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A greedy white dwarf star not far from Earth is devouring its closest celestial companion at a rate never seen before, space scientists have discovered. Their study found the double star, named V Sagittae, is burning unusually bright as the super-dense white dwarf is gorging on its larger twin in…
Physicists have long believed that black holes explode at the end of their lives, and that such explosions happen — at most — only once every 100,000 years. But new research published in Physical Review Letters by physicists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst has found a more than 90%…
Study has revealed new insights into Stone Age life and death, showing that stone tools were just as likely to be buried with women and children as with men. The discovery, from Zvejnieki cemetery in northern Latvia, one of the largest Stone Age burial sites in Europe, challenges the idea…
In the Cretaceous period, Earth was plagued by widespread volcanic activity, oceanic oxygen depletion events, and mass extinctions. Fossils from that era remain and continue to give scientists clues as to what the climate may have looked like in different regions. Now, researchers in China have examined some of them:…
Ingredients of our daily diet – including caffeine – can influence the resistance of bacteria to antibiotics. This has been shown in a new study by a team of researchers at the Universities of Tübingen and Würzburg led by Professor Ana Rita Brochado. They discovered bacteria such as Escherichia coli…
This new NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope Picture of the Week features a cloudy starscape from an impressive star cluster. This scene is located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy situated about 160,000 light-years away in the constellations Dorado and Mensa. With a mass equal to 10-20% of the…
People with operable diffuse pleural mesothelioma may benefit from immunotherapy before and after surgery, based on results of a clinical trial exploring the sequence of treatment and the role of surgery for this difficult to treat cancer. Mesothelioma is a rare cancer that affects the tissue that lines many organs…
Cutting off blood flow can prematurely age the bone marrow, weakening the immune system’s ability to fight cancer, according to a new study from NYU Langone Health. Published online August 19 in JACC-CardioOncology, the study showed that peripheral ischemia-restricted blood flow in the arteries in the legs-caused breast tumors in…
An international team of astronomers has discovered a cosmic rarity: an ultra-massive white dwarf star resulting from a white dwarf merging with another star, rather than through the evolution of a single star. This discovery, made by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope’s sensitive ultraviolet observations, suggests these rare white dwarfs may…
An unusual cosmic object is helping scientists better understand the chemistry hidden deep in Jupiter and Saturn’s atmospheres — and potentially those of exoplanets. Why has silicon, one of the most common elements in the universe, gone largely undetected in the atmospheres of Jupiter, Saturn, and gas planets like them…
Data and images from NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover reveals that recently discovered rocks in Jezero crater are organic carbon bearing mudstones. The findings, detailed in a paper published in Nature, indicate that these mudstones experienced chemical processes that left behind colorful, enigmatic textures in the rock that represent potential biosignatures.…
A team of Canadian scientists has discovered a surprising new way to improve blood sugar levels and reduce liver damage: by trapping a little-known fuel made by gut bacteria before they wreak havoc on the body. The findings, published in Cell Metabolism on July 29, 2025, could open the door…
Glioblastoma is a devastatingly effective brain cancer. Doctors can cut it out or blast it with radiation, but that only buys time. The cancer has an insidious ability to hide enough tumor cells in tissue around the tumor to allow it to return as deadly as ever. Patients diagnosed with…
Recent findings, made by Griffith University researchers, show that early hominins made a major deep-sea crossing to reach the Indonesian island of Sulawesi much earlier than previously established, based on the discovery of stone tools dating to at least 1.04 million years ago at the Early Pleistocene (or ‘Ice Age’)…
About 80 percent of the universe’s mass is thought to consist of dark matter. And yet, little is known about the composition and structure of the particles that make up dark matter, presenting physicists with some fundamental questions. To explore this elusive matter, researchers are attempting to capture photons, or…
