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A growing outbreak of the rare Bundibugyo virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo is drawing attention to a broader problem in global health: how to prepare for dangerous diseases that appear only rarely but can still cause deadly outbreaks. In a review article published in the New England Journal…
Drywood termites are remarkably good at disappearing into the very material they destroy. Instead of building obvious nests, they can spend nearly their entire lives hidden inside beams, framing, furniture, and other dry wood, slowly carving out galleries as a colony grows. That hidden existence makes them difficult to find…
Mars’ innermost moon, Phobos, has puzzled planetary scientists for decades. One of the biggest unanswered questions is where it came from. Some researchers think Phobos is an asteroid that was captured by Mars, while others argue that it formed from debris thrown into orbit after a massive object slammed into…
Microorganisms are capable of some extraordinary chemistry. One example is nitrogen fixation, a process that converts nitrogen gas (N2) into a form living organisms can actually use. Nitrogen makes up about 78 percent of Earth’s atmosphere, but plants and animals cannot use it directly because the two nitrogen atoms in…
A tiny aquatic organism made of just one cell can compress its body to one quarter of its original length in under five milliseconds, hundreds of times faster than a person can blink. Scientists have now identified the unusual mechanism behind this remarkable movement. The organism, Spirostomum ambiguum, relies on…
Perfection may not always be the best recipe for stability, especially in complex systems such as electrical grids, ecosystems, and advanced materials. For years, researchers often worked from the assumption that networks should perform more reliably when their individual parts behave as similarly as possible. Real systems, however, rarely look…
More than half a century after scientists first encountered a mysterious marker on human red blood cells, researchers finally traced it to its genetic source. The breakthrough established MAL as a human blood group system and gave doctors a new way to identify the exceptionally rare people whose blood lacks…
Paleontologists have identified the first known evidence of Diplodocus outside North America, a discovery that changes scientists’ understanding of where the iconic dinosaur lived during the Late Jurassic. The sauropod fossils were described by researchers from the Fundación Conjunto Paleontológico de Teruel-Dinópolis in the peer-reviewed Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. The…
Coal ash, red mud, and mine tailings are usually treated as major waste problems. Yet these enormous waste streams also contain valuable materials, including silica, rare earth elements, and other critical minerals. A research team led by Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) has received a $3.3 million award from the National…
Scientists uncover a cellular survival mechanism that helps severely damaged tissue regenerate and may also reveal why some cancers return after treatment. Tissues such as skin, along with the epithelial layers that cover and line many organs, have a remarkable ability to rebuild themselves after extensive damage. Scientists have known…
A routine check of NASA lunar data unexpectedly led to a major discovery. Robert Wagner, a scientist who works with NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), was examining a large map of the Moon when something unusual stood out on his computer screen. He noticed an unusually bright patch surrounded by…
People who have both atrial fibrillation and Alzheimer’s disease may experience slower cognitive decline when treated with newer NOAC blood thinners, according to research from Karolinska Institutet published in the European Heart Journal. Atrial fibrillation is a common heart rhythm condition in older adults and also affects many people living…
Memory problems, thinning skin, and declining bone mass may seem like separate consequences of growing older. Yet experiments in mice suggest that changes in a protein deep inside the brain can influence all three. Restoring that protein, called Menin, improved several signs of aging, while a separate treatment with the…
GLP-1 medications such as Ozempic have reshaped treatment for Type 2 diabetes. These drugs can help patients manage blood sugar, lower cardiovascular risk, and, in many cases, lose a substantial amount of weight. But researchers are still trying to determine whether those physical health improvements also extend into other parts…
The World Institute of Kimchi (President: Hae Choon Chang), a government-funded research institute under the Ministry of Science and ICT, announced that a lactic acid bacterium isolated from kimchi can help promote the removal of nanoplastics from the body by binding to them in the intestine. Nanoplastics are ultrafine plastic…
Scientists have identified a previously unknown frog species living in the seasonally flooded forests of the western Amazon. Named Adenomera varcena, the species adds to growing evidence that Amazonian biodiversity is even richer than it appears. The discovery also highlights the importance of cryptic diversity, in which animals that look…
Tiny particles from space are passing through Earth all the time, even though we cannot see, hear, feel, taste, or smell them. Many of these particles are linked to cosmic rays, extremely energetic particles that can come from exploding stars and other violent events far beyond our solar system. When…
Astronomers have confirmed the youngest known planet yet, a world less than 1 million years old that is still surrounded by the gas and dust from which it formed. The planet, called Elias 2-24 b, was identified using observations preserved in NASA-funded archives. It is still orbiting within its young…
Among the many surprises uncovered by the James Webb Space Telescope, one of the strangest has been a large population of tiny, intensely red objects known as Little Red Dots. Their true nature has remained unclear. Now, new simulations performed with Japan’s ATERUI III supercomputer suggest these objects may be…
Researchers at the University of Louisville have identified a way that a naturally produced compound from gut microbes may help protect the intestine and potentially guide new treatment approaches for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). IBD includes Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis and affects millions of people around the world. These…
The brain’s microscopic wiring may need a different kind of textbook illustration. Instead of the smooth, narrow tubes commonly drawn extending from nerve cells, some axons resemble strings of tiny pearls. These repeating bulges are not simply decorative details. Their shape appears to influence how electrical messages travel. Researchers at…
Mesothelioma is a rare and aggressive cancer that is most often linked to asbestos exposure. When asbestos fibers are inhaled, they can become trapped in the lungs, where they trigger chronic inflammation that may eventually lead to cancer decades later. About 30,000 people worldwide are diagnosed with mesothelioma every year.…
A new analysis led by Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) suggests that liquid nitrogen may be moving upward through cracks and reaching the surface of Pluto near the northern edge of Sputnik Planitia, the enormous heart-shaped glacier that dominates part of the dwarf planet. The findings provide the first evidence that…
Rice is a dietary staple for more than half of the world’s population, but scientists still have much to learn about its nutritional makeup. More than 85% of the rice people eat consists of starch. It also contains protein (around 10%), fat (roughly 2%), vitamins, and trace elements. Because lipids…
Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified previously unknown lymph node-like immune structures in the skull bone marrow of mice. The findings suggest these nearby immune hubs can respond rapidly to brain cancer, becoming active before more distant lymph nodes even receive signals that something…
Around the world, billions of people still lack reliable access to safe drinking water. The United Nations estimates that 2.2 billion people do not have safely managed drinking water, while regions from California to the Middle East increasingly rely on desalination plants to turn ocean water into fresh water. Desalination…
New research suggests that an overactive immune sensor may play a major role in severe genetic disorders linked to rapid aging. By reducing the activity of this sensor, scientists were able to improve tissue health across several biological systems, challenging long-held ideas about how DNA damage drives degeneration. The immune…
An international research team has identified a previously unknown prehistoric animal that lived in what is now Tanzania roughly 240 million years ago during the Triassic period. The species, named Dinodontosaurus isiyavamanda, could do more than add a new animal to the fossil record. According to researchers led by the…
Eating four to six servings of whole grains each day may improve several major risk factors for cardiovascular disease, according to new research published September 15 in the European Heart Journal. The findings come from a systematic review and meta-analysis that combined evidence from 87 clinical trials examining how whole…
Scientists have reconstructed short videos using only brain activity recorded from mice, effectively allowing researchers to recreate what the animals were seeing. The study, led by researchers at University College London (UCL), offers a new way to investigate how the brain transforms visual input into an internal representation of the…