Reporting world updates to you
A large survey of plant-based foods and beverages sold in the UK has found that mycotoxins, toxic compounds naturally produced by fungi, are widespread across vegetarian and vegan products. Researchers analyzed 212 plant-based meat alternatives (PMBAs) and plant-based beverages (PBBs) purchased from UK stores. Every product tested contained at least…
For millennia, people have transformed landscapes, forcing wildlife to adjust to cities, farms, roads, and other human activity. But new research suggests animals are responding not only to the environments we build, but also to the simple fact that people are physically nearby. Researchers from UC Santa Barbara, the Smithsonian’s…
Soil supports the food we eat, stores water, carbon and nutrients, and provides habitat for an enormous share of life on Earth. Scientists estimate that more than half of global biodiversity exists below the surface. But soil biodiversity is declining around the world, threatening agriculture, food security and the ability…
Rock glaciers look very different from conventional glaciers. Instead of exposed ice, they resemble sprawling fields of loose rock, while potentially concealing large quantities of ice below the surface. These formations are widespread across Utah’s Wasatch and Uinta ranges and can also be found on the Colorado Plateau in the…
Washington State University researchers have used artificial intelligence to identify a faster and less costly way to 3D print a high-performance metal alloy, avoiding the need to manually test more than 100 million possible printing configurations. The advance could eventually make the alloy, which is widely used in aerospace applications…
Astronomers now have their strongest evidence yet that Betelgeuse, one of the best-known stars in the night sky, has a stellar companion. A team led by French astronomer Miguel Montargès used the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) to capture the clearest image so far of what is…
As the global population grows and climate change places increasing pressure on food systems, researchers and policymakers are looking more closely at alternative sources of nutrition. Insects are one possible option. A total of 1,611 insect species are classified as edible, and organizations including the Food and Agriculture Organization of…
Ultra-processed foods (UPFs) now supply nearly 60% of the calories consumed by adults in the United States and about 70% of those consumed by children. These industrially produced foods include soft drinks, packaged cereals, snacks, and processed meats. They are typically made with refined fats, oils, sugars, starches, salts, and…
From the first hint of cold winter mornings, supermarkets and pharmacies begin heavy marketing to coax us to stock up on vitamin C to get through the cold and flu season. But where did that idea come from? As we’ll see, it’s a story including a Nobel Prize winner, a…
A faint background of extremely low frequency gravitational waves detected through networks of pulsars could contain clues to events that unfolded more than 13 billion years ago, including the emergence of some of the Universe’s earliest supermassive black holes. In a study published as a Letter in Physical Review D,…
A recently proposed form of magnetism known as altermagnetism could eventually help researchers make computer memory smaller, faster, and more efficient. Now, scientists have found evidence that ruthenium dioxide, a quantum material previously considered nonmagnetic in its bulk form, may display this unusual magnetic behavior when prepared as an ultrathin…
The rise of complex ecosystems on land was one of the major turning points in the history of life. As organisms expanded beyond the oceans, terrestrial environments became home to increasingly diverse communities. Insects, which today make up the most species-rich animal group on Earth, eventually became central to these…
Glioblastoma is considered the most aggressive type of brain cancer. One reason it is so difficult to treat is that cancer cells spread into nearby brain tissue. That makes complete surgical removal extremely challenging because surgeons must avoid damaging healthy areas of the brain. The blood-brain barrier creates another obstacle…
Deep inside the brain, a small group of nerve cells helps control how strongly pain signals are felt. Under normal conditions, this system can suppress pain traveling through the spinal cord. After nerve damage, however, the same circuitry can become overactive and help sustain chronic pain. Researchers at Washington University…
Nearly 90 years ago, Werner Heisenberg predicted a strange quantum effect known as vacuum birefringence, in which seemingly empty space can change the way light behaves. According to the idea, even a perfect vacuum is not truly empty. Instead, it should contain “virtual particles” that briefly appear and disappear. Despite…
NASA’s Starling mission has reached another milestone in autonomous spaceflight by demonstrating a system that can determine a satellite’s orbital position using other objects in space as reference points rather than depending on an external navigation network. The technology, called FALCON (Fast Autonomous Lost-in-space Catalog-based Optical Navigation), is designed to…
Reducing calorie intake has extended lifespan in animals including mice, rhesus monkeys, and fruit flies. In some studies, the animals also remained healthier for longer. But severe calorie restriction can come with serious costs. Mice placed on a diet with 40% fewer calories, for instance, become more vulnerable to infections,…
Pangolins look almost prehistoric. These medium-sized mammals, found only in Africa and Asia, have long, powerful tails, large curved claws, and bodies covered in overlapping scales that resemble a pinecone. Those distinctive scales are also a major reason pangolins are in danger. They are heavily targeted by poachers and are…
An international team of researchers, led in part by the University of Ottawa, has documented a major calving event at Petermann Glacier in northwest Greenland. On August 4, 2026, the glacier released a 76.4 km2 ice island, its largest loss of floating ice since 2012 and the biggest Arctic calving…
Could how much sugar you consumed before your second birthday shape your health decades later – even into your 70s? A new study that my colleagues and I conducted suggests the answer could be yes. People who had less sugar exposure during the first few years of life were much…
Curcumin, the natural compound responsible for turmeric’s vivid yellow color, is widely studied for its anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties. New research in rats suggests it may also help protect blood vessels from damage linked to diabetes. The findings were presented at the 2026 American Physiology Summit in Minneapolis. The Summit…
NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is now one major step closer to liftoff. On Aug. 21, teams enclosed the observatory inside the protective fairing of its SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket at the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The fairing is the large shell…
An international team led by the University of Bern has found evidence that a single asteroid collision may have dramatically reshaped Deimos, the smaller of Mars’ two moons. By combining detailed computer simulations with recent images from ESA’s Hera spacecraft, the researchers concluded that one impact could account for both…
Children who spend more time indoors looking at screens and less time outside are more likely to develop myopia, also known as nearsightedness. The problem is growing rapidly worldwide, with some experts estimating that nearly 5 billion people (or 50% of the world population) could be nearsighted by 2050. New…
Severe stress during childhood can increase a person’s vulnerability to anxiety, depression, and other mood disorders when new challenges arise later in life. Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and Princeton University have now identified a biological process that may help explain how early trauma can…
Low-carb diets have become increasingly popular, but their effects on cholesterol are far from uniform. Some people see little change, while others experience a substantial increase. New research suggests that genetics may help explain why. The findings indicate that saturated fat, which can make up a larger share of some…
For about a century, scholars studying the Assyrian Empire have treated the Assyrian King List (AKL) as the standard record of the kingdom’s rulers and the order in which they reigned, particularly during the later phases of Assyrian history. A recent study in the Journal of Cuneiform Studies, titled “Three…
What we experience when making a decision may be very different from what actually happens inside the brain, according to Indiana University Professor Tom James. For decades, both scientific theories and everyday intuition have tended to describe decision-making as a sequence. First we perceive something, then we think about it…
Scientists have found a new explanation for why Antarctica became covered in ice millions of years before the Arctic. The international study, published in Science, addresses a long-standing climate mystery: how Antarctica could develop a massive ice sheet at a time when Earth was around 5ºC warmer than it is…
Older adults who received a shingles vaccine after entering a skilled nursing facility were less likely to be diagnosed with dementia over the following four years, according to a new study. Researchers found that vaccinated adults had a 24% lower risk of dementia compared with those who did not receive…