Top Science News

Apr. 17, 2025 — How do we learn new things? Neurobiologists using cutting-edge visualization techniques have revealed how changes across our synapses and neurons unfold. The findings depict how information is processed in our brain's circuitry, offering insights for neurological disorders and brain-like AI ...

Apr. 18, 2025 — A new smart insole system that monitors how people walk in real time could help users improve posture and provide early warnings for conditions from plantar fasciitis to Parkinson's ...

Apr. 16, 2025 — Affectionate mothering in childhood may have a lasting impact on important personality traits, potentially influencing life outcomes such as educational achievement, economic success, and health and well-being, according to new research. The findings suggest that positive maternal parenting could foster important traits such as openness, conscientiousness and ...

Apr. 18, 2025 — New research finds that despite large rivers and seas of liquid methane, Saturn's moon Titan seems mostly devoid of river deltas, raising new questions about the surface dynamics on this alien ...

Apr. 16, 2025 — A new study suggests the universe may rotate -- just extremely slowly. The finding could help solve one of astronomy's biggest ...

Apr. 16, 2025 — A recently created RoboBee is now outfitted with its most reliable landing gear to date, inspired by one of nature's most graceful landers: the crane fly. The team has given their flying robot a set of long, jointed legs that help ease its transition from air to ground. The robot has also received an updated controller that helps it decelerate on approach, resulting in a gentle ...

Apr. 16, 2025 — Why do comets and their meteoroid streams weave in and out of Earth's orbit and their orbits disperse over time? Researchers show that this is not due to the random pull of the planets, but rather the kick they receive from a moving ...

Apr. 18, 2025 — Scientists report adaptive divergence in cryptic color pattern is underlain by two distinct, complex chromosomal rearrangements, where millions of bases of DNA were flipped backwards and moved from one part of a chromosome to another, independently in populations of stick insects on different ...

Apr. 17, 2025 — Three consecutive years of drought contributed to the 'Barbarian Conspiracy', a pivotal moment in the history of Roman Britain, a new study reveals. Researchers argue that Picts, Scotti and Saxons took advantage of famine and societal breakdown caused by an extreme period of drought to inflict crushing blows on weakened Roman defenses in 367 CE. ...

Apr. 17, 2025 — A professor's casual hike in the High Sierra turned into a new elevation record for California's highest tree, the Jeffrey pine, which wasn't formerly known to grow at extreme ...

Apr. 16, 2025 — An international team of scientists and crew on board Schmidt Ocean Institute's research vessel Falkor (too) was the first to film the colossal squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni) in its natural environment. The 30-centimeter juvenile squid (nearly one foot long) was captured on video at a depth of 600 meters (1968 feet) by the Institute's remotely operated vehicle (ROV) SuBastian. The sighting ...

Apr. 18, 2025 — A new study provides solutions to the pressing need to identify factors that influence Alzheimer's disease (AD) risk or resistance while providing an avenue to explore potential biological markers and therapeutic targets. The researchers integrated computational and functional approaches that enabled them to identify not only specific genes whose ...

Apr. 18, 2025 — A new study suggests that early-life exposure to two widespread environmental pollutants -- small particle air pollution and outdoor artificial light at night -- could increase the risk of pediatric thyroid cancer. The study found a 'significant association' between exposure to ambient fine particulate matter air pollution (PM2.5) and outdoor ...

Apr. 18, 2025 — For adults over the age of 65, higher levels of both insomnia symptoms and sleep medication use were associated with higher risk of disability a year later, according to a new ...

Apr. 18, 2025 — A new study by biomedical engineers and neuroscientists shows that the brain's visual regions play an active role in making sense of ...

Apr. 18, 2025 — Sticking to an exercise routine is a challenge many people face. But a research team is using machine learning to uncover what keeps individuals committed to their ...

Apr. 18, 2025 — New research has found that nearly half of the time American children spend with their grandparents involves interacting with or watching media on a screen. How that screen time is managed can influence media habits and impact family ...

Apr. 18, 2025 — Researchers have demonstrated that intensified environmental variability (EV) can promote the evolution of cooperation through simulation based on evolutionary game theory. This result offers a new perspective for the reinterpretation of the variability selection hypothesis (VSH), which attributes improvement in human cognitive abilities to severe ...

