Latest science news, discoveries and scientific developments.
Light is fundamental to human life—without it, we'd be hungry, cold and blind. But what if the same light that sustains us could also be used to control and observe parts of cells within our bodies?
Environmental advocates have decried the move
Electromagnetic waves in the gigahertz (GHz) range, such as those used in mobile communications, can readily pass through many types of glass. However, transmission decreases significantly at terahertz frequencies above a characteristic threshold.
The moon no longer has a global magnetic field, but lunar rocks and soils still contain records of ancient magnetism. Studying the magnetic minerals in these samples can help scientists understand how the moon's magnetic field evolved over time.
Researchers from North Carolina State University have found that blood serum concentrations of neuroproteins and neurosteroids are associated with neonatal maladjustment syndrome (NMS) in newborn foals. The work could lead to better diagnostic tools and potential therapies.
Starship has made it to orbit for the first time ever. But the loss of an engine during its nail-biting ascent meant SpaceX's mission ended earlier than planned — with an explosion to boot. The tallest and most powerful rocket ever built blasted off from SpaceX's Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas on Monday (Sept. 28) at 8.49 a.m. ET (7.49 a.m. local time). Soon after launch, one of Starship's six main upper-stage Raptor engines failed after separating from the lower-stage booster rocket. A tense few minutes followed while the mission team deliberated over whether the mission should continue to orbit. Eventually, the call came through: "Go for orbit." Liftoff of Starship! https://t.co/40D8bXSkr2S...
RNA vaccines and other nucleic acid therapeutics are typically packaged within fatty molecules known as lipid nanoparticles (LNPs). MIT researchers have now developed a way to produce these particles much more quickly and with more precise control over their size and shape.
A new framework for thinking about artificial intelligence at work starts with a question companies have spent relatively little time asking.
A tiny device that can be reprogrammed using a laser could lead to adaptable devices for computing, imaging and telecommunications. Most devices are built to perform a particular job. If you want them to do something different, you generally need to replace a component, rewire the system or manufacture a new one. For example, every time you ask a large language model like ChatGPT or Claude a question, many electrical signals race through computer chips, carrying information and performing calculations. This takes energy, and lots of it.
Student discipline, staffing problems, frustrated parents—school principals spend their days moving from one problem to the next.
The advance of the Iran-aligned Houthi rebel group in Yemen has driven more than 130,000 people from their homes since the beginning of September, deepening the humanitarian crisis in an already poor country with a long history of domestic conflict.
Researchers at the DarkSide collaboration have unveiled results from a seven-year experiment that tested whether dark matter particles could exist as composites of smaller, elementary particles. While the search turned up no direct evidence of this "ultraheavy nuclear" dark matter, results from the DarkSide-50 detector could lay the groundwork for future experiments, helping physicists work out whether dark matter has an internal structure.
Lithium, magnesium, potassium and many other ions usually occur together in natural and industrial solutions. Separating them from one another is a challenge, for example, in the extraction and processing of raw materials.
Many Americans encounter nonprofits in everyday life without recognizing those interactions as nonprofit service use, according to a new report from the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, What Americans Think About Nonprofits & Philanthropy 2026. While only 7.4% of respondents reported that they or someone in their immediate family had received or used services from a charitable organization in the past year, 71.9% reported engaging in at least one activity typically provided by nonprofits. That means nearly 90% of nonprofit users did not initially identify themselves as such.
An American spy satellite deployed during the Cold War has exploded above our planet without warning — and, so far, scientists can't explain why. The debris cloud from this sudden fragmentation, which experts are still trying to measure, could pose a very "real threat" to other spacecraft in a highly crowded region of low Earth orbit (LEO), experts warn. The spacecraft, known as USA 32 or Farrah III, was launched by the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) in 1988. Its mission, which was only fully declassified earlier this year, was to intercept Soviet radar and radio signals from space, according to Futura. The cylindrical spacecraft, whose shape has been described as a giant "tuna can," l...
Chemists routinely optimize reactions to maximize the yield of their desired products, but understanding why those reactions work can require laborious experiments that track reactions over time. Researchers at the University of Tokyo have developed a method to extract hidden information about reaction speeds from yield data obtained during reaction optimization, using machine learning and rate equations developed by chemists.
When our second child was born, my spouse had several weeks of paternity leave under his parental leave policy at work.
Moving toward Lagrange point L2 around a million miles (1.6 million kilometers) from Earth, NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is about to begin its study of our universe. Launched on Aug. 30, the space telescope has already released its first images before its 300-megapixel camera is fully calibrated, capturing clusters of stars as blurry green rings. Once Roman's Wide Field Instrument is fully functional, the telescope should produce images as crisp as those from the Hubble Space Telescope but encompassing an area 100 times larger in each snap, NASA has stated. Experts hope to use these images to uncover more information about dark energy and possible habitable exoplanets. With Roman...
Researchers at the University of Kentucky Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture, Food and Environment (CAFE) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture have discovered that mating changes the chemical coating on the New World screwworm, a fly species with maggots that can cause serious tissue destruction and deadly diseases in livestock and other animals. The findings may help scientists better understand how the insects recognize mates and could provide leads for future monitoring and control methods.
In a shallow cave high on a cliff in Chalcatzingo, Mexico, scientists documented three red glyphs in the 1980s, but the paintings received relatively little attention. Fast forward to the present day, and researchers have returned to the cave to take a closer look at what the ancient painted symbols mean.