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August 31, 2026

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Aug. 31, 2026 Two widely used zero-calorie sweeteners, sucralose and stevia, may have effects that linger far longer than the sweet taste itself. In mice, researchers found that both sweeteners altered the gut microbiome, reduced beneficial compounds produced by ...

Scientists Discover Two Superconducting States Hiding as One

Aug. 31, 2026 Scientists have uncovered hidden complexity inside two ultrathin superconductors that seemed much simpler than they really are. Niobium diselenide and tantalum disulfide appeared to have a single superconducting state, but highly sensitive ...

Fossil Feet May Be Misleading Scientists About Human Evolution

Aug. 31, 2026 Wild monkeys in West Africa can climb vertical tree trunks using foot flexibility scientists did not realize they possessed. The discovery challenges a key assumption about what the last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees looked like and how ...

NASA’s Roman Space Telescope Launches to Reveal the Universe’s Darkest Secrets

Aug. 31, 2026 NASA’s Roman Space Telescope has launched on a million mile journey to L2, where it will scan huge portions of the cosmos for clues about dark matter, dark energy, and distant worlds. With survey ...

Rocky Planets May Have Formed Just 100 Million Years After the Big Bang

Aug. 31, 2026 Rocky planets may have been able to start forming just 100 million years after the Big Bang, thanks to enormous early supernovae that scattered planet-building elements across space. Simulations found enough solid material and water around a young ...

Scientists Discover Diamonds Can Generate Electricity

Aug. 31, 2026 Diamond was thought to be incapable of producing electricity through mechanical deformation, but ultrathin flexible diamond membranes have now shown a strong and repeatable piezoelectric effect. The unexpected discovery could open the door to ...

1.4-million-year-old Footprints Reveal a Surprisingly Large Human Relative

Aug. 30, 2026 Ancient footprints in Kenya reveal that eight Paranthropus boisei may have traveled together 1.4 million years ago, with some individuals reaching surprisingly large, human-like body sizes. The tracks offer a rare glimpse of their social behavior ...

This Strange “Spacetime Crystal” Can Suddenly Become a Black Hole

Aug. 30, 2026 Physicists have mathematically captured a bizarre “spacetime crystal” that can either dissolve or collapse into a microscopic black hole after only a tiny change in energy. Their breakthrough came from an unusual trick involving infinitely many ...

HEPA Air Purifiers May Boost Brain Function After Just One Month

Aug. 30, 2026 Adults aged 40 and older performed about 12% faster on a test of executive function after using a HEPA air purifier at home for one month. The findings suggest that cleaner indoor air could offer a simple way to help protect the brain from the ...

Hundreds of Hidden Earthquakes Found at Antarctica’s Doomsday Glacier

Aug. 30, 2026 Hundreds of previously overlooked seismic events have been detected beneath Antarctica, including 245 near the marine edge of the Thwaites Glacier. Many appear to be glacial earthquakes caused when huge icebergs break off, capsize, and collide with ...

Scientists Discover a Massive Heat Anomaly Deep Inside Mars

Aug. 30, 2026 Mars has a hidden temperature divide, with its southern interior potentially hundreds of degrees hotter than the north and partially molten. The discovery could help explain several long-standing Martian mysteries, including unusual magnetism, ...

A New Recipe Unlocks “Impossible” Nanocrystals for LEDs, Implants, and Superconductors

Aug. 30, 2026 Scientists have cracked a long-standing chemistry problem, creating nanocrystals from tough metal nitrides that were previously extremely difficult to produce at this scale. The breakthrough could ...

Latest Headlines

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Scientists Challenge a 70-Year-Old “lizard Brain” Myth

Aug. 31, 2026 A long-standing picture of brain evolution as newer, rational layers stacked on top of an ancient “lizard brain” may be deeply misleading. Researchers found that evolution instead appears to ...

Seven New Frog Species Were Hiding Beneath Madagascar’s Forest Floor

Aug. 30, 2026 Scientists have discovered seven new species of Madagascar’s elusive diamond frogs, using DNA from modern and century-old museum specimens to solve a long-running biological puzzle. The findings ...

Ancient Egyptian Princesses Were Buried With Weapons. Their Bones Reveal Why

Aug. 30, 2026 Weapons buried with ancient Egyptian princesses may have been more than ceremonial decorations. Researchers studying royal mummies from Dahshur found ...

Researchers Unveil Sustainable Spirulina Solution to Vitamin B12 Deficiency

Aug. 30, 2026 Researchers have produced a form of Spirulina containing biologically active vitamin B12 at levels comparable to beef. By carefully controlling the light used to grow the algae, they overcame a major ...

The Next Cascadia Megaquake Could Hit Oregon Harder Than Expected

Aug. 30, 2026 The Juan de Fuca plate beneath northern Oregon appears to be shallower than previously estimated, potentially making shaking from a future Cascadia megathrust earthquake significantly stronger. ...

Some Signs of Quantum Gravity May Be an Illusion

Aug. 29, 2026 Quantum mechanics and Einstein’s theory of gravity explain almost everything we see in nature, yet physicists still do not know how to unite them. A new theoretical framework suggests that some ...

A Cancer Therapy Put Severe Rheumatoid Arthritis Into Remission

Aug. 29, 2026 CAR T-cell therapy dramatically reduced disease activity in six people with severe rheumatoid arthritis that had resisted other treatments, with three achieving medication-free remission. The ...

Dogs May Hold Surprising Clues to Human Longevity

Aug. 29, 2026 Dogs and humans may have more in common when it comes to aging than scientists realized. Researchers with the Dog Aging Project found that patterns of small molecules in dogs’ blood were linked to ...

