Top Science News

Jan. 16, 2025 — A new report shows the benefit of wearing contact lenses for slowing myopia has a lasting effect -- good news since 50% of the world (5 billion people) will likely be nearsighted by ...

Jan. 15, 2025 — Most treatments being pursued today to protect against Alzheimer's disease focus on amyloid plaques and tau tangles that accumulate in the brain, but new research points to a novel -- and noble -- approach: using Xenon gas. The study found that Xenon gas inhalation suppressed neuroinflammation, reduced brain atrophy, and increased protective neuronal states in mouse models of Alzheimer's disease. ...

Jan. 16, 2025 — Two new articles document progress in neuroprosthetic technology that lets people feel the shape and movement of objects moving over the 'skin' of a bionic ...

Jan. 16, 2025 — Galaxies like the Milky Way grow by merging with smaller galaxies over billions of years, unlike dwarf galaxies, which have long been thought to lack the heft to attract mass and grow in the same way. New observations challenge this view, suggesting that even dwarf galaxies can accrete mass from other small ...

Jan. 16, 2025 — Paper-thin optical lenses simple enough to mass produce like microchips could enable a new generation of compact optical devices. Researchers have fabricated and tested flat lenses called Fresnel zone plates (FZPs), but did so for the first time using only common semiconductor manufacturing equipment, the i-line stepper, for the first time. These flat lenses currently lack the efficiency of ...

Jan. 16, 2025 — Resembling the interlocking links in chainmail, novel nanoscale material is incredibly strong and flexible. The interlocked material contains 100 trillion mechanical bonds per 1 square centimeter -- the highest density of mechanical bonds ever achieved. Small amounts of the mechanically interlocked polymer added to Ultem fibers increased the high-performance material's ...

Jan. 16, 2025 — Leo P, a small galaxy and a distant neighbor of the Milky Way, is lighting the way for astronomers to better understand star formation and how a galaxy grows. Scientists have reported finding that Leo P 'reignited,' reactivating during a significant period on the timeline of the universe, producing stars when many other small galaxies ...

Jan. 16, 2025 — If corn was ever jealous of soybean's relationship with nitrogen-fixing bacteria, advancements in gene editing could one day even the playing field. A recent study shows that gene-edited bacteria can supply the equivalent of 35 pounds of nitrogen from the air during early corn growth, which may reduce the crop's reliance on nitrogen ...

Jan. 16, 2025 — New research reveals that drought and increased temperatures in a CO2-rich climate can dramatically alter how grasslands use and move water. The study provides the first experimental demonstration of the potential impacts of climate change on water movement through grassland ecosystems, which make up nearly 40% of Earth's land area and play a critical role in Earth's water ...

Jan. 16, 2025 — In an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary study, an international team examined the social risks for Arctic regions associated with thawing permafrost. They identified five key risks related to infrastructure, transport and supply, water quality, food security and health. The scientists found that the thawing permafrost posed an increased risk of exposure to infectious diseases and release of ...

Jan. 16, 2025 — Increasingly common since 1980, persistent multi-year droughts will continue to advance with the warming climate, warns a new study. This publicly available forty-year global quantitative inventory seeks to inform policy regarding the environmental impact of human-induced climate change. It also detected previously 'overlooked' ...

Jan. 16, 2025 — Scientists have unveiled insights into how HIV-1, the virus responsible for AIDS, skillfully hijacks cellular machinery for its own survival. By dissecting the molecular interplay between the virus and its host, the researchers identified novel strategies that HIV-1 employs to ensure its replication while suppressing the host's cellular ...

Jan. 16, 2025 — Researchers have discovered that bacteria can sense threats in advance through a general danger signal. Bacteria detect when nearby cells are dying and proactively form a protective biofilm. Understanding how bacteria communicate and respond to threats is crucial for combating ...

Jan. 16, 2025 — Two new studies have identified a possible way to block the progression of several forms of blood cancer using a drug already in clinical trials against breast ...

Jan. 14, 2025 — Waking up does not activate an increase in the release of the stress hormone cortisol. Cortisol does, however, increase in the hours prior to wakening as part of the body's preparation for the next day, new research has ...

Jan. 14, 2025 — Are humans or machines better at recognizing speech? A new study shows that in noisy conditions, current automatic speech recognition (ASR) systems achieve remarkable accuracy and sometimes even surpass human performance. However, the systems need to be trained on an incredible amount of data, while humans acquire comparable skills in less ...

Jan. 16, 2025 — Scientists have discovered a surprising mechanism by which the inherited genetic mutation known to cause Huntington's disease leads to the death of brain cells. The findings change the understanding of the fatal neurodegenerative disorder and suggest potential ways to delay or even prevent it. For 30 years, researchers have known that Huntington's ...

