19 Sep 2026 23:03:30 GMT Science A Chengdu-led team combed 17 years of data from stations in China and South Korea and found the mountain's own weight is slowly squeezing the shattered rock into faults. The tremors could make it harder to tell old bomb damage from a new test. https://planckstandard.com/article/nasa-s-roman-telescope-was-built-with-fuel-for-10-years-its.html https://planckstandard.com/article/nasa-s-roman-telescope-was-built-with-fuel-for-10-years-its.html Fri, 18 Sep 2026 17:43:48 GMT Science The August 31 burn was more than 99 percent accurate. Goddard's center director credited 'exquisite planning by our orbital dynamics team, brilliant execution by the operations team, and a precise launch from SpaceX.' A second burn later this month is expected to add four more years. https://planckstandard.com/article/diamond-chip-reads-heartbeat-magnetism-without-skin-contact.html https://planckstandard.com/article/diamond-chip-reads-heartbeat-magnetism-without-skin-contact.html Thu, 17 Sep 2026 21:19:01 GMT Science The sensor uses nitrogen-vacancy defects in diamond, needs no cryogenic cooling and no magnetic bias field, and was built as a fiber endoscope. It is still less sensitive than SQUIDs, but a flux concentrator could boost the signal more than 100-fold. https://planckstandard.com/article/panxeon-blood-test-caught-87-percent-stage-1-2-pancreatic-ca.html https://planckstandard.com/article/panxeon-blood-test-caught-87-percent-stage-1-2-pancreatic-ca.html Thu, 17 Sep 2026 17:19:06 GMT Science PANXEON reads three signals at once, two kinds of microRNA and the CA19-9 protein, and lets an AI combine them into one risk score. Only 14% of pancreatic cancer patients survive five years, mostly because 90% are found too late. https://planckstandard.com/article/humpback-mother-stayed-hours-with-stillborn-calf-gold-coast.html https://planckstandard.com/article/humpback-mother-stayed-hours-with-stillborn-calf-gold-coast.html Thu, 17 Sep 2026 17:19:06 GMT Science 'At first sight, I thought it was just two whales resting on the surface.' The study, published Wednesday in Discover Animals, says she never tried to lift the calf, suggesting she knew it was dead soon after birth. https://planckstandard.com/article/something-the-size-of-a-six-story-building-hit-the-moon-in-s.html https://planckstandard.com/article/something-the-size-of-a-six-story-building-hit-the-moon-in-s.html Thu, 17 Sep 2026 05:12:41 GMT Science An Intuitive Machines image specialist spotted the fresh scar on Oct. 24, 2025, and 'dropped everything.' The blast churned the surface over 66 miles and left a 4-mile cold spot. The IAU has named it McGetchin. https://planckstandard.com/article/greenland-and-antarctica-have-lost-12-5-trillion-tons-of-ice.html https://planckstandard.com/article/greenland-and-antarctica-have-lost-12-5-trillion-tons-of-ice.html Thu, 17 Sep 2026 05:12:40 GMT Science An ESA-led team stitched together 45 surveys from 27 satellites to push the record back to the 1970s. The ice sheets were stable through the 1990s, then 'it really kicked in during the 2010s.' A brief pause from 2020 to 2023 is over. https://planckstandard.com/article/t-rex-body-temperature-97-degrees-tooth-enamel.html https://planckstandard.com/article/t-rex-body-temperature-97-degrees-tooth-enamel.html Thu, 17 Sep 2026 01:19:09 GMT Science It's the first actual number for a tyrannosaur's body heat. The isotope 'thermometer' needed 90% less enamel than a decade ago, which is what finally persuaded the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County to let them drill Thomas the T. rex. https://planckstandard.com/article/elias-2-24-b-youngest-planet-under-million-years-old.html https://planckstandard.com/article/elias-2-24-b-youngest-planet-under-million-years-old.html Thu, 17 Sep 2026 01:19:09 GMT Science Elias 2-24 b beat the previous record for the youngest known planet by more than 4 million years. It was found in decade-old Keck archive images, in exactly the gap in the star's disk that ALMA spotted a decade ago. https://planckstandard.com/article/some-herculaneum-scrolls-were-written-in-ink-laced-with-lead.html https://planckstandard.com/article/some-herculaneum-scrolls-were-written-in-ink-laced-with-lead.html Wed, 16 Sep 2026 21:14:59 GMT Science The 1,800-year-old papyri were carbonized under 20 meters of ash from Vesuvius in 79 CE, and carbon ink on carbon paper is nearly invisible to X-rays. The new PLOS One study proposes screening the library for lead first, then virtually unrolling only the scrolls that have it. https://planckstandard.com/article/ice-age-carvers-in-ukraine-engraved-18-000-year-old-venus-fi.html https://planckstandard.com/article/ice-age-carvers-in-ukraine-engraved-18-000-year-old-venus-fi.html Wed, 16 Sep 2026 18:54:12 GMT Science Microscopy and 3D models of 18 figurines from