Reporting world updates to you
Omega fatty acids could protect against Alzheimer’s disease in women, new research has found. Analysis of lipids – fat molecules that perform many essential functions in the body – in the blood found there was a noticeable loss of unsaturated fats, such as those that contain omega fatty acids, in…
Astronomers at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian have proposed a new explanation for some of the universe’s most puzzling early galaxies, nicknamed “little red dots.” In the study, published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, Authors Fabio Pacucci and Abraham (Avi) Loeb suggest that these galaxies are the…
Astronomers used a UC Santa Cruz-led AI system to detect a rare supernova, SN 2023zkd, within hours of its explosion, allowing rapid follow-up observations before the fleeting event faded. Evidence suggests the blast was triggered by a massive star’s catastrophic encounter with a black hole companion, either partially swallowing the…
We’re often told it is “unscientific” or “meaningless” to ask what happened before the Big Bang. But a new paper by FQxI cosmologist Eugene Lim, of King’s College London, UK, and astrophysicists Katy Clough, of Queen Mary University of London, UK, and Josu Aurrekoetxea, at Oxford University, UK, published in…
The world will warm more than expected due to future changes in ozone, which protects Earth from harmful sun rays but also traps heat as it is a greenhouse gas. While banning ozone-destroying gases such as CFCs has helped the ozone layer to recover, when combined with increased air pollution…
To build a large-scale quantum computer that works, scientists and engineers need to overcome the spontaneous errors that quantum bits, or qubits, create as they operate. Scientists encode these building blocks of quantum information to suppress errors in other qubits so that a minority can operate in a way that…
A University of Queensland study suggests the antivenom given to people bitten by Eastern Brown Snakes may not be as effective as it could be, prompting a review of hospital cases. Professor Bryan Fry from UQ’s School of the Environment led a team which assessed the blood-clotting toxins in venoms…
It’s a fact of life: Some people age better than others. Some ease into their 90s with mind and body intact, while others battle diabetes, Alzheimer’s or mobility issues decades earlier. Some can withstand a bad fall or bout of the flu with ease, while others never leave the hospital…
A team of scientists from Korea and Japan has discovered a new type of crystal that can “breathe” — releasing and absorbing oxygen repeatedly at relatively low temperatures. This unique ability could transform the way we develop clean energy technologies, including fuel cells, energy-saving windows, and smart thermal devices. The…
A team of international scientists has discovered new fossils at a field site in Africa that indicate Australopithecus, and the oldest specimens of Homo, coexisted at the same place in Africa at the same time — between 2.6 and 2.8 million years ago. The paleoanthropologists discovered a new species of…
Researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have found that prenatal exposure to acetaminophen may increase the risk of neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism spectrum disorder and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), in children. The study, published on August 14 in BMC Environmental Health, is the first to apply the rigorous…
Research team: “This discovery reveals the world’s earliest known human fossil showing morphological traits of both of these human groups, which until recently were considered two separate human species. The current study shows that the five-year-old child’s skeleton is the result of continuous genetic infiltration from the local — and…
An international team of scientists, co-led by researchers at the University of Florida and Trinity College Dublin, has cracked a decades-old mystery in human biology: how our bodies absorb a micronutrient that we rely on for everything from healthy brain function to cancer defense. Queuosine – pronounced “cue-o-scene” – is…
Researchers have identified key factors that influence the flavor of chocolate during the cocoa bean fermentation process, a discovery that could offer chocolate producers a powerful tool to craft consistently high-quality, flavor-rich chocolate. Scientists from the University of Nottingham’s School of Biosciences examined how cacao bean temperature, pH, and microbial…
Astronomers from Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, have discovered a vast and expanding bubble of gas and dust surrounding a red supergiant star – the largest structure of its kind ever seen in the Milky Way. The bubble, which contains as much mass as the Sun, was blown out in…
A Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) review of data collected from near-Earth asteroids Bennu and Ryugu supports the hypothesis that they were originally part of the Polana collisional family in the main asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. The study compared spectroscopy data from Polana with spacecraft and…
Southwest Research Institute led a James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) survey, discovering a previously unknown tiny moon orbiting Uranus. A team led by SwRI’s Dr. Maryame El Moutamid discovered the small object in a series of images taken on Feb. 2, 2025, bringing Uranus’ total moon count to 29. “As…
An international team of scientists, led by Northwestern University astrophysicists, has detected a never-before-seen type of exploding star, or supernova, that is rich with silicon, sulfur and argon. When massive stars explode, astrophysicists typically find strong signatures of light elements, such as hydrogen and helium. But the newly discovered supernova,…
The size of our universe and the bodies within it is incomprehensible for us lowly humans. The sun has a mass that is more than 330,000 that of our Earth, and yet there are stars in the universe that completely dwarf our sun. Stars with masses more than eight times…
The odds of high-severity wildfire were nearly one-and-a-half times higher on industrial private land than on publicly owned forests, a new study found. Forests managed by timber companies were more likely to exhibit the conditions that megafires love — dense stands of regularly spaced trees with continuous vegetation connecting the…
More trees will cool the climate and suppress fires, but mainly if planted in the tropics, according to a new UC Riverside study. The study, published in npj Climate and Atmospheric Science, found that tree planting is generally a net positive for the climate because it helps pull warming carbon…
Today’s NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope Picture of the Week offers a closeup of a nearby spiral galaxy. The subject is NGC 2835, which lies 35 million light-years away in the constellation Hydra (The Water Snake). A previous Hubble image of this galaxy was released in 2020, and the NASA/ESA/CSA James…
Aging is particularly harsh on the hippocampus — the brain region responsible for learning and memory. Now, researchers at UC San Francisco have identified a protein that’s at the center of this decline. They looked at how the genes and proteins in the hippocampus changed over time in mice and…
New research finds that Marine Protected Areas can boost the recovery of globally important kelp forests following marine heatwaves. The findings are published in the British Ecological Society’s Journal of Applied Ecology. Using four decades of satellite images, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) researchers have looked at impacts Marine…
When you visit a doctor, you expect them to listen. But in today’s fast-paced health care system, real listening — the kind that makes you feel seen, heard and understood — can be the first thing to go. A new article, co-authored by Dr. Leonard Berry of Texas A&M University’s…
Research led by investigators at Mass General Brigham suggests that the health benefits of more aggressive blood pressure control outweigh concerns about overtreating people with high blood pressure readings. Results of the simulation study are published in Annals of Internal Medicine. The study used data from the Systolic Blood Pressure…
Science News from research organizations Researchers used neuroimaging and virtual reality to identify two brain regions that help people maintain their sense of direction while moving around. Date: August 20, 2025 Source: Society for Neuroscience Summary: Researchers discovered two brain regions that work as a “neural compass,” keeping people oriented…
Reproductive timing matters when it comes to aging and age-related disease. In a study now online at eLife¸ Buck researchers determine that girls who go through puberty (the onset of menstruation) before the age of 11 or women who give birth before the age of 21 have double the risk…
August 19 marks the publication by two different studies presenting the near-complete reference genomes of the central bearded dragon (Pogona vitticeps), a widely distributed species of dragon lizard common in central eastern Australia and popular as pets in Europe, Asia, and North America. This species has an unusual trait for an…
NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has directly observed magnetic reconnection in the Sun’s atmosphere for the first time, confirming decades-old theories about solar explosions. This discovery bridges small-scale events near Earth with massive solar eruptions that shape space weather. The data provides crucial insights to improve predictions of solar storms that…
