Detecting forever chemicals—with yeast and AI
If you're reading this, your body probably contains forever chemicals.
Stay informed about scientific discoveries, research developments and new findings from around the world.
If you're reading this, your body probably contains forever chemicals.
In 2014, members of a local museum found fragments of an ancient fossil dating to the end of the Pliocene or early Pleistocene epoch in a seaside cliff on the Argentine pampas. They belonged to a large predator, but the only group they fit, saber-toothed marsupial relatives, had supposedly gone extinct earlier, leaving the identity of the fossil a mystery. That was until Eric del Campo, a paleontologist at the Argentine Museum of Natural Sciences in Buenos Aires and lead author of the study, and his colleagues took a closer look.
Almost every ceremonial object or ornament of the medieval papal monarchy has disappeared or lost its original purpose. Yet one survives: the golden rose. On Sept. 26, 2026, during Pope Leo XIV's visit to France, he traveled to Lourdes, home to one of the world's most famous shrines to the Virgin Mary. After praying, Leo presented a golden rose to Our Lady of Lourdes—the fifth time he has dedicated a rose to a Marian shrine or image.
The 2026 U.S. midterm campaigns are the first in which AI-generated political ads are regularly appearing on people's televisions and social media feeds. We are researchers who have been studying political advertising through the Wesleyan Media Project since 2010. This election cycle—using data from media reports, student coders and AdImpact, a firm that tracks political ad spending—we've tracked about $80 million in spending on almost 170 unique ads that use AI.
A new study of shark anatomy suggests the shape of their inner ears is far more variable than expected, and this variation could have more to do with their evolutionary history than where they live or what they eat.
If the goal was to silence rapper Macklemore by preventing him from touring with singer Ed Sheeran, it clearly backfired. Macklemore delivered a monolog in support of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank and performed his pro-Palestinian protest song "Hind's Hall" during a Sept. 4, 2026, concert at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, where he was an opening act for Sheeran.
When a prairie river carries more water in one year than another, the obvious place to look for an explanation is the sky. A year with more snow and rain should have more water in rivers. That was also how I initially thought about year-to-year changes in river flow. But while studying the Prairie Pothole Region, I learned that this is only part of the story. What happens after water reaches the ground can be just as important as how much falls from the sky.
Imagine losing an arm and simply growing a new one. This amazing ability of regeneration isn't just something from a superhero movie—it actually happens in real life for some animals.
Scientists used machine learning and super-resolution microscopy to overcome a challenge that has stymied research into the natural history of grasses for decades. Their method allowed them to detect subtle differences among grass pollen grains and trace changes in grass diversity and the proportions of the two main photosynthetic types of grasses at one site over a period of 25,000 years.
Carbon quantum dots (CQDs) are fluorescent carbon nanomaterials with potential applications in sensing, optoelectronics, displays, anticounterfeiting and environmental technologies. Their optical properties can be adjusted by modifying the carbon structure and surface chemistry, particularly through defect states and the incorporation of heteroatoms. However, achieving predictable and continuous tuning of photoluminescence from a single carbon precursor remains difficult.
Researchers have demonstrated a technique that uses a laser to produce a plasma beam antenna capable of transmitting radio waves. The article, "Laser-Induced-Plasma-Filament Antenna Transmitting 30 MHz VHF," is published in the IEEE Journal of Microwaves.
One theory points to a long-awaited supersymmetric particle called a ‘higgsino.’ But that idea has some issues.
The ancient Egyptians practiced human sacrifice around 5,000 years ago, a period shortly after the country was first unified, a new study finds. In the new study, Roselyn Campbell, an anthropology researcher at Purdue University, re-examined 46 skulls from individuals who were buried near royal tombs that belonged to King Djer, King Djet and Meretneith (a woman who likely ruled Egypt at times), and were built near the ancient sacred city of Abydos. All three rulers lived during the first dynasty, a period that started around 5,000 years ago when Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt were unified into one kingdom. The sacrificed retainers were buried next to the tomb of the king they had served.Researc...
The country’s space program is new and ambitious, having already sent a mission into Mars orbit
Archaeologists have discovered a temple dedicated to the Roman war god Mars in the wooded foothills of the Taunus mountains in Germany. The temple was part of a military settlement that was built in the third century to defend the border of the Roman Empire against Germanic tribes.The Roman military constructed thousands of forts across Europe, northern Africa and western Asia while expanding the empire, and most of these fortifications had an adjacent settlement, called a "vicus," that was occupied primarily by merchants, families and other civilians. Since 2024, archaeologists have been excavating the Kapersburg Roman fort and its adjacent vicus in Hesse, roughly 16 miles (26 kilometers) n...
Finding the potential planet hints that our sun’s death could lead to the creation of new worlds.
Red and white dwarf stars may be hungrier than we thought
Microblazars — a miniature version of blazars — may be responsible for mysterious ultra-high-energy particles.
Movement and creativity go hand in hand. Scientists are working to discover why
Old age is often associated with reliance on others, loss of independence and inactivity. But these simplistic notions mask the diversity of people's experiences as they age, and can also lead to unsuitable policies and interventions—or even to explicit forms of ageism.
Scientists found that prolonged fasting triggers major changes throughout the body, but many of the most interesting effects only appeared after about three days without food. The results suggest fasting may influence health in ways that go beyond weight loss and could eventually inspire treatments that mimic its effects.
A Monash University study analyzed data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics' 2020–2022 National Study of Mental Health and Wellbeing and found more than half of cisgender nonheterosexual Australians and more than one-third of transgender Australians are diagnosed with a mental disorder.
Stimulating the vagus nerve after practice helped mice develop stronger long-term motor learning, revealing a potentially important window when the brain is still locking in a new skill. The effect was linked to rhythmic changes in brain blood vessels, hinting that body-to-brain signals may help prepare the brain for lasting change.
Many complex quantum systems rapidly lose the recognizable patterns of their initial states as their components interact. To describe patterns of regular and chaotic motion in specific systems, physicists can construct a mathematical map called an effective phase space.