Apr. 18, 2025 — A team led by researchers say public ignorance and apathy towards bird flu (highly pathogenic avian influenza, or HPAI) could pose a serious obstacle to containing the virus and preventing a larger-scale public health ...

Apr. 16, 2025 — A new study suggests that climate trauma -- such as experiencing a devastating wildfire -- can have lasting effects on cognitive ...

Apr. 16, 2025 — There's a sensation that you experience -- near a plane taking off or a speaker bank at a concert -- from a sound so total that you feel it in your very being. When this happens, not only do your brain and ears perceive it, but your cells may also. Technically speaking, sound is a simple phenomenon, consisting of compressional mechanical waves transmitted through substances, which exists ...

Apr. 16, 2025 — Step tracking with mindfulness training delivered via a mobile app boosts people's desire to ...

Apr. 18, 2025 — A research team develops high-power, high-energy-density anode using nano-sized tin particles and hard ...

Apr. 18, 2025 — An international research team has discovered the anomalous Hall effect in a collinear antiferromagnet. More strikingly, the anomalous Hall effect emerges from a non-Fermi liquid state, in which electrons do not interact according to conventional models. The discovery not only challenges the textbook framework for interpreting the anomalous Hall ...

Apr. 18, 2025 — A team has developed a soft, thin-film ABI. The device uses micrometer-scale platinum electrodes embedded in silicone, forming a pliable array just a fraction of a millimeter thick. This novel approach enables better tissue contact, potentially preventing off-target nerve activation and reducing side ...

Apr. 18, 2025 — Researchers have developed a new coronagraph that could make it possible to see distant exoplanets obscured by light from their parent ...

Apr. 16, 2025 — Scientists have designed a 'cosmic radio' detector which could discover dark matter in 15 ...

Apr. 15, 2025 — Extreme cosmic events such as colliding black holes or the explosions of stars can cause ripples in spacetime, so-called gravitational waves. Their discovery opened a new window into the universe. To observe them, ultra-precise detectors are required. Designing them remains a major scientific challenge for humans. Researchers have been working on how an artificial intelligence system could ...

Apr. 15, 2025 — First ever supercomputer simulations of Mars with a fully molten core could explain the Red Planet's unusual magnetic field. Billions of years ago, Mars had an active magnetic field. Mysteriously, its imprint is strongest in the southern hemisphere. Researchers found that Mars could have produced a one-sided magnetic field with a fully molten core, rather than the traditional, Earth-like solid ...

Apr. 17, 2025 — A study has found a rare form of one-dimensional quantum magnetism in a metallic compound, offering evidence into a phase space that has remained, until now, largely theoretical. The study comes at a time of growing global interest in quantum materials that redefine the boundaries between magnetism, conductivity, and quantum ...

Apr. 17, 2025 — Scientists have created the first neutron 'Airy beam,' which has unusual capabilities that ordinary neutron beams do not. The achievement could enhance neutron-based techniques for investigating the properties of materials that are difficult to explore by other means. For example, the beams can probe characteristics of molecules such as chirality, which is important in biotechnology, chemical ...

Apr. 16, 2025 — Physicists have created a compact laser that emits extremely bright, short pulses of light in a useful but difficult-to-achieve wavelength range, packing the performance of larger photonic devices onto a single ...

Apr. 15, 2025 — A team has developed an explainable AI model for automatic collision avoidance between ...

Apr. 18, 2025 — A new study opens new avenues for combating soybean cyst nematodes, the most damaging pest for U.S. soybean ...

Apr. 17, 2025 — Lake ecosystems can receive high inputs of terrestrial organic matter (t-OM) that microbes make available to higher trophic level consumers. A research group examined terrestrial reliance of 19 consumer groups from 35 boreal lakes using stable isotopes of hydrogen. According to the study, benthic macroinvertebrates and the benthivorous fish reliance to terrestrial energy (allochthony) was higher ...

Apr. 17, 2025 — From the Japanese cypress to the ponderosa pine, wood has been used in construction for millennia. Though materials like steel and concrete have largely taken over large building construction, wood is making a comeback, increasingly being used in public and multi-story buildings for its environmental benefits. Of course, wood has often been passed ...

Apr. 18, 2025 — Researchers posed a seemingly simple question: how wide are ...

Apr. 17, 2025 — The consequences of wildfires in or near urban areas go beyond the damage to buildings and ecosystems, to the threat of contamination of drinking water according to water quality and treatment ...