Jan. 16, 2025 — Studies have shown a persistent gender gap when it comes to wages -- disparities that stretch over decades. Past analyses have pointed to various causes for this discrepancy, but often overlooked is how such divides may surface early in life. In a related new study of boys and girls, a team of psychology researchers has found that despite holding similar views on the purpose and value of ...

Jan. 15, 2025 — Mosquitoes can survive prolonged droughts by drinking blood, which helps to explain why rates of mosquito-borne illness don't always decline in dry ...

Jan. 13, 2025 — Giving people better data about their energy use, plus some coaching, can help them substantially reduce their consumption and costs, according to a new ...

Jan. 15, 2025 — An international research team concludes that gentle touch is not only good for mental health, but also for the evolution of ...

Jan. 15, 2025 — A cutting-edge molecular approach provides a detailed picture of the biological pathways associated with childhood obesity and metabolic dysfunction, and identifies environmental risk factors during early ...

Jan. 16, 2025 — The robotics industry should be creating robots that could be reprogrammed and repurposed for other tasks once its life span is completed, researchers have ...

Jan. 16, 2025 — Scientists have used deep learning to design new proteins that bind to complexes involving other small molecules like hormones or drugs, opening up a world of possibilities in the computational design of molecular interactions for ...

Jan. 15, 2025 — A new initiative is challenging the conversation around the direction of artificial intelligence (AI). It charges that the current trajectory is inherently biased against non-Western modes of thinking about intelligence -- especially those originating from Indigenous cultures. Abundant Intelligences is an international, multi-institutional and interdisciplinary program that seeks to rethink how ...

Jan. 16, 2025 — Pandora, a small satellite mission poised to provide in-depth study of at least 20 known planets orbiting distant stars to determine the composition of their atmospheres cleared an important milestone by completing the spacecraft bus, which acts as the spacecraft's ...

Jan. 16, 2025 — A research team has discovered another piece in the puzzle of the formation of the Moon and water on Earth. The prevailing theory was that the Moon was the result of a collision between the early Earth and the protoplanet Theia. New measurements indicate that the Moon formed from material ejected from the Earth's mantle with little contribution from Theia. In addition, the findings support the ...

Jan. 15, 2025 — A new analysis of data from the PHENIX experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) reveals fresh evidence that collisions of even very small nuclei with large ones might create tiny specks of a quark-gluon plasma (QGP). Scientists believe such a substance of free quarks and gluons, the building blocks of protons and neutrons, permeated the universe a fraction of a second after the ...

Jan. 15, 2025 — By combining data from the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys and the Gemini South telescope, astronomers have investigated three ultra-faint dwarf galaxies that reside in a region of space isolated from the environmental influence of larger objects. The galaxies, located in the direction of NGC 300, were found to contain only very old stars, supporting the theory that events in the early Universe cut ...

Jan. 16, 2025 — Researchers applied the mathematical theory of synchronization to clarify how recurrent neural networks (RNNs) generate predictions, revealing a certain map, based on the generalized synchronization, that yields correct target values. They showed that conventional reservoir computing (RC), a type of RNN, can be viewed as a linear approximation, ...

Jan. 14, 2025 — Diamond, often celebrated for its unmatched hardness and transparency, has emerged as an exceptional material for high-power electronics and next-generation quantum optics. Diamond can be engineered to be as electrically conductive as a metal, by introducing impurities such as the element boron. Researchers have now discovered another interesting ...

Jan. 16, 2025 — Data collected by wearable technology can identify disease flare-ups up to seven weeks in ...

Jan. 16, 2025 — Researchers have developed a novel 6D pose dataset designed to improve robotic grasping accuracy and adaptability in industrial settings. The dataset, which integrates RGB and depth images, demonstrates significant potential to enhance the precision of robots performing pick-and-place tasks in dynamic ...

Jan. 16, 2025 — Researchers have elucidated how a single photoreceptor in the pineal gland of zebrafish detects ...

Jan. 15, 2025 — Sydney researchers have found that Levofloxacin substantially reduces risk of drug-resistant tuberculosis. This discovery offers new hope against a disease that infects more than 400,000 people ...

Jan. 15, 2025 — Researchers have identified the behavioral strategies that parasitic cricket species employ to infiltrate and inhabit host ant colonies. Their research demonstrates that these crickets use 'distancing' and 'dodging' behaviors, adapting their evasive responses to host ant actions. These findings illuminate how social parasitic crickets achieve successful coexistence within hostile ant host ...

Jan. 16, 2025 — A new study analyzing a lake formed by a glacier surge in the Karakoram Mountains has revealed how satellite images can be used to monitor the potential for lake drainage ...

Jan. 14, 2025 — Pine cones as a model: Researchers have developed a new, energy-autonomous facade system that adapts passively to the ...

