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Science news: space, biology, climate, medicine and the research changing how we live.
The most detailed spectrum yet of one of these ancient objects strongly favors a black hole cloaked in hot gas over a galaxy full of stars — evidence, researchers say, of heavy black-hole seeds being born in real time.
After a decade hidden in its star's glare, the giant world GJ 504 b gave up its secrets to Webb in just two hours — revealing water, methane, ammonia and, for the first time, clouds made of salt.
Life Biosciences began the first human trial of partial epigenetic reprogramming — a gene therapy built on David Sinclair's research that aims to make aging eye cells young again.
Transfer learning slashes the cost of cosmological simulations, yet a Princeton team warns the same shortcut can trick AI into missing real discoveries.
Cambridge-led researchers find that confined water isn't inherently more reactive — crushing internal pressure and the chemistry of the surrounding surface explain the long-mysterious effect.
McGill physicists forced electrons through an atom-thin crystal near absolute zero and got precise bursts of quantum 'sound' — in a regime existing theory says should stay silent.
The rare 'super-puff' worlds TOI-791 b and c are roughly Jupiter's size but a tiny fraction of its mass, ranking among the lowest-density planets ever detected.
University of Pittsburgh researchers identified a long-hidden genetic partner, TPP1, that teams up with a known mutation to give the deadly skin cancer its runaway lifespan.
Researchers found the anemone uses a protein that suppresses — rather than switches on — its immune response, yet still defeats viruses, upending assumptions about how immunity evolved.
A strange radio pulse arriving every two hours has been traced to a white dwarf and a red dwarf locked in a tight orbit, their colliding magnetic fields firing the beat across space.
A new modeling study finds that asteroid impacts could blast Earth microbes into space, potentially delivering about 100 viable cells a year — up to 20 billion over a billion years — into the Venusian atmosphere.
The U.S.-French SWOT satellite mapped the Pacific tsunami unleashed by a magnitude 8.8 Kamchatka earthquake, revealing waves far more scattered and complex than the textbook picture of a single, stable surge.
University of Washington scientists found that fibrolamellar carcinoma hides from immunotherapy by sequestering T cells in fibrous tissue — and that the FDA-approved drug AMD3100 lets them back in to kill the tumor.
After a 14-year effort, chemists in Japan built a stable solid that upconverts visible light into UV, opening the door to sunlight-powered air purification, 3D printing and photocatalysis.
Close-up data from the Donaldjohanson flyby reveal a 155-million-year-old relic that tumbles like a spinning top and bears chemical traces of water.
A SETI Institute team scanned the rare visitor from another star for seven hours across radio frequencies — and traced every suspicious signal back to humanity.
Deep inside South Africa's Wonderwerk Cave, researchers found scorched bone in deposits up to 1.79 million years old — among the oldest evidence of hominin fire use ever documented.
A small group of cells in the brain's ancient thalamic reticular nucleus acts as a gatekeeper for attention; switching them off in mice produced ADHD-like distractibility.
Researchers report in Nature that Streptomyces bacteria deploy a large cluster of genes to make synergistic molecules that together cripple drug-resistant pathogens.
A newly named microraptor relative, Jian changmaensis, glided on four feathered limbs and may explain piles of crushed bird bones in a 120-million-year-old fossil bed.
Fossils sealed between two volcanic ash layers near Waitomo preserve 12 bird species and four frog species, including an ancient relative of the flightless kakapo that may once have flown.
A new study comparing kombucha made from black, green, white, oolong and pu-erh teas found that green and oolong versions pack the strongest antioxidant punch.
By reading growth rings in 17 tyrannosaur specimens, researchers nearly doubled the dinosaur's estimated growth timeline — and found that some famous 'T. rex' fossils may not be T. rex at all.
Heliconius butterflies live up to three times longer than their close relatives — and one species shows almost no physical decline with age, a new Nature Communications study reports.
Texas A&M researchers used a two-step growth-factor treatment to coax adult mice to rebuild bone, joints, ligaments and tendons after amputation — evidence that mammals may retain a dormant capacity to regenerate.
Researchers modeling the San Andreas and San Jacinto systems found Cajon Pass acting as an 'earthquake gate' that could let a rupture jump both faults at once near Los Angeles.
A new study shows that hydrogen radicals generated by intense ultraviolet light can strip fluorine from PFAS molecules and break them apart — with no added chemicals required.
Oxford and Max Planck scientists say tightly bound black-hole binaries act as cosmic lenses, magnifying background stars into repeating flashes that betray their presence.
A single Air Force-developed propellant ran both a chemical engine and electric electrospray thrusters in the lab — a dual-mode design that could send briefcase-sized CubeSats to Mars.
German researchers followed individual bees with a high-speed drone and discovered each insect repeats its foraging route within centimeters, steering by landmarks like a lone tree.