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A large international collaboration between researchers at the University of Huddersfield and the University of Southampton has provided new insight into when and how modern humans, Homo sapiens, first settled New Guinea and Australia. The project brought together experts in archaeogenetics and maritime archaeology, with funding from the European Research…
Contamination from perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) has spread into groundwater, surface water, and even drinking supplies, affecting millions of people around the world. Researchers at Flinders University have now developed a promising new approach that could help remove some of the hardest-to-capture forms of these long-lasting pollutants from water.…
Researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine report that a newly funded study by the National Institutes of Health is helping advance a potential new approach to Alzheimer’s disease treatment. The focus is a protein in the brain that produces a small but important gas. The protein, called Cystathionine γ-lyase, or CSE…
Autism BrainNet has released new survey results that reveal a major gap between public support for autism research and awareness of how that research is carried out. While most Americans recognize the importance of studying the autistic brain, far fewer understand the role that brain donation after death plays in…
New research suggests that wheat domestication was shaped by an intense evolutionary struggle for light and space. This competition pushed early crops to develop traits that helped them outgrow and outcompete neighboring plants, offering new insight into how crops evolve and how they might be improved in the future. The…
A new international study is calling into question long-standing assumptions about what makes elite sprinters so fast. The findings offer a fresh perspective that could reshape how Australia identifies and trains its next generation of speed athletes. Published in Sports Medicine, the research looks at sprinting through a dynamical systems…
I’ll admit something surprising. Even after years of stargazing, tracking planets, and scanning deep sky objects through a telescope, I only clearly noticed the Man in the Moon about five years ago. While studying the familiar dark plains and bright highlands, I somehow overlooked a pattern people have recognized for…
In 2023, scientists detected a subatomic particle called a neutrino hitting Earth with an energy level so extreme it seemed impossible. No known cosmic process can generate that much energy. The particle carried about 100,000 times more energy than anything ever produced by the Large Hadron Collider, the most powerful…
Planetary missions on the surface of Mars are carried out with extreme caution. Communication delays between Earth and robotic explorers can range from four to 22 minutes, and limited data transmission capacity adds another layer of constraint. Because of this, scientists must carefully plan each step in advance. Rovers are…
Quantum computers hold enormous promise, but they are still far from dependable. Their biggest weakness is instability, which causes the information they process to quickly break down. Researchers around the world are working to solve this problem, including a team in Norway. “In quantum computers, information is transmitted and stored…
Every second, countless electrical charges move through the human body. These microscopic signals are essential for life. They drive communication between cells, enable energy production, and support metabolism. None of this would work without the careful and controlled movement of charges across cell membranes and within cells. In many ways,…
A well-known 300-million-year-old fossil once believed to be the oldest octopus ever discovered has been reclassified after new analysis revealed it is something entirely different. The specimen had even earned a place in the Guinness Book of Records, but scientists now say that distinction was based on a misinterpretation. The…
Researchers have developed a powerful new way to map how brain cells connect by tagging neurons with molecular “barcodes.” Using this technique, they were able to chart thousands of neural connections in the mouse brain with remarkable speed and detail. This method could deepen understanding of how complex brain networks…
Cornell University scientists have taken a major step toward developing a safe, reversible, long-acting and 100% effective nonhormonal male contraceptive, considered the holy grail of male contraception. In a proof-of-principle study conducted in mice over six years, the team showed that interrupting a key step in meiosis, the process that…
People with higher levels of vitamin D in midlife may have lower levels of tau protein in the brain years later, according to a study published April 1, 2026, in Neurology Open Access, an official journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Tau is a protein closely linked to dementia.…
An Oregon State University scientist working with a group of undergraduate students has revealed new, real-time details about a chemical process tied to Alzheimer’s disease. The discovery could help researchers design more effective drugs in the future. Using a specialized measurement technique, the team tracked how certain metals can trigger…
Scientists at Johns Hopkins Medicine have identified a gene that appears to play a major role in how pancreatic cancer spreads. In laboratory-grown cells, the gene KLF5 (Krueppel-like factor 5) was found to fuel tumor growth and invasion not by changing the DNA sequence itself, but by reshaping how DNA…
An international team of researchers, led in part by scientists at the University of Florida and Trinity College Dublin, has solved a long-standing puzzle in human biology: how our cells absorb a crucial micronutrient linked to brain health and cancer defense. Queuosine — pronounced “cue-o-scene” — is a vitamin-like compound…
Researchers at the University of California San Diego report that a weeklong program combining meditation and other mind-body techniques can quickly produce measurable changes in both brain activity and blood biology. The study found that these practices activated natural pathways involved in brain flexibility, metabolism, immune function, and pain relief.…
Cholera, a dangerous bacterial infection that causes severe diarrhea and can be fatal without treatment, may be significantly reduced through diet. New research from the University of California, Riverside suggests that eating more protein could help limit the infection’s ability to take hold in the body. The study found that…
Modern electronics power everything from smartphones to satellites, but they all share a major limitation. Heat. Once temperatures climb above roughly 200 degrees Celsius, most devices begin to break down. For decades, this thermal barrier has been one of the toughest challenges in engineering. Researchers at the University of Southern…
The Antarctic Circumpolar Current carries more than 100 times the total flow of all the world’s rivers combined. It circles Antarctica without being blocked by land, making it one of the most important drivers of the global climate system. New research published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy…
A newly identified fossil site in southwest China is changing scientists’ understanding of how complex animal life first developed on Earth. The discovery shows that many major animal groups were already present before the Cambrian Period began. The research was led by teams from Oxford University’s Museum of Natural History…
Life cannot begin on a planet unless certain chemical elements are available in large enough amounts. Two of the most important are phosphorus and nitrogen. Phosphorus helps build DNA and RNA, which store and pass along genetic information, and it also plays a key role in how cells manage energy.…
New observations from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) are shedding light on a highly unusual exoplanet known as TOI-5205 b, sometimes described as “forbidden.” Scientists found that this giant planet’s atmosphere contains fewer heavy elements than its host star, a surprising result that could reshape how researchers understand the…
Is consciousness simply created by the brain, or could it be a deeper feature of reality itself? That question is at the center of a presentation by Christof Koch, a leading figure in modern neuroscience, at the 15th “Behind and Beyond the Brain” Symposium organized by the Bial Foundation, taking…
For years, scientists believed the answer centered almost entirely on neurons, the brain’s primary signaling cells. But new research is challenging that idea, pointing to a more complex system involving other types of brain cells. A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on April 6,…
Researchers have identified four previously unknown tarantula species in the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa, and they turned out to be far more unusual than expected. “Based on both morphological and molecular data, they are so distinct from their closest relatives that we had to establish an entirely…
There is growing demand for treatments that can safely prevent and reverse bone loss over time. Osteoporosis, a condition that weakens bones and makes them more likely to break, affects about six million people in Germany alone, most of them women. It is especially common with aging and after menopause,…
Researchers led by the University of Warwick have introduced the first unified approach for identifying “spacetime fluctuations” — tiny, random distortions in the structure of spacetime that appear in many efforts to link quantum physics with gravity. These minute variations were first proposed by physicist John Wheeler and are expected…