the Mizyn campsite show the Schreger and Owen lines inside ivory were copied onto the surface, an eastern tradition that predates Western Europe's. https://planckstandard.com/article/astronomers-stared-at-the-deepest-images-ever-taken-of-three.html https://planckstandard.com/article/astronomers-stared-at-the-deepest-images-ever-taken-of-three.html Wed, 16 Sep 2026 15:45:14 GMT Science The INAF-led VST survey reached depths the Rubin Observatory won't hit for years. The satellites around NGC 5084 appear to line up in a plane, the same puzzling arrangement seen around the Milky Way. https://planckstandard.com/article/three-wild-dogs-walked-4-126-kilometers-across-zambia-the-lo.html https://planckstandard.com/article/three-wild-dogs-walked-4-126-kilometers-across-zambia-the-lo.html Wed, 16 Sep 2026 05:58:55 GMT Science GPS collars from the Zambian Carnivore Programme and Montana State tracked young Lycaon pictus leaving their packs to find mates. The three males made it to a new home in the Luangwa Valley; the females never found a pack. https://planckstandard.com/article/a-skeleton-dug-up-in-tanzania-in-1963-sat-in-a-london-drawer.html https://planckstandard.com/article/a-skeleton-dug-up-in-tanzania-in-1963-sat-in-a-london-drawer.html Wed, 16 Sep 2026 05:58:55 GMT Science Dinodontosaurus isiyavamanda, a 240-million-year-old tusked herbivore, ties Tanzania's fossil beds to Brazil and Argentina. The rocks that were supposed to hold the earliest dinosaurs can no longer claim the title. https://planckstandard.com/article/biopykrete-super-ice-10-times-stronger.html https://planckstandard.com/article/biopykrete-super-ice-10-times-stronger.html Wed, 16 Sep 2026 03:25:31 GMT Science BioPykrete revives a World War II idea at the molecular level: a protein with one end that grips ice and another that grips cellulose stops cracks from racing through the material. The team says it could one day be a building material for the Arctic and Antarctic. https://planckstandard.com/article/webb-ic-348-brown-dwarfs-twice-jupiter-mass.html https://planckstandard.com/article/webb-ic-348-brown-dwarfs-twice-jupiter-mass.html Wed, 16 Sep 2026 03:25:30 GMT Science The IC 348 panorama shows newborn stars firing jets into the surrounding gas, two protostars with nearly parallel outflows, and a planet-mass object that appears to have its own disk. The lightest brown dwarfs also carry an unidentified hydrocarbon in their atmospheres. https://planckstandard.com/article/an-ai-counted-39-619-icebergs-stuck-to-the-seafloor-around-a.html https://planckstandard.com/article/an-ai-counted-39-619-icebergs-stuck-to-the-seafloor-around-a.html Tue, 15 Sep 2026 22:20:48 GMT Science The first continent-wide map of grounded icebergs, built from Sentinel-1 radar images by a University of Tasmania master's student, finds 80% of them crowded onto 14% of the coastline. The small ones are the ones most likely to melt loose first. https://planckstandard.com/article/the-most-advanced-alien-civilizations-might-run-their-comput.html https://planckstandard.com/article/the-most-advanced-alien-civilizations-might-run-their-comput.html Tue, 15 Sep 2026 22:20:48 GMT Science Landauer's principle says computing gets cheaper the colder it runs. Michael Garrett argues a computation-dominated civilization would dump its waste heat at 5 to 30 kelvin, in the far infrared and submillimeter, where no SETI survey has ever looked. https://planckstandard.com/article/seti-researchers-want-to-sift-one-cubic-meter-of-moon-dust-f.html https://planckstandard.com/article/seti-researchers-want-to-sift-one-cubic-meter-of-moon-dust-f.html Tue, 15 Sep 2026 18:20:17 GMT Science The Moon has no air, no water and no plate tectonics, so a micron-sized grain of alien ceramic or graphene could survive there for a billion years. A trillion grains per cubic meter means the search would have to be run by AI. https://planckstandard.com/article/webb-looked-through-the-dust-at-the-squid-galaxy-s-black-hol.html https://planckstandard.com/article/webb-looked-through-the-dust-at-the-squid-galaxy-s-black-hol.html Tue, 15 Sep 2026 18:20:17 GMT Science NGC 1068 is 45 million light-years away and one of the best-studied active galaxies in the sky. The hidden component moves 300 km/s faster than the visible one, tops 2,000 km/s and is escaping the galaxy for good. https://planckstandard.com/article/a-25-meter-diplodocus-has-turned-up-in-spain-it-is-the-first.html https://planckstandard.com/article/a-25-meter-diplodocus-has-turned-up-in-spain-it-is-the-first.html Tue, 15 Sep 2026 05:33:36 GMT Science Fourteen tail vertebrae and a set of chevron bones from a single animal, excavated at La Tejería in Teruel, place the giant as a close relative of Diplodocus hallorum. The find, published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, redraws the Late Jurassic map.