Stay informed about scientific discoveries, research developments and new findings from around the world.
Using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, scientists have discovered a new class of objects behaving unlike any they have seen before. Astronomers suggest these newly spotted objects in other galaxies may help solve not one, but two long-standing questions in astrophysics.
Love it or hate it, artificial intelligence is likely here to stay. Its ravenous need for computational power has overwhelmed chip manufacturers and power companies alike. While our current AI obsession is likely a bubble ready to burst, we won't simply stop using computers. Since their first invention, computers have continued to grow more powerful, and our civilization has grown ever more dependent on them. Computation defines our civilization. Perhaps computational power is what defines any advanced civilization. If that's the case, then the most advanced civilizations in the universe would push computing to its most powerful and efficient state.
Chemists in a new study led by the University of Iowa report they have isolated and described in detail an atypical state of the rare-earth metal terbium, an advance that could expand its use in quantum technologies, including computing and advanced sensors. The study, "Structural and spectroscopic characterization of a Tb(IV) polyoxometalate," is published in the journal Nature Communications.
Cadmium is a naturally occurring, toxic heavy metal found in many soils across Latin America and the Caribbean, where cacao trees are widely cultivated. It makes its way into cocoa seeds, called beans, that are roasted and made into chocolate, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)—but some cacao varieties take up less of the toxic element than others. An international team of researchers, including Penn State scientists, found genetic differences in how two varieties managed cadmium uptake and facilitated the metal's movement throughout the plant.
Researchers have discovered a system that helps seeds survive when there is too much salt in the soil. The system helps young germinating embryos keep the right balance of sodium and potassium as they begin to grow. Understanding how it works could eventually help scientists develop crops that grow better in salty soils.
The human body fights staph infections by starving it of essential nutrients. Staph, it turns out, is remarkably good at changing what's on the menu. Staphylococcus aureus—the infamous agent behind MRSA and most staph infections—needs sulfur to build proteins and other materials essential for survival. In a new Michigan State University study, published in the Journal of Bacteriology, researchers found the bacterium can adjust its diet depending on what sources remain available.
University of Missouri researchers are paving the way as artificial intelligence transforms biomedical research. A team from the College of Engineering and collaborators recently published one of the most comprehensive reviews to date of an emerging AI approach for biology known as flow matching. The work, published in Nature Machine Intelligence, provides scientists around the world with a roadmap for applying the technology to accelerate drug discovery, precision medicine and other biomedical advances.
Drawing on 14 years of data, we examined whether access to broadband internet could improve Americans' use of time and found that a 10% increase in broadband adoption across a community corresponds to a 1.19% reduction in waiting time.
This summer, the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing welcomed faculty from colleges and universities across Greater Boston, South Carolina, West Virginia, and Texas to campus for the inaugural AI Educators Pilot, a weeklong workshop aimed at expanding how artificial intelligence is taught across disciplines and learning environments. Inspired by MIT class C01/C51 (Modeling with Machine Learning), a course developed through the Common Ground for computing and AI education that focuses on helping students understand and apply foundational AI and machine learning concepts to problem-solving in their own disciplines, the workshop gave educators an opportunity to explore how its materials and tea...
A forest can look intact from the roadside and still have lost much of its capacity to bounce back. That gap between appearance and function is at the center of a new policy brief published by eLTER, the European research infrastructure for long-term ecosystem, critical zone and socio-ecological research.
Pelicans have resided in St James's Park, London, for 360 years. But the current flock has been a summer sensation because of the first chicks to hatch in the park's history.
Ichthyosaurs ruled the oceans for 150 million years during the Mesozoic Era. Their fish-shaped bodies were built for high speeds. In that context, it is normally an advantage to be as light as possible.
As a liquid that is easily stored and transported, ammonia (NH3) is an attractive carrier for hydrogen, which is used in fuel cells, semiconductor manufacturing, chemical processing and other applications. However, breaking ammonia into hydrogen and nitrogen typically requires high temperatures, and the resulting gas mixture must undergo additional purification before the hydrogen can be used in many applications.
Caring for others without caring for oneself is associated with lower levels of well-being and may not be sustainable, a new study found.
