Reporting world updates to you
Beneath Earth’s molten outer core is a dense central region — the inner core, a compact sphere made of an iron and light-element alloy squeezed by more than 3.3 million atmospheres and heated to temperatures comparable to the Sun’s surface. For many years, researchers have struggled to explain its unusual…
Most cancer treatments, including chemotherapy, radiotherapy and immunotherapy, are designed to attack and destroy cancer cells. A growing group of researchers is now asking whether this long-standing approach may be missing something important. What if the real path to a cure is not to damage cancer, but to coax it…
An international group of researchers, including astronomers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) and the National Centre of Competence in Research PlanetS, has detected enormous clouds of helium drifting away from the exoplanet WASP-107b. The team gathered these observations with the James Webb Space Telescope and analyzed them using modeling…
The human brain is not limited to recognizing our own voices. Research from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) has revealed that specific parts of the auditory cortex react strongly to chimpanzee vocalizations. Chimpanzees are our closest relatives both genetically and in the types of sounds they produce. The study, which…
Climate change, including extreme heat and frequent heat waves, is already known to harm ecosystems, agriculture, and human health. New evidence now suggests that increasing temperatures may also slow key aspects of early childhood development. Published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, the study reports that children who…
A new brain implant could significantly reshape how people interact with computers while offering new treatment possibilities for conditions such as epilepsy, spinal cord injury, ALS, stroke, and blindness. By creating a minimally invasive, high-throughput communication path to the brain, it has the potential to support seizure control and help…
Every tissue in the human body contains exceptionally small fibers that help coordinate how organs move, function and communicate. Muscle fibers guide physical force, intestinal fibers support the motion of the digestive tract, and brain fibers carry electrical signals that allow different regions to exchange information. Together, these intricate fiber…
That is the conclusion reached by Kasper Røjkjær Andersen and Simona Radutoiu, professors of molecular biology at Aarhus University. Their new research highlights an important biological clue that could help reduce agriculture’s heavy reliance on artificial fertilizer. Plants require nitrogen to grow, and most crop species can obtain it only…
Cosmologists are grappling with a major unresolved puzzle: they do not all agree on how fast the universe is expanding, and solving this puzzle could point to new physics. To check for hidden errors in traditional measurements that rely on markers such as supernovae, astronomers continually look for fresh ways…
Leading X-ray observatories XMM-Newton and XRISM have captured a remarkable and previously unrecorded eruption from a supermassive black hole. Over the course of only a few hours, the intense gravity of this object stirred up extremely fast winds that pushed material outward at an astonishing 60,000 km per second. This…
A new investigation is offering fresh insight into how galaxies like the Milky Way take shape, evolve over time, and develop unexpected chemical patterns in their stars. Published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, the study examines the origin of a long-standing mystery within the Milky Way: two…
More than three-quarters of the global population aren’t getting enough Omega-3, according to new research from the University of East Anglia, the University of Southampton and Holland & Barrett. The collaborative review highlights that 76 percent of people worldwide are not meeting recommended intakes of EPA and DHA, revealing a…
Why do neurons die in dementia, and can this process be slowed down? A research group led by Prof. Marcus Conrad, Director of the Institute of Metabolism and Cell Death at Helmholtz Munich and Chair of Translational Redox Biology at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), has reported in Cell…
At the Final Paleolithic site of Mühlheim-Dietesheim in Germany, researchers from Aarhus University identified faint blue traces on a stone artifact that dates to roughly 13,000 years ago. After applying a variety of advanced scientific techniques, the team determined that the residue came from azurite, a bright blue mineral pigment…
A research group led by an evolutionary biologist at Johns Hopkins Medicine reports that giant reptiles living as far back as 220 million years ago may have developed the ability to fly at the very start of their evolutionary history. This contrasts with the ancestors of modern birds, which are…
For many years, paleontologists have debated whether the single skull used to define the species Nanotyrannus represented a true species or simply a young Tyrannosaurus rex. A new study in Science has now resolved this question. The research shows that Nanotyrannus was nearly fully grown and not a juvenile T.…
Ten years after the first detection of gravitational waves from two merging black holes, the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA collaboration, which includes Columbia University astronomer Maximiliano Isi, has captured a remarkably similar event with far greater detail. Advances in detector sensitivity allowed the team to observe this latest collision almost four times more…
A unique opportunity to observe deep brain activity in a person with obesity and loss of control eating provided new insight into how tirzepatide, sold as Mounjaro and Zepbound, interacts with the brain. Recordings showed that the medication reduced activity in the brain’s reward center, a region linked to food…
An international group of scientists led by Professor Marc-Emmanuel Dumas at Imperial College London & CNRS, along with Prof. Patrice Cani (Imperial & University of Louvain, UCLouvain), Dr. Dominique Gauguier (Imperial & INSERM, Paris) and Prof. Peter Liu (University of Ottawa Heart Institute), has identified an unexpected natural compound that…
A Mayo Clinic study reports that current genetic screening guidelines fall short in identifying the majority of individuals with familial hypercholesterolemia, an inherited condition that can lead to extremely high cholesterol and early heart disease. This disorder often moves quietly through family lines for many years. Although effective treatments exist,…
Many people assume a bowl of kale automatically counts as a nutritional powerhouse. However, without the right companion ingredient, that leafy salad may not deliver the benefits you expect. Fortunately, there is an easy fix. Researchers at the University of Missouri have identified a simple (and tasty) way to help…
Inside every human cell, an extraordinary feat of molecular organization takes place. Roughly six feet of DNA has to be packed into a nucleus that is only about one-tenth the width of a human hair, yet the DNA must remain accessible enough to carry out essential functions. To make this…
A recent study reports that using reduced amounts of approved immunotherapy for malignant melanoma may lead to better control of tumors while also limiting side effects. The findings come from researchers at Karolinska Institutet and were published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. “The results are highly interesting…
In a major step forward for neurobiology and bioelectronics, scientists at Northwestern University have created a wireless device that uses light to transmit information directly into the brain. The technology bypasses traditional sensory routes in the body and instead delivers signals straight to neurons. The device is soft and flexible,…
A study published in the scientific journal Communications Earth & Environment proposes that volcanic activity may have contributed to the rapid movement of the Black Death across medieval Europe. According to the researchers, cooling associated with this eruption triggered a period of famine. In response, Italian city states began bringing…
“Why are we here?” remains one of the most enduring questions humans have posed. One way scientists approach this idea is by tracing where the elements around us first formed. Many elements are created inside stars and in the explosive debris of supernovae, which scatter this material across space, but…
Garlic extract has been found to offer antimicrobial effects that are on par with commonly used antiseptics and disinfectants such as chlorhexidine, according to medical researchers at the University of Sharjah. The study, published in the Journal of Herbal Medicine, reports that garlic-based mouthwash may produce more discomfort than chlorhexidine…
A new analysis by evolutionary anthropologists Colin Shaw (University of Zurich) and Daniel Longman (Loughborough University) argues that the modern world has developed faster than human biology can adapt. Their work proposes that chronic stress and many widespread health concerns stem from a fundamental mismatch between our nature-shaped physiology and…
Lowering blood sugar and increasing fat burning without reducing appetite or muscle mass is emerging as a promising possibility in the treatment of type 2 diabetes and obesity. These encouraging results come from a study published in Cell by researchers at Karolinska Institutet and Stockholm University. The treatment, which is…
For more than 100 years, an unusually cold pool of water south of Greenland has stood out against the overall warming of the Atlantic Ocean. This persistent chill has prompted long-running scientific debate. A new study now points to a long-term weakening of a major ocean circulation system as the…