Scientists Turn One of the Hardest Plastics to Recycle Into High-Performance Engine Lubricant

Aug. 29, 2026 Researchers have discovered a way to turn notoriously difficult-to-recycle PVC plastic into a key ingredient used in high-performance lubricants such ...

The Universe Is Still Speeding Up, but Nobody Knows Why

Aug. 29, 2026 A major new analysis challenges recent claims that the universe's expansion is slowing, finding that the evidence for cosmic acceleration remains strong. The findings preserve the leading role of ...

Keto Diet Cut Liver Fat by 67% in a Clinical Trial

Aug. 29, 2026 A ketogenic diet outperformed Mediterranean and low-fat diets in several measures of metabolic health during a clinical trial involving people with obesity, prediabetes, and fatty liver disease. All ...

NASA’s Roman Telescope Will See 100 Times More Sky Than Hubble

Aug. 28, 2026 NASA’s Roman Space Telescope will combine Hubble-like detail with a field of view 100 times larger, giving astronomers a sweeping new way to explore the cosmos. Its observations could uncover ...

Why Scientists Asked 1,000 People to Bury Their Underwear

Aug. 28, 2026 More than 1,000 volunteers buried cotton underwear across Switzerland to help scientists measure how active different soils are. The faster the fabric disappeared, the more biological activity was ...

Scientists Find a Huge Hidden Ice Reservoir Beneath Utah’s Mountains

Aug. 27, 2026 Beneath the rocky slopes of Mount Timpanogos lies far more ice than anyone walking across the surface might suspect. Researchers used gravity measurements to map the buried glacier in 3D and found it ...

324-Million-Year-Old Fossil Reveals How Insects Conquered Land

Aug. 27, 2026 Ancient fossils suggest insects conquered land through a long amphibious phase rather than making an abrupt jump from water to dry ground. A newly identified 324-million-year-old species still ...

AI Searched 100 Million Possibilities and Found a Cheaper Way to 3D-Print a NASA Rocket Alloy

Aug. 27, 2026 Researchers used AI to search through more than 100 million possible settings for 3D-printing a high-performance NASA alloy. After only 40 experiments, the system identified six successful ...

NASA’s Roman Space Telescope Is Ready to Hunt Thousands of Alien Worlds

Aug. 26, 2026 NASA’s Roman Space Telescope is now enclosed inside its Falcon Heavy fairing and nearly ready for launch. Its mission could uncover thousands of exoplanets while helping scientists investigate dark ...

Bird Flu Is Spreading. Your Backyard Feeder Could Make It Worse

Aug. 24, 2026 Backyard bird feeders could become unexpected hotspots for H5N1 as Australia’s bird flu outbreak spreads, bringing species together in ways that rarely occur naturally. Experts say stopping feeding ...

Scientists May Have Finally Caught “empty” Space Changing Light

Aug. 26, 2026 A magnetar with an astonishingly powerful magnetic field may have revealed a quantum effect predicted by Werner Heisenberg nearly 90 years ago. Its light shows signs that supposedly empty space is ...

Scientists Turn Tiny “defects” Into a 5.5x Heat Transfer Boost

Aug. 23, 2026 Scientists have developed an ultrathin coating that could dramatically improve how efficiently heat is transferred during condensation. By turning tiny polymer structures once considered ...

A Manhattan-Sized Ice Island Just Broke Free from Greenland

Aug. 25, 2026 A huge section of Greenland’s Petermann Glacier has snapped off, forming an ice island about the size of Manhattan. Satellites watched cracks spread rapidly before the 76-square-kilometer slab ...

NASA Is About to Launch a Powerful New Eye on the Universe

Aug. 24, 2026 NASA’s Roman Space Telescope has been cleared for final launch preparations ahead of a targeted August 30 liftoff aboard SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy. The powerful new observatory will probe cosmic ...

Trump to Award Congressional Space Medal of Honor to Artemis II Astronauts

Aug. 24, 2026 The Artemis II crew will receive the Congressional Space Medal of Honor after becoming the first humans in more than 50 years to travel beyond the Moon. Their 10-day Orion mission also carried them ...

Depression May Shut Down the Brain’s Ability to Make New Neurons

Aug. 25, 2026 A major study found that adults with depression show disrupted production of new neurons in the hippocampus, potentially weakening the brain’s ability to separate new experiences from painful ...

Experimental Compound Helps Burn Fat Without Muscle Loss

Aug. 23, 2026 A decades-old compound may point to a new way of treating obesity by making the body burn more energy rather than simply reducing appetite. In mice, TOFA increased energy use by as much as 18%, ...

A Tiny “rainbow on a Chip” Could Help Supercharge 6G Networks

Aug. 24, 2026 Researchers have created a tiny chip that produces a stable “rainbow” of light capable of generating multiple high-frequency signals at once, potentially boosting the speed and capacity of future ...

A Hidden “on Switch” in Human DNA Has Finally Been Decoded

Aug. 23, 2026 Researchers have used AI to uncover the DNA signature of a key genetic “switch” involved in turning genes on. After analyzing about 500,000 DNA sequences, the model identified the initiator in ...

JWST Finds Early Galaxies May Be 4 Times More Massive Than Thought

Aug. 22, 2026 Astronomers using JWST have discovered that massive early galaxies contain far more small, faint stars than expected. That hidden population could make some of these galaxies three to four times more ...

Scientists Find Hidden “highways” Guiding Animal Evolution

Aug. 25, 2026 A sweeping analysis of thousands of animal genomes suggests that chromosomes do not evolve randomly but instead follow a limited number of irreversible “evolutionary highways.” These one-way ...

Physicists Create a Tiny “Big Bang” With Surprisingly Small Atomic Nuclei

Aug. 23, 2026 Researchers at CERN have created microscopic versions of the early Universe by colliding surprisingly small atomic nuclei at nearly the speed of light. The collisions produced quark-gluon plasma, the ...