Apr. 17, 2025 — A new butterfly species, Satyrium curiosolus, was discovered in a recent study at Blakiston Fan in Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta. It has unique evolutionary history, having likely remained in isolation for up to 40,000 years, leading to flatlined genetic diversity and exceptionally high levels of inbreeding. Due to its specific ecological associations and low genetic diversity, this ...

Apr. 17, 2025 — A new study has investigated how the relationship between mean annual precipitation (MAP) and grassland biomass changes when one or more nutrients are added. The authors show that precipitation and nutrient availability are the key drivers of plant biomass, while the effects of plant diversity are ...

Apr. 16, 2025 — Researchers examined teeth and skulls of 99 extinct crocodylomorph species and 20 living crocodylian species to reconstruct their dietary ecology and identify characteristics that helped some groups persist through two mass extinctions. They discovered that one secret tocrocodylian longevity is their remarkably flexible lifestyles, both in what they eat and the habitat in which they get ...

Apr. 11, 2025 — Earth's rocky layers are mysteriously low in nitrogen compared with carbon and argon. A scientific team explored our planet's molten youth using advanced quantum mechanical simulations, revealing nitrogen's secret: under extreme pressure, it chose to hide in the iron core 100 times more than the mantle. This solved why Earth's volatile ratios ...

Apr. 14, 2025 — There are roof shapes and ratios that maximize heat retainment and energy efficiency and, interestingly, ancient Italian architects and builders seemed to know it, ...

Apr. 14, 2025 — We're living in a period where the gap between rich and poor is dramatic, and it's continuing to widen. But inequality is nothing new. In a new study researchers compared house size distributions from more than 1,000 sites around the world, covering the last 10,000 years. They found that while inequality is widespread throughout human history, ...

Apr. 16, 2025 — Researchers developed a machine-learning-guided technique to solve complex, long-horizon planning problems more efficiently than some traditional approaches, while arriving at an optimal solution that better meets a user's ...

Apr. 16, 2025 — Switching from diesel to electric trains dramatically improved the air quality aboard the San Francisco Bay Area's Caltrain commuter rail line, reducing riders' exposure to the carcinogen black carbon by an average of 89%, finds a new study. The electrification of the system also significantly reduced the ambient black carbon concentrations within and around the San Francisco ...

Apr. 16, 2025 — The simple act of looking at a piece of visual art can boost your wellbeing, a new research study has found, and this benefit can be gained in a hospital setting as well as an art ...

Apr. 15, 2025 — The human brain can learn through experience to filter out disturbing and distracting stimuli -- such as a glaring roadside billboard or a flashing banner on the internet. Scientists have used electroencephalography (EEG) to show that early visual processing in humans changes with repeated ...

Apr. 14, 2025 — Researchers have developed and tested an intervention called Counter-Attitudinal Advocacy and compared it to to the well-established Personalized Normative Feedback (PNF) to evaluate their effectiveness in decreasing drinks per week, peak blood alcohol concentration and alcohol-related consequences relative to a control ...

Apr. 11, 2025 — Millions of U.S. children have asthma and benefit from taking anti-inflammatory medications at least once a day as prescribed by their health care provider. This school-based asthma therapy program enables school nurses to help students take their medications on schedule. A study has found that it can save thousands of dollars per student in medical costs. Participating students are healthier ...

Apr. 10, 2025 — Risky driving by parents and other motorists who do the school run is putting children in danger, according to a new ...

Apr. 11, 2025 — The UK government needs to go beyond offering subsidies for low-carbon technologies (LCTs) like electric cars and solar panels for energy and heating, if it is to meet its net-zero targets by 2050, a report ...

Apr. 10, 2025 — DECOTA transforms open-ended survey responses into clear themes -- helping policymakers make better use of underutilised public ...

Apr. 14, 2025 — Researchers have developed a new forecasting model that helps companies more accurately estimate how many customers are interested in a product -- even when key data is missing. The study introduces a mathematical modeling method that enables businesses to estimate customer interest beyond just completed transactions and traditional forecasting techniques. The approach offers a more precise way ...

Apr. 9, 2025 — In a new article, researchers explored whether a worker can create a psychological contract with a non-human agent in the form of an algorithm that mediates their relationship with an ...