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Science news: space, biology, climate, medicine and the research changing how we live.
Inside fallout debris from the 1945 atomic blast, researchers found a silicon-rich iron alloy with an atomic order never seen in any industrial material — condensed from vapor and frozen in the expanding fireball.
Individual readings from the rover's Mössbauer spectrometer were too noisy to show it. Combined into one composite spectrum, they revealed crystalline hematite sitting in ordinary Martian soil.
Scientists believed the black pigments were pure mineral oxides, making radiocarbon dating impossible. Two non-destructive techniques found charcoal running through the lines, and the samples came back with wildly different ages.
Kobe University researchers bounced seismic waves through the seafloor beneath Japan's Kikai caldera and found a magma reservoir sitting in exactly the chamber that emptied 7,300 years ago — supplied by a new source.
A study in Current Biology argues vertebrates lost their paired eyes, kept one eye on top of the head, then rebuilt stereo vision out of it — and that the leftover of that ancient eye is still inside your skull.
A UC Davis analysis of 26,400 trees across 19 groves found prescribed burns cut sequoia mortality by 77% in the Castle and KNP Complex fires — and could have saved 3,900 more trees.
Cold Spring Harbor researchers did not build a new antibiotic. They built a compound that disables the enzyme bacteria use to shrug the old one off — and the old one started killing again.
One method squeezes water through a constriction until imploding vapor bubbles hit thousands of degrees. The other floats PFAS to the surface on gas bubbles and burns them apart in plasma.
Kyoto University researchers say fossils from Oita prefecture belong to a new genus, only the sixth ever described in the giant salamander family, and suspect other museum specimens have been misfiled for years.
Researchers compared 142 people with exceptional memory against 89 typical peers and found no genetic advantage — not in APOE, not in polygenic risk scores, not even in rare protective variants.
In mice engineered to carry human GLP-1 receptors, oral drugs orforglipron and danuglipron switched on the central amygdala and cut dopamine release during pleasurable eating — a pathway researchers had not expected them to touch.
ETH Zurich simulations suggest the planet's vast canyons are far younger than assumed — evidence that Venus is tectonically alive rather than a dead world frozen in place.
Rapamycin quieted brain overactivity, reduced seizure risk and eased repetitive behavior in animals whose symptoms traced back to inflammation before birth — but the effect faded.
Artemis III has been rewritten as a dress rehearsal: three rockets launching in quick succession in 2027, two prototype landers, and a crew that stays in Earth orbit the whole time.
One whale holds the carcass. Another lets go at the last second and rams it at speed. Researchers say it is the first documented case of orcas using collision as a butchering technique.
Utrecht scientists tracked the colour of 15,000 fossil spores through four drill cores and found the plants that survived the mass extinction were the ones feeding the flames.
Georgia State researchers report that the oral antiviral GHP-88310 blocked transmission of a measles-like virus in ferrets when given shortly before or after exposure, and shortened illness in animals already infected.
Buck Institute researchers report that neurons carrying the rare APOE2 variant accumulate less DNA damage and resist cellular aging — and that adding APOE2 protein protected high-risk APOE4 neurons too.
Instead of forcing local ore to fit existing formulas, an Uppsala University team is cataloging everything inside Sweden's deposits at Kiruna, Bergslagen and Norra Kärr, then designing magnets to match.
A camera built to shoot the bright surface of Mars was pushed far beyond its design limits to capture a visitor from another star system, tail and all.
The 23-foot dinosaur, pieced together from more than 180 bone fragments in Gujarat, pushes the origins of a lineage that later produced titans like Brachiosaurus back by tens of millions of years.
Nine golden headbands and two mouthpieces from elite tombs — one still resting on the brow of a small child — show how island goldsmiths fused the styles of Egypt, Greece and the Near East.
A large BMJ study of people with type 2 diabetes found GLP-1 medications were associated with a notably greater risk of hair loss than rival drugs — though the shedding may be reversible.
A protein-based gel inspired by how enamel forms in infancy pulls minerals from saliva to rebuild the body's hardest tissue — something teeth cannot naturally repair once it is lost.
The largest genetic study ever of hyperemesis gravidarum points to appetite, nausea and metabolism pathways — and confirms a single hormone gene as the strongest culprit.
In a UCSF and Imperial College London trial, a single 25-milligram dose of the psychedelic triggered a surge in 'brain entropy' within an hour and left measurable changes detectable a full month later, hinting at how it may loosen rigid thinking.
Researchers found that influenza A deliberately breaks down structures called paraspeckles inside the nucleus, freeing proteins the virus appears to exploit to replicate — a discovery that could point to new antiviral drugs.
Boosting the protein in mice sharply reduced tau buildup and brain shrinkage, pointing to a possible new line of defense against Alzheimer's and related dementias.
A 38-foot Tyrannosaurus discovered on a South Dakota ranch shattered its estimate after a 10-minute bidding war — and reignited a fight between collectors and paleontologists.
In a small trial, a daily spermidine supplement reversed several markers of immune aging and strengthened antibody responses — especially in the people who needed it most.