🔎

Science News

Latest science news, discoveries and scientific developments.

US heading for unprecedented El Niño winter: Here's what to expect
Science News

US heading for unprecedented El Niño winter: Here's what to expect

The ongoing El Niño is breaching the "super" threshold as Earth crosses into unprecedented climate territory. El Niño, officially underway as of June 11, is a climate pattern that's injecting extra heat into our already-warming world, threatening disruptive weather across the globe and a humanitarian crisis in some regions.While El Niño is part of a natural multiyear climate cycle, scientists have noticed that it has been rapidly strengthening like never before, intensified by human-driven climate change, and putting stressed natural systems under extra strain.In a new update this week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Climate Prediction Center continues to foreca...

📅 2026-09-22 16:08:06    •    Live Science
Gold nanoplasmonic chip tracks L-DOPA response in Parkinson's 'mini-brains'
Science News

Gold nanoplasmonic chip tracks L-DOPA response in Parkinson's 'mini-brains'

Researchers have developed an organoid-on-a-chip technology that verifies the efficacy of Parkinson's disease treatments in real time. The technology combines a stem cell–derived "mini-brain" with a nanoplasmonic sensor engineered to maximize light–matter interaction.

📅 2026-09-22 16:00:04    •    Phys.org
3I/ATLAS has an extreme taste for heavy water
Science News

3I/ATLAS has an extreme taste for heavy water

More and more details about 3I/ATLAS are filtering through the scientific process as time goes on. Our third known interstellar visitor attracted the attention of some of the world's most powerful observatories when it was discovered in July 2025, and some of those telescopes found something peculiar—the isotopes it contained appeared different. A new paper submitted to The Astrophysical Journal Letters (and available as a preprint on arXiv) by Kenji Furuya of the RIKEN Pioneering Research Institute in Japan and his co-authors shows that the isotopic discrepancy is likely due to the "low metallicity" of the stellar nursery in which 3I/ATLAS was born.

📅 2026-09-22 16:00:01    •    Phys.org
Scientists identify 'sweet spot' for early stage of life on Earth that preceded LUCA, the ancestor of all living things
Science News

Scientists identify 'sweet spot' for early stage of life on Earth that preceded LUCA, the ancestor of all living things

Scientists have identified a "sweet spot" in Earth's deep past when conditions were optimal for a proposed early stage of life to take hold — a phase known as the RNA World.The sweet spot was 4.33 billion years ago, although Earth may have become suitable for the RNA World as early as 4.4 billion years ago, given that extreme bombardment by asteroids, comets and other rocky leftovers of planet formation had largely stopped by then, the researchers reported in a study published Tuesday (Sept. 22) in the journal Nature Communications.The findings give a more precise estimate of the RNA World's onset than previous studies based on geochemical modeling, biomolecular analyses and simulations of e...

📅 2026-09-22 15:47:28    •    Live Science
Methane beneath the Greenland ice sheet shapes microbial life and influences the carbon cycle
Science News

Methane beneath the Greenland ice sheet shapes microbial life and influences the carbon cycle

A new study involving researchers from the Faculty of Science, Charles University, Prague, shows that methane concentration is among the key factors determining the composition of microbial communities at the margin of the Greenland Ice Sheet. The findings, published in Applied and Environmental Microbiology, provide new insights into processes that influence carbon and methane cycling in a rapidly warming Arctic.

📅 2026-09-22 15:40:04    •    Phys.org
Milky Way's first microblazar may produce fastest particles in the galaxy
Science News

Milky Way's first microblazar may produce fastest particles in the galaxy

An international team of astronomers from ASTRON, JIVE, the University of Amsterdam and other institutions has found the first so-called "microblazar" in the Milky Way. This stellar system is composed of a massive star and a black hole with a jet that is pointed toward Earth. The researchers also identified the region where the jet hits a molecular cloud as a place where particles are accelerated to ultra-high energies, likely up to petaelectronvolts. This would make microblazars one of the most powerful particle accelerators in the galaxy. The research was appears in Astronomy & Astrophysics.

📅 2026-09-22 15:40:01    •    Phys.org
UN warns super El Niño a 'significant' threat to world health
Science News

UN warns super El Niño a 'significant' threat to world health

El Niño represents a "significant" threat to global health, the United Nations warned Tuesday, as the world braces for a cycle of the climate phenomenon predicted to be the most intense on record.

📅 2026-09-22 15:20:08    •    Phys.org
The tilt in Earth's axis makes the apparent position of continents shift with the seasons
Science News

The tilt in Earth's axis makes the apparent position of continents shift with the seasons

Most kids learn in elementary school that the seasons are caused by Earth rotating on a tilted axis during its yearly orbit around the sun. The substantial tilt, about 23.5 degrees, is thought to be the result of an ancient planetary body, Theia, smashing into Earth about 4.5 billion years ago, in the same cataclysmic collision that formed the moon.

📅 2026-09-22 15:20:02    •    Phys.org
Giant caves beneath sinkhole reveal origin of mystery trenches that score Australia's Nullarbor Plain
Science News

Giant caves beneath sinkhole reveal origin of mystery trenches that score Australia's Nullarbor Plain

Mysterious trenches stretching for miles across the vast Nullarbor Plain in Australia are the surface scars of huge ancient caves collapsing deep underground, according to new research."They look like some kind of river channel, but they start and end so abruptly that it triggered us to investigate them," Matej Lipar, a researcher at the Anton Melik Geographical Institute in Slovenia and first author of the study, told Live Science.The Nullarbor Plain is an arid, flat, almost-treeless expanse in southern Australia. Nestled between the Great Victoria Desert and the Great Australian Bight coast, it has existed for more than 14 million years. Along the eastern edge of the Nullarbor Plain are fi...

📅 2026-09-22 14:12:18    •    Live Science
Coffee doesn’t have to keep you awake to disrupt your sleep
Science News

Coffee doesn’t have to keep you awake to disrupt your sleep

Caffeine may make sleep less restorative even when you fall asleep normally and stay in bed for eight hours, with EEG recordings revealing fewer of the slow brain waves associated with deep sleep. Individual sensitivity varies dramatically, meaning even caffeine consumed earlier in the day could affect nighttime recovery for some people.

📅 2026-09-22 13:42:49    •    ScienceDaily
This emerging treatment could help people avoid knee replacement surgery
Science News

This emerging treatment could help people avoid knee replacement surgery

A minimally invasive procedure called genicular artery embolization could offer a new middle ground between conservative treatments and knee replacement for osteoarthritis. By blocking tiny blood vessels associated with inflammation, GAE can significantly reduce pain, with some patients reporting little or no pain afterward. Studies suggest the benefits may last two to four years in people who respond well.

📅 2026-09-22 13:31:54    •    ScienceDaily
For the first time, scientists watch sound jump between quantum states
Science News

For the first time, scientists watch sound jump between quantum states

Stanford researchers have recorded the first real-time quantum jumps of sound, watching single phonons abruptly vanish from one energy state to another. The breakthrough could open new paths for quantum computing, error correction, highly sensitive biological sensors, and next-generation sound-based devices.

📅 2026-09-22 13:17:20    •    ScienceDaily
Humpback whale mother may have mourned her dead calf for days
Science News

Humpback whale mother may have mourned her dead calf for days

Researchers observed a humpback whale mother staying beside her presumed stillborn calf for hours and possibly days off Australia’s Gold Coast. She maintained eye contact and remained close to the calf in behavior resembling caregiving and nurturing. Scientists say the rare observation may provide new insight into grief, maternal attachment, and emotional complexity in humpback whales.

📅 2026-09-22 13:05:14    •    ScienceDaily