Analytical chemists from Stellenbosch University (SU) have provided the first evidence of a rare class of phenolics, called flavoalkaloids, in Cannabis leaves. Phenolic compounds, especially flavonoids, are well-known and sought after in the pharmaceutical industry because of their antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anti-carcinogenic properties. The researchers identified 79 phenolic compounds in…
Although metformin has been the go-to medication to manage type 2 diabetes for more than 60 years, researchers still do not have a complete picture of how it works. Scientists at Baylor College of Medicine and international collaborators have discovered a previously unrecognized new player mediating clinically relevant effects of…
A joint team from the University of Stuttgart in Germany and the University of Melbourne in Australia has developed a new method for the straightforward analysis of tiny nanoplastic particles in environmental samples. One needs only an ordinary optical microscope and a newly developed test strip — the optical sieve.…
Sweat and food stains can ruin your favorite clothes. But bleaching agents such as hydrogen peroxide or dry-cleaning solvents that remove stains aren’t options for all fabrics, especially delicate ones. Now, researchers in ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering report a simple way to remove yellow stains using a high-intensity blue…
In 2020, haunting images of corroded metal barrels in the deep ocean off Los Angeles leapt into the public consciousness. Initially linked to the toxic pesticide DDT, some barrels were encircled by ghostly halos in the sediment. It was unclear whether the barrels contained DDT waste, leaving the barrels’ contents…
A healthy diet can slow down the accumulation of chronic diseases in older adults, while inflammatory diets accelerate it. This is shown by a new study from Karolinska Institutet published in Nature Aging. Researchers have investigated how four different diets affect the accumulation of chronic diseases in older adults. Three…
In a landmark study of Hispanic and Latino adults, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine have identified a link between self-reported cognitive decline and blood-based biomarkers, which could pave the way for a simple blood test to help diagnose Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. This approach…
Women taking popular weight-loss medications during their reproductive years may be unaware of associated risks to pregnancy and unborn babies, warn Flinders University researchers. A new study has revealed that most Australian women of reproductive age prescribed GLP-1 receptor agonists — medications increasingly used for weight loss such as Ozempic…
Flathead catfish, opportunistic predators native to the Mississippi River basin, have the potential to decimate native and recreational fisheries, disrupting ecosystems in rivers where they become established after their introduction or invasion from a nearby river drainage. That concern led a team of researchers from Penn State, the U.S. Geological…
The spread of species beyond their native habitat is a human-made environmental change on a global scale. Among vascular plants, over 16,000 species have now permanently settled in foreign countries. The majority of these “naturalizations” has taken place since the 1950s and predominantly in regions with considerable human influence. Naturalized…
Among the tiniest living things in the ocean are a group of single celled microbes called Prochlorococcus. They are cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green algae, and they supply nutrients for animals all the way up the food chain. Over 75% of surface waters teem with Prochlorococcus, but as ocean temperatures…
Scientists have confirmed that East Antarctica’s interior is warming faster than its coastal areas and identified the cause. A 30-year study, published in Nature Communications and led by Nagoya University’s Naoyuki Kurita, has traced this warming to increased warm air flow triggered by temperature changes in the Southern Indian Ocean.…
Selecting the right spot to smash a spacecraft into the surface of a hazardous asteroid to deflect it must be done with great care, according to new research presented at the EPSC-DPS2025 Joint Meeting this week in Helsinki. Slamming into its surface indiscriminately runs the risk of knocking the asteroid…
Organic molecules detected in the watery plumes that spew out from cracks in the surface of Enceladus could be formed through exposure to radiation on Saturn’s icy moon, rather than originating from deep within its sub-surface ocean. The findings, presented during the EPSC-DPS2025 Joint Meeting in Helsinki this week, have…
A team of astronomers has detected for the first time a growing planet outside our solar system, embedded in a cleared gap of a multi-ringed disk of dust and gas. The team, led by University of Arizona astronomer Laird Close and Richelle van Capelleveen, an astronomy graduate student at Leiden…
