Stay informed about scientific discoveries, research developments and new findings from around the world.
Bionic Reading is a method of bolding certain letters in words that is purported to facilitate reading speed and comprehension. The idea is that guiding the eyes to focus on highlighted initial letters lets the brain complete the word. But does steering someone's gaze actually help them read?
Agri-photovoltaics combines electricity generation and agriculture on the same land—to ensure this works well in the long term, it is worth taking a closer look at the soil. Researchers at the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF) have, for the first time, measured how the construction phase of agri-photovoltaic installations affects soil structure.
Moral language—words and phrases that express ideas about right and wrong, virtues, fairness, harm and social obligations—is widely used in social media posts and other online content. Posts containing moral language sometimes spread quickly and attract a lot of attention on social media, yet whether moral language is always linked to greater user engagement remains unclear.
Psychologist Steve Stewart-Williams' third book about evolutionary psychology, a controversial field often drawn on (and distorted) by the manosphere, is A Billion Years of Sex Differences: How Evolution Shaped the Minds of Men and Women. It's primarily interested in three questions.
Industrial activities such as textile manufacturing, paper production, leather processing and food processing can generate wastewater containing synthetic dyes. Because many synthetic dyes are chemically stable, difficult to biodegrade and environmentally persistent, their release into waterways can pose risks to aquatic ecosystems and human health.
Astronomers have identified what may be the first example of a new class of radio galaxy, one whose central black hole appears to have launched powerful jets on four separate occasions. High-resolution observations with the upgraded Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT), combined with data from MeerKAT and the Very Large Array, reveal four pairs of radio structures arranged symmetrically around the central galaxy.
A large health-record analysis found that glucosamine use was associated with a 25% higher likelihood of mild cognitive impairment progressing to dementia. Lab experiments suggest the popular joint supplement may intensify an abnormal sugar-tagging process in the Alzheimer’s brain, although researchers say clinical trials are needed to determine whether it actually causes harm.
Direct oral anticoagulants cut the risk of serious clinical events by 69% in atrial fibrillation patients with an intermediate risk of stroke, according to the randomized SINGLE-AF trial. The benefit was driven mainly by fewer ischemic strokes, with no increase in major bleeding.
A single dose of an experimental CRISPR therapy cut LDL cholesterol and triglycerides by about half in patients with difficult-to-treat lipid disorders. The reductions were still present one year later, with the highest dose lowering LDL by 52.5% and triglycerides by 47.8%.
Scientists have streamlined a method for measuring DNA-bound phosphorus in soil, making it cheaper and easier while preserving its accuracy. The technique could reveal how soil microbes help recycle phosphorus and ultimately support more sustainable fertilizer and nutrient management.
Chemosynthetic bacteria have been documented in various marine environments and in association with invertebrate hosts such as annelid worms and mollusks, but their presence in fish appears to be a new discovery. The findings show that fish gills host a complex and specialized microbiome that is not yet well understood but could play an important role in fish metabolism, immunity and health.
An enormous, ongoing cosmic "fart" is causing a mysterious zombie star to flare up repeatedly, shining bright pulses of X-rays toward Earth, a new study reveals. The unprecedented observations shed light on how some of the universe's most extreme objects interact with one another. Around 13,000 light-years from Earth lies an unusual binary star system, known as BP Crucis. It contains a blue hypergiant star roughly 60 times larger than the sun, dubbed Wray 977, alongside a neutron star — the undead and ultradense remains of a star that exploded via a supernova — that astronomers have labeled GX 301-2. This stellar "zombie," which contains the same mass as our home star packed into an object r...
Scientists studying ancient Australian rocks uncovered more than 12,000 fossils from some of the oldest known eukaryotes on Earth. These early complex cells lived in settings ranging from coastal mudflats to the open sea, but only where oxygen was available. Oxygen-free environments contained simpler microbes instead. The findings strengthen the idea that oxygen played a crucial role in the emergence of complex life.
The beloved game arose out of the opposing forces of the U.S. and the Soviet Union
Pain and fatigue in rheumatoid arthritis can persist even after inflammation improves, with depression, poor sleep, obesity, smoking, and chronic pain potentially helping sustain symptoms. Researchers say identifying these hidden drivers could prevent unnecessary medication changes and lead to more personalized treatment.
Heavy rain and strong winds battered the northeastern United States on Sunday as an unusually powerful autumn storm intensified, leaving tens of thousands without power. U.S. media reported one person dead.
quick factsWhat it is: IC 348, a star-forming reflection nebulaWhere it is: 1,000 light-years away in the constellation PerseusWhen it was shared: Sept. 15, 2026.Behold: one of the largest panoramas from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) released to date. This busy and breathtaking image offers a remarkably detailed view of IC 348, a nearby stellar nursery where astronomers are investigating some of the smallest objects produced by star formation.IC 348 is one of the closest stellar nurseries to Earth and appears in this near-infrared image as an intricate landscape of stars, glowing material and sweeping clouds of gas and dust. Across the scene, young stars punctuate the dark and lumino...
When you think of objects close to the sun, Mercury, the solar system's innermost planet, probably comes to mind. But has any other object — natural or artificial — gotten closer to our star? And what's the closest an object has gotten to the sun while still escaping?Many objects have reached much closer than Mercury, including asteroids, comets and spacecraft, experts told Live Science.At its closest point to the sun, called perihelion, Mercury comes within 29 million miles (47 million kilometers) of our star, according to NASA. But several known asteroids come even closer. Scott Sheppard, an astronomer at Carnegie Science, an independent research institute in Washington, D.C., said such as...
Ancient DNA shows that adults and children buried together in medieval Sweden were often not members of the same immediate family, suggesting that burial choices reflected more than biological kinship. The research also revealed early gender-based burial customs and uncovered the remarkable story of a young woman who may have completed a pilgrimage across Europe.
Scientists have mapped the genetics of cat cancer on an unprecedented scale and found surprising similarities with tumors in humans. The findings could help bring precision cancer treatments to cats while also revealing new clues about how human cancers develop and respond to drugs.
Artificial intelligence has revolutionized weather forecasting in just a few years, with global AI weather models now able to produce forecasts that rival some of the world's best physics-based prediction systems.
I have been fortunate in my research to follow 80 young people with vision impairment over 11 years. I tracked their journeys from school into adulthood, speaking with them at regular intervals to learn what had happened since we last spoke, what had gone well and what could have been improved.
A woman in her 40s scrolls through Instagram. Between photos of friends, recipes and vacation photos, she comes across a video about perimenopause. The woman on screen explains that perimenopause is to blame for feeling tired, having trouble remembering things, struggling to sleep or gaining weight.
Galaxies are enormous and hold hundreds of billions of stars. These stars form from cold, dense gas. Every large galaxy, including the Milky Way, is wrapped in a huge envelope of gas called the circumgalactic medium, or CGM. This reservoir of raw material stretches 10–20 times the size of the visible portion of the galaxy.