Your brain may not actually “make” decisions

What we experience when making a decision may be very different from what actually happens inside the brain, according to Indiana University Professor Tom James. For decades, both scientific theories and everyday intuition have tended to describe decision-making as a sequence. First we perceive something, then we think about it…

Forces deep inside Earth helped Antarctica freeze before the Arctic

Scientists have found a new explanation for why Antarctica became covered in ice millions of years before the Arctic. The international study, published in Science, addresses a long-standing climate mystery: how Antarctica could develop a massive ice sheet at a time when Earth was around 5ºC warmer than it is…

Allagamenti e tornado al nord, rovente il centro sud – Notizie – Ansa.it

Un ciclista è stato travolto dalla piena del torrente Cervo al guado di Castelletto Cervo, nel Biellese, dal lato di Mottalciata, e sono in corso le ricerche. L’incidente è avvenuto intorno alle 5.30 e il personale della protezione civile, presente per il monitoraggio della piena, ha notato l’uomo nei pressi…

Shingles vaccine linked to 24% lower dementia risk

Older adults who received a shingles vaccine after entering a skilled nursing facility were less likely to be diagnosed with dementia over the following four years, according to a new study. Researchers found that vaccinated adults had a 24% lower risk of dementia compared with those who did not receive…

Supercharged “natural killer” cells could be a powerful new cancer weapon

Cell therapies that harness the immune system have transformed treatment for some cancers of the blood and lymphatic system. Solid tumors, however, have remained much more difficult to treat because they are harder for immune cells to enter and can release signals that weaken nearby immune defenses. Researchers at Stanford…

A Manhattan-sized ice island just broke free from Greenland

Europe’s Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission has documented a major change at Petermann Glacier in northwest Greenland, where a 76 sq km section of the glacier’s floating ice tongue broke away on August 4, 2026. The break represents Petermann Glacier’s largest loss of floating ice since 2012 and the biggest calving event…

Atomic catalyst unlocks the hidden value of plant waste

Lignin gives plants much of their structural strength and represents the largest renewable source of aromatic chemicals found in nature. It can make up a substantial share (up to 35%) of waste biomass from agriculture and forestry. Yet lignin’s complicated molecular structure makes it notoriously difficult to break apart efficiently,…

Scientists find hidden “highways” guiding animal evolution

A human, an octopus, and a coral may appear to have almost nothing in common, but their chromosomes still contain recognizable fragments inherited from an animal ancestor that lived more than 600 million years ago. Researchers at the University of Vienna have now traced how those ancient genomic pieces were…

NASA finds Earth microbes could survive on the Moon

NASA scientists say some microbes carried into space by human explorers may be able to survive in sheltered, shadowed areas near the Moon’s South Pole. The findings, published on Aug. 19, 2026, in Science Advances, underscore the importance of understanding how long Earth microbes can persist in extreme lunar environments.…