A bizarre squid has been filmed haunting the northeastern Pacific Ocean for the first time. Researchers spotted the bigfin squid (Magnapinna) via remote video while using an uncrewed submersible to explore underwater mountains, known as seamounts, at a depth of more than 10,000 feet (3,000 meters) off the coast of California. The footage, captured Aug. 7, represents the first confirmed live observation of a bigfin squid in the northeastern Pacific, according to the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), whose scientists made the discovery with collaborators from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).Olívia Soares Pereira, a deep-sea ecologist and postdoctoral ...
For decades, researchers wondered if the Navier-Stokes equations, which describe fluid flow, break down. OpenAI put thousands of agents on the question.
Health Has pancreatic cancer met its match? Frontline researcher sees newly approved medication as ‘critical first step’ toward transformation of care Alvin Powell Harvard Staff Writer September 9, 2026 7 min read Brian Wolpin. Last month, the Food and Drug Administration approved a new drug for one of the deadliest cancers, lending new hope to patients whose treatment options had been severely limited. The drug, daraxonrasib, doubled survival time for patients with previously treated metastatic pancreatic cancer to a median of 13.2 months from 6.7 months for those who received the chemotherapy standard of care. According to the National Cancer Institute, more than 67,000 people will be diag...
Tristan Buckmaster, a mathematician at New York University, had just spent months working on what he believed could be a life-defining mathematical proof. Then, during a Sept. 6 meeting with OpenAI employees, he claims that he was issued a stark warning: "Why would you ruin your career?"That exchange, which Buckmaster described in a detailed public statement this week, sits at the heart of a ballooning controversy around a famous set of mathematical equations called Navier-Stokes. OpenAI says its artificial intelligence (AI) model has solved an outstanding problem tied to this 200-year-old set of fluid dynamics equations. The set of equations appears on the list of one of the seven Millenniu...
During the day, waste products such as lactic acid and worn-out proteins build up in the brain. When we sleep at night, waves of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) help to wash away this waste, keeping the brain healthy.In a new study, MIT researchers have shown that they can strengthen these CSF waves through exposure to short bursts of a gentle, staticky sound known as “pink noise” during sleep. These bursts increase the amplitude of slow electrical waves in the brain, which then enlarges the CSF waves.The researchers now hope to explore whether this enhanced CSF flow could help to boost cognitive function, improve memory, or even slow the progression of neurodegenerative diseases caused by the bui...
Abnormally high temperatures on the Tibetan Plateau triggered two catastrophic rainfall events halfway around the world in California and nearby states in early 2017 and 2023, a new study reports.This is the first time that researchers have identified this link, known as a climate teleconnection. The results could improve forecasts of extreme weather in the western U.S., which, in turn, could improve warnings for coastal communities and potentially save lives as well as billions of dollars in property damage, the study's authors say.In December 2016 and February 2023, the Tibetan Plateau was warmer than usual for these times of the year. Roughly one month after each of these hotspots appeare...
The world's oldest known habitual drug use can be traced to an island in Indonesia, where ice age hunter-gatherers sucked on betel nuts — palm seeds that contain a neuroactive substance, a new study finds. Scientists made the discovery after studying strange grooves in the teeth of two prehistoric hunter-gatherers. The deep grooves were caused by regularly sucking on betel nuts (Areca catechu), likely for relief from the pain of toothache, according to the study, which was published Wednesday (Sept. 9) in the journal Science Advances.The partial skeletons of the two people were found on the island of Sulawesi, but their lives were separated in time by thousands of years. One of them, a man w...
Gondwana was much bigger than we thought, according to the new analysis
Astronomers just dropped a video 27 years in the making: the highest-definition animation of a gargantuan black hole jet blasting out of a distant galaxy and twisting off into space.The video, made from 116 images taken between 1995 and 2022, captured a blazar known as 3C 345, in the constellation Hercules. A blazar is a sort of quasar — a bright, feeding supermassive black hole embedded in the center of a faraway galaxy — that emits huge jets of gas into its environment. The jets blaze at nearly the speed of light and are charged with highly concentrated X-rays and gamma rays.As described in an Aug. 26 study in the journal Nature, scientists gathered the images of 3C 345 using decades of ob...
Shingrix, the same vaccine that protects people from the blistering shingles rash, might also lower risk of heart disease.