Latest science news, discoveries and scientific developments.
Detected by the MeerKAT array, this “fast radio burst” comes from three billion years after the big bang and could help map the universe’s otherwise-invisible intergalactic matter
Scientists are using a variety of methods to study why Kilauea has repeatedly spewed lava fountains since late 2024. They may have ruled out one theory.
Astronomers have detected the most distant burst of radio signals ever seen: an explosion that's emitting waves of energy from more than 10 billion light-years away.The event, named FRB 20240304B, is known as a fast radio burst (FRB). Astronomers have detected thousands of FRBs before this. But because these events last only milliseconds, they are extremely difficult to study and their origin stories remain unclear.In this case, however, astronomers managed to use a radio telescope array and the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to chart the event, with JWST narrowing down the precise host galaxy that FRB 20240304B came from. The study, published Thursday (Oct. 8) in the journal Science , sh...
Long before it became the luminous spiral galaxy we call home, the Milky Way was a sprawling, chaotic swarm of thousands of small galaxies, new research shows.The findings suggest that in the first 2 billion years after the Big Bang, the region of the universe that would become our galaxy was littered with thousands of smaller galaxies of many sizes and shapes. Over time, these galaxies collided and merged into the single galaxy in which we reside today."Looking at these results, it's very clear that the physics happening right after the Big Bang has direct impact on what we see today in the local universe," study co-author Harley Katz, an assistant professor of astronomy and astrophysics at...
Russia says it is winding down precautionary measures taken after a lab worker at a plague research institute died. But what made officials think these were needed at all?
It’s been a blistering year. A record-hot September doesn’t bode well for the rest of it
Scientists have recently harnessed artificial intelligence (AI) to build "aging clocks" that aim to estimate a person's true biological age. While a person's chronological age reflects the number of years they've been alive, their biological age is intended to capture how well their bodily systems are functioning. The idea is that people with older biological ages have a higher risk of age-related diseases — such as cancer, heart disease or dementia — while younger biological ages come with less risk. Some aging clocks even aim to predict people's impending risk of death.Related storiesSped-up 'biological aging' linked to worse memoryAging doesn't look the same for everyone at the molecu...
Is super intelligence any different from artificial intelligence?Imago / Alamy In the decades since the field began, most of the debate surrounding artificial intelligence has been about the intelligence part: can machines really think like we do? But in recent weeks, US President Donald Trump has kicked off an argument about the other part – and joined a long tradition of shifting the goal posts when it comes to AI. “The use of the word artificial makes intelligence fake, it makes it sound fake, and it is not fake. It’s actually amazing,” said Trump during a speech at the UN General Assembly on 22 September. He is calling for artificial intelligence to be rebranded as “super intelligence”, ...
When OpenAI announced its surprise solution to the Navier-Stokes problem, it produced one proof for humans and one for computers – however, they don't match
The sea surface temperature in a key section of the central equatorial Pacific Ocean has now surpassed all previous temperatures on record for this region, exceeding 86 degrees Fahrenheit (30 degrees Celsius) for the first time, according to preliminary data released Monday (Oct. 5).Specifically, these temperatures occurred in the Niño 3.4 region, located between 5 degrees north and 5 degrees south latitude, and 120 degrees west and 170 degrees west longitude. Researchers use this region to monitor the progression of El Niño, the warm phase of a multiyear natural climate pattern that's currently in full swing and steadily intensifying. But how significant is this new record, and could it be ...
The first crewed lunar mission in more than a half-century brought back more than 800 gigabytes of data on colorful craters, flashing meteoroids, and much more
Isaias just became the latest-forming first hurricane of the Atlantic storm season since reliable records began, meteorologists say
Tom Cruise plays the role of an oil tycoon in climate change satire Digger2026 Warner Bros. Ent. Things aren’t looking good for Digger Rockwell, the ageing oligarch behind the crisis in Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu’s new climate change satire Digger. Nor is the prognosis rosy for the film itself – panned by critics and passed over by global audiences, it is poised to become one of the biggest flops of 2026. But don’t let that negativity fool you. Pretentious, bombastic and sometimes painful, it is nevertheless a brutal takedown of the forces and failures behind planetary degradation. Held together by a terrific performance from Tom Cruise, Digger is more than worth your time – even if you end...
Researchers at Yale have identified a promising new approach to osteoarthritis that could do more than simply ease pain. The epilepsy drug lacosamide appears to block a protein involved in both pain signaling and cartilage destruction, helping damaged joints shift back toward repair in preclinical studies.
Scientists accidentally discovered a microscopic organism with a genetic code that breaks a rule researchers thought was nearly universal. While testing a new DNA sequencing technique, they examined a previously unknown protist collected from a freshwater pond at Oxford University. To their surprise, the organism uses two genetic signals that normally mark the end of a gene to encode two entirely different amino acids instead. These signals were previously thought to evolve together, making the discovery particularly remarkable.
A brilliant yellow coral discovered off Costa Rica proved so unusual that scientists had to create an entirely new family to classify it. The meter-tall colonies rise from seafloors covered in brittle stars, inspiring the Tolkien-inspired name Laurinque elenya, or “golden tree of the stars.” Advanced genetic analysis revealed that the coral belongs to a previously unknown evolutionary lineage.
A new study examined how positive psychology interventions could help reduce teacher burnout and turnover, retain valuable knowledge and experience in our schools and create better learning environments for students.
Global climate and weather forecasting use predictive models that divide Earth's atmosphere into a grid, with each section typically covering tens to hundreds of kilometers. Now a new model, run by a team at the University of Tokyo, has narrowed this grid spacing to just 220 meters (720 feet). This higher resolution eliminated instances of "popcornlike" rain—bursts of heavy rain that appear in simulations but not in real life—providing more accurate predictions of extreme local weather from a global model.
Participants in two small trials lost dangerous fat around their internal organs. This fat is linked to health issues like diabetes and heart problems.
Researchers are worried about the impact the strongest-known El Niño will have on the Great Barrier Reef, and whether anything can be done to avert the World Heritage Area’s demise