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What your dog really thinks about you
Science is helping to peel back the layers of how dogs process the world around them
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Latest science news, discoveries and scientific developments.
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'Predatory behavior': Elite mathematicians clash over OpenAI's 'solution' to million-dollar math problem
HEIDELBERG, Germany — Often considered the slowest, most methodical and most abstract of the sciences, mathematics usually advances so incrementally and esoterically that it rarely troubles the mainstream media. It was therefore with some discomfort that a panel of elite mathematicians took to the stage Sept. 15 here at the Heidelberg Laureate Forum, a conference that unites young researchers with award-winning mathematicians and computer scientists. The focus of the panel: to confront the rapid rise of AI, whose threat to their quiet discipline has thrust them into the limelight.In the past year alone, AI systems have made substantial contributions to the solutions of dozens of problems pos...
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During menopause, brain changes surprisingly take a break
Major hormonal milestones in women’s lives are usually associated with changes in brain volume — but a new study shows menopause is an exception.
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Scientists name a new cat species for the first time in over a century
For the first time in a century, scientists have identified a new cat species, thanks to genetic analysis — and it's resolved a long-standing debate about the cat family tree. The newly identified species, Leopardus tilcayo, is a type of tiger cat — a small, spotted wild cat — that lives in the Yungas cloud forest region of Bolivia. The analysis also revealed a subspecies of another tiger cat species, named Leopardus tigrinus antisuyo, which lives in Peru.Previously thought to be a northern tiger cat (Leopardus tigrinus), L. tilcayo split off from other Leopardus species 1.4 million years ago, the study found. This makes it the first novel living cat species to be discovered in over a ce...
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Beautiful new cat species is first to be named in a century
The tilcayo (Leopardus tilcayo) in an animal refuge in La Paz, BoliviaPaola Nogales-Ascarrunz A new cat species has been scientifically described – the diminutive, spotted tilcayo from Bolivia. Several species of small cat in the Leopardus genus live in South America, including the ocelot, margay, kodkod, Geoffroy’s cat and the tiger cat or oncilla. The similar appearance of these nocturnal and hard-to-spot cats has made separating them into distinct species difficult. This is particularly true of tiger cats, which are about the size of a house cat, and are found in Costa Rica in Central America, and across a vast swathe of South America including Bolivia, Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuado...
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This popular fermented food may help flush nanoplastics from the body
A kimchi-derived bacterium can bind to nanoplastics under gut-like conditions and may help carry them out of the body. In mice, the probiotic more than doubled the amount of nanoplastics detected in feces, pointing to a surprising potential use for microbes from fermented foods.
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Scientists discover a mysterious new frog hiding in the Amazon
Scientists discovered a new frog species in the flooded forests of the western Amazon, distinguishing it from nearly identical relatives through DNA and its unique call. Adenomera varcena highlights how much Amazonian biodiversity remains hidden even as habitat loss and climate change threaten these poorly understood species.
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1,000-year-old 'snake amulet' featuring a Christian saint and 'Medusa' discovered in Russia
Archaeologists excavating a medieval settlement in northwestern Russia have unearthed an unusual 11th-century pendant that combines Christian and pagan imagery. It is the oldest amulet of its kind discovered in the region.The double-sided copper-alloy pendant was found during a summer excavation in Staraya Russa, a historic town between Moscow and St. Petersburg, according to a translated statement from Novgorod State University. One side depicts a Christian saint, while the other side has a Medusa-like figure. The artifact is known in Russian as a "snake amulet" or "serpentine pendant." Four other examples of this jewelry type are known from Christian sites in the area, but those have been ...
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A $100 detector can see invisible particles raining down from space
A pocket-sized, roughly $100 detector can reveal the invisible stream of cosmic particles constantly passing through Earth and even through our bodies. What began as a student physics project is now being used in major experiments, balloon missions, and potentially future spacecraft.
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Astronomers just found the youngest known planet ever
Astronomers have confirmed a Jupiter-size planet less than a million years old, making Elias 2-24 b the youngest known planet and giving scientists a rare look at a world still being born. Its surprisingly rapid formation challenges leading theories about how giant planets come together, especially so far from their stars.
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When AI goes rogue, its human overseers may be to blame
When AI agents hack real systems, the bigger issue may be the human choices that gave them access, autonomy and too few safeguards.
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JWST’s mysterious little red dots may be black holes growing at incredible speeds
New supercomputer simulations suggest JWST’s puzzling Little Red Dots are rapidly growing black holes from the early Universe. Extreme radiation may have helped create unusually massive black hole seeds, while dense surrounding gas allowed them to grow dozens of times faster than black holes can today. The simulated objects closely resemble the Little Red Dots seen by Webb. If correct, they could solve the mystery of how enormous black holes formed so soon after the Big Bang.
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'At some point we're going to have to react': How El Niño, climate change, and crime are pushing the Amazon rainforest over the brink
The Amazon, Earth's largest tropical rainforest, could be on the brink of an irreversible change as the ongoing El Niño strengthens its grip on our climate.El Niño is the warm phase of a multiyear natural climate cycle that is often marked by rising global temperatures and disruptive weather. This time, scientists monitoring the event are warning that climate change has helped supercharge it to likely the strongest ever recorded.As temperature records are breached and the risk of a humanitarian crisis looms, already stressed natural systems are coming under unprecedented strain. The Amazon is one such system. Having suffered severe degradation in recent decades, some fear that a historic El ...
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Scientists find a natural gut compound that helps heal the intestine
A natural compound produced by gut bacteria after digesting foods such as pomegranates, walnuts, and berries may help repair and protect the intestinal lining. The discovery reveals a surprising beneficial side of an inflammatory pathway and could inspire more targeted treatments for Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.
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Short bursts of exercise can boost your cognition
Just a couple of minutes of walking around or stretching every hour can improve memory and attention span
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What eyewitness accounts tell us about the science of memory
The malleability of memory once cast doubt on eyewitness identification in criminal cases, but new research reveals how eyewitness memory can be used accurately
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Can independent AI auditors keep up with frontier AI development?
Independent auditors are emerging as a key part of plans to rein in frontier AI. But the systems are evolving faster than the methods used to evaluate them
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Textbooks may have misdrawn this basic brain structure for 100 years
Scientists discovered that brain-cell axons may not be smooth tubes as textbooks have shown for more than a century, but instead naturally resemble strings of tiny pearls. Those pearl-like structures can change with neural activity and may help control how quickly electrical signals travel through the brain.
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OpenAI cracks the hidden math that keeps your texts from turning to gibberish
The surprising real-world applications of high-dimensional sphere packing and the 48-year-old barrier that OpenAI just broke
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AI labs are claiming “AGI” is imminent—but does that mean what we think it means?
Artificial general intelligence was once a term confined to technical science papers, but its meaning has slipped