Reporting world updates to you
Perfectly timed fossils from Morocco reveal a forgotten African population living near the very root of the human family tree. Fossils dated with exceptional precision Sediments at Thomas Quarry I preserve a clear record of a major flip in Earth’s magnetic field that occurred about 773,000 years ago. This natural…
Scientists at Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) say they may have found an answer to a puzzle that has lingered for nearly four decades involving the radiation belts surrounding Uranus. When NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft flew past Uranus in 1986, it made a surprising discovery. Instruments detected an electron radiation belt…
Astronomers say the Milky Way may not contain a supermassive black hole at its center after all. Instead, the galaxy’s core could be dominated by an enormous concentration of dark matter that produces the same powerful gravitational effects. This unseen material, which makes up most of the universe’s total mass,…
Public health scientists at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health used advanced computer simulations to trace how the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic and the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic spread across the United States. Their results show how quickly respiratory pandemics can expand and why stopping them early is so…
New findings from the University of Cambridge suggest that menopause is associated with changes in brain structure, along with higher levels of anxiety, depression, and sleep difficulties. Researchers found reduced grey matter volume in several important brain regions among women who had gone through menopause. The study, published in Psychological…
Before the Environmental Protection Agency was formed in 1970, lead pollution was a routine part of daily life across the United States. It came from factories, lead-based paint, drinking water pipes, and most of all from vehicle exhaust. Lead is a toxic metal that builds up in the body over…
Arctic sea ice plays a major role in shaping Earth’s climate system. By reflecting sunlight and helping cool the planet, it influences ocean circulation, atmospheric behavior, and extreme weather patterns far beyond the polar regions. As climate change accelerates the loss of Arctic ice, scientists increasingly rely on real-time measurements…
Researchers at UC San Francisco have identified new evidence that may help explain how Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) contributes to multiple sclerosis (MS). MS is a long-term autoimmune condition that affects nearly one million people in the United States. The findings were published Feb. 5 in Nature Immunology. The study shows…
Scientists at Cleveland-based institutions have uncovered a surprising new switch that helps the body make fat — and turning it off had dramatic effects. Obesity and fatty liver disease are becoming more common worldwide as diets grow more calorie-dense and daily life becomes less active. Scientists in Cleveland have identified…
Synthetic materials are widely used across science, engineering, and industry, but most are designed to perform only a narrow range of tasks. A research team at Penn State set out to change that. Led by Hongtao Sun, assistant professor of industrial and manufacturing engineering (IME), the group developed a new…
In most solid tumors, large numbers of regulatory T (Treg) cells are linked to worse outcomes. These immune cells normally act as brakes on the immune system, which means they can weaken the body’s ability to attack cancer. Colorectal cancer stands out as a rare and confusing exception. In this…
Quantum computers have the potential to transform fields ranging from materials science to cryptography, but today they remain extremely difficult to build and operate. One of the biggest challenges comes from decoherence, a process that introduces errors into quantum systems. These errors usually take the form of bit flips or…
Parkinson’s disease is a long-term neurological condition that gradually worsens over time. More than one million people in the United States are living with the disease, and about 90,000 new diagnoses are made each year. While current treatments can ease symptoms, there is still no cure and no therapy proven…
A new study published in JNeurosci reports how experiences before birth may shape the brain and behavior later in life. Led by Mary Schneider and Alexander Converse at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the interdisciplinary research examined how exposure to alcohol and stress during pregnancy affects rhesus monkey offspring once they…
Researchers in Australia have developed a promising new strategy to combat deadly bacteria that no longer respond to antibiotics. The team engineered antibodies that lock onto a sugar found only on bacterial cells, an approach that could support a new generation of immunotherapies for multidrug resistant infections acquired in hospitals.…
Chemicals introduced to shield the ozone layer are now tied to an unexpected environmental consequence. A new study shows that these substances have helped spread large amounts of a long-lasting and potentially harmful forever chemical across the planet. Researchers in atmospheric science, led by a team at Lancaster University, have…
Researchers have uncovered the molecular interactions that give spider silk its remarkable combination of strength and flexibility. The discovery could help scientists design new bio-inspired materials for airplanes, protective gear, and medical uses, while also offering insight into neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease. The study, published in the journal…
Small lakes on early Mars may have stayed liquid for decades, even though average air temperatures were far below freezing. New research suggests that cold conditions alone may not have prevented long-lasting surface water on the Red Planet. Researchers from Rice University used a climate model modified for Mars to…
Researchers at Caltech and USC have created a new medical imaging approach that quickly produces 3D color images showing both the physical structure of soft tissue and how blood vessels are working. The technique has already been used to image several parts of the human body. Scientists say it could…
Creating extremely small devices that can precisely guide and control light is a key challenge for many emerging technologies. Scientists at the Advanced Science Research Center at the CUNY Graduate Center (CUNY ASRC) have now made an important advance by developing a metasurface that can convert invisible infrared light into…
When everyday matter is cooled, it follows a familiar path. A gas becomes a liquid, and with further cooling, that liquid turns into a solid. Quantum matter does not always follow these rules. More than a century ago, scientists discovered that helium behaves in an unexpected way at extremely low…
Roughly 20 to 30 percent of people with psoriasis eventually develop painful joint inflammation. This condition, known as psoriatic arthritis, can cause lasting damage to bones and joints if it is not treated. For years, doctors did not fully understand why psoriasis progressed to joint disease in some patients but…
For people who committed to an unprocessed food diet as a New Year’s resolution, research suggests the change may guide food choices in a surprising way. Instead of gravitating toward higher calorie whole foods such as rice, meat, and butter, people naturally tend to eat much larger amounts of fruits…
Small changes in kidney function, even when test results fall within what doctors consider a normal range, may reveal who is likely to develop chronic kidney disease later in life. That is the conclusion of a new study from Karolinska Institutet published in Kidney International. Based on these findings, researchers…
Kemp’s ridley sea turtles rank among the most endangered sea turtle species on the planet. They live along the East Coast and Gulf Coast of North America, sharing these waters with some of the busiest shipping routes in the world. Scientists already know that fishing gear, pollution, and ship strikes…
Scientists have built a detailed map showing how hundreds of possible mutations in a major cancer gene affect tumor growth. The research offers a clearer picture of how small genetic changes can lead to very different cancer behaviors. The work centers on CTNNB1, a gene responsible for producing the protein…
Reaching the deepest parts of Earth is far more difficult than traveling through space. Humans have journeyed roughly 25 billion km beyond our planet, yet drilling beneath Earth’s surface has only reached a depth of just over 12 km. This extreme limitation means scientists still know relatively little about what…
People with life-threatening injuries may be more likely to survive when advanced medical care reaches them by helicopter. Survival data from a regional air ambulance service in South East England shows that outcomes were better than expected for major trauma patients. The analysis suggests that about five additional people survived…
Broadband achromatic wavefront control is a key requirement for next-generation optical technologies, including full-color imaging and multi-spectral sensing. Researchers led by Professor Yijun Feng and Professor Ke Chen at Nanjing University have now reported a major advance in this area in PhotoniX. Their work introduces a hybrid-phase cooperative dispersion-engineering approach…
New research from neuroscientists at Trinity College Dublin shows that babies as young as two months old can already organize what they see into distinct object categories. This ability appears far earlier than scientists previously believed and suggests that important building blocks of perception are present almost from the very…