Jan. 16, 2025 — DDT soil pollution is still a major problem in many parts of the world. Researchers have developed a new method to manage ecological risks from the toxin by binding it with biochar. When they mixed biochar into contaminated soil at a former tree nursery, DDT uptake by earthworms in the soil was halved. This method may enable the growing of certain crops on land that is currently considered ...

Jan. 13, 2025 — Wildfires increasingly threaten public drinking water systems, but guidance on how to address damage to these systems from a wildfire has been insufficient, conflicting or inaccurate. A new publication offers the first comprehensive guidance for public drinking water system staff, outlining the decision-making process for testing and recovering ...

Jan. 16, 2025 — Researchers carried out an archeogenetic study of human remains from more than 700 individuals from the Early Middle Ages. Two large burial sites, Modling and Leobersdorf, have been genetically analyzed in their entirety. The surprising result was that the individuals from Leobersdorf were mostly of East Asian origin, while those buried in Modling mostly had European ancestry. Both communities ...

Jan. 16, 2025 — 4,900 years ago, a Neolithic people on the Danish island Bornholm sacrificed hundreds of stones engraved with sun and field motifs. Archaeologists and climate scientists can now show that these ritual sacrifices coincided with a large volcanic eruption that made the sun disappear throughout Northern ...

Jan. 16, 2025 — Previous studies have posited that the mass extinction that wiped the dinosaurs off the face of the Earth was caused by the release of large volumes of sulfur from rocks within the Chicxulub impact crater 66 million years ago. A new study questions this scenario. Using groundbreaking empirical measurements of sulfur within the related Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) boundary layer, the international ...

Jan. 16, 2025 — The synchronization of data from two natural climate archives -- a speleothem from the Herbstlabyrinth Cave in Hesse (Germany) and ice cores from Greenland -- offers new insights into the chronology of abrupt climate changes in Central Europe. According to the analysis, the devastating eruption of the Laacher See volcano in what is now ...

Jan. 15, 2025 — Research has established a clear link between racial and ethnic disparities in maternal heart health and higher risks of preterm birth, preeclampsia and cardiovascular issues for Black and Hispanic mothers and their ...

Jan. 15, 2025 — Experts are warning of the risks of spreading invasive and non-native species when moving large volumes of untreated lake, reservoir and river ...

Jan. 15, 2025 — Small-scale fisheries play a significant but overlooked role in global fisheries production and are key to addressing hunger and malnutrition while supporting livelihoods around the world, according to new research. The study rigorously quantified how marine and inland small-scale fisheries contribute to aquatic harvests and nutritional and socioeconomic security on a global ...

Jan. 13, 2025 — New research identifies differing trends in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) diagnoses among adolescents and adults, including an increase among adults from 2020 to 2023. The study found a significant downward trends in ADHD incidence among adults from 2016 to 2020 and adolescents from 2016 to 2018. The ADHD incidence rate remained stable for adolescents in subsequent ...

Jan. 6, 2025 — A new study used acoustic sensors that detect the sound of gunfire to show how often children in one Chicago neighborhood are exposed to gunshots while walking to and from school. Results showed that nearly two-thirds of schools in the Englewood neighborhood of Chicago had at least one gun incident within 400 meters (about one-quarter mile) of where children were walking home during the 2021-22 ...

Dec. 16, 2024 — When young children's behavior becomes challenging, many parents resort to threats -- from taking away toys to threatening that Santa will skip their house, a national poll ...

Dec. 10, 2024 — New research shows that mothers have twice the impact on language exposure, challenging traditional parenting advice. In a new study, researchers found that there wasn't a single strategy that could be singled out as 'best' to raise a child bilingually. But when they looked at parents' language use individually rather than the family's overall strategy, they had an unexpected and striking ...

Jan. 9, 2025 — Both intuition and past research suggest that whether people deem someone trustworthy depends on that person's past behavior and reputation for betrayal. In a series of experiments, psychologists found that subjects regarded those who previously exhibited that behavior as less trustworthy. However, when the betrayal benefited them or had no effect ...

Jan. 9, 2025 — Contrary to the long-held belief that the mid-career crisis plagues everyone, new research suggests that job satisfaction follows a U-shaped trajectory only for managerial and professional workers. This provocative finding challenges societal perceptions surrounding midlife and calls for a revaluation of workplace support for individuals in their ...

Jan. 3, 2025 — Farmers are receiving less of what consumers spend on food, as modern food systems increasingly direct costs toward value-added components like processing, transport, and marketing. A study shows that this effect shapes how food prices respond to agricultural climate policies: While value-added components buffer consumer price changes in wealthier ...

Dec. 17, 2024 — A new study has shown that employees are experiencing mental and physical techno-strain due to being 'hyperconnected' to digital technology making it difficult for people to switch off from ...