Explore the latest scientific discoveries, science news, breakthroughs and developments from around the world.
The pages come from a copy of Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ that once belonged to John Gage, an enforcer in Henry VIIIās court and a key figure in the historical dissolution of the monasteries
Rainwater connects the biogeochemical cycles of land and the atmosphere. It's effectively a chemical conveyor belt that delivers compounds to the ground during a process called wet deposition.
Archaeologists have analyzed insect remains preserved in the 7th to 9th centuries AD funerary cave of Cruz de la Esquina, Gran Canaria, and found that it was used by the island's Indigenous people for food storage before being adapted into a burial site. The findings have been published in the journal Antiquity.
The ocean's aphotic zoneāthe dark, high-pressure region below the surface, where sunlight cannot reachāis home to a vast wealth of microbial life. Yet scientists know relatively little about the genetic makeup, growth and function of many of these enigmatic organisms.
Sexual reproduction usually reshuffles genetic information, creating offspring that differ from their parents. But one small plant takes an unexpected route. In a new study published in Nature, an international team led by AndrĆ© Marques at the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research in Cologne has shown that the Brazilian beak-sedge Rhynchospora tenuis reproduces sexuallyāproducing pollen, fertilizing its egg cells and setting seedsābut has completely lost the reshuffling of DNA between chromosomes from each parent. The offspring retained the same genetic makeup as their mothers, effectively mimicking clonal reproduction.
A rare Australian sea lion (Neophoca cinerea) on Kangaroo Island has been confirmed to have died from highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu. The sea lion had recently been attacked by a shark, weakening it. Testing revealed that the virus caused its death. Another dead sea lion is being tested.
In March 2026, scientists succeeded in transporting antiprotons by road for the first time in a purpose-built trap loaded on a truck. The BASE collaboration, which realized this experiment at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva under the lead of Professor Dr Stefan Ulmer and Dr Christian Smorra from Heinrich Heine University DĆ¼sseldorf (HHU), now presents its findings and experiences from this pioneering experiment in the journal Nature. Among other things, they report that it was possible to store antiprotons in a mobile transport vessel for more than a month for the first time ever.
Eastern oyster larvae are only 100ā300 micrometers long, but their dense calcium carbonate shells make them substantially heavier than the surrounding seawater. A new study led by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) shows that this excess weight allows gravity to drive the feeding currents the larvae use to bring food to their mouths, a finding that reveals a critical role for gravity in how these tiny animals feed and survive.
Election officials can build public trust in procedures and resultsāeven among suspicious voters who fear partisan manipulationāby creating videos that factually explain their security safeguards in simple terms. These are the findings of studies co-authored by a UC Riverside scholar, offering strategies for election officials to respond to false claims and conspiracy theories about election fraud and security, as well as suspicions that arise when mail-in ballot counting delays results.
New research led by the ARC Center of Excellence for Transformative Meta-Optical Systems (TMOS) at the University of Melbourne demonstrates a new way to make invisible infrared light visible without relying on the expensive detector technology used in today's infrared cameras.
How can we tell when a hedgehog is stressed? Ph.D. researcher Emily Harper explains how her new research has validated a non-invasive method for measuring stress by analyzing hormones in hedgehog feces. The method could help researchers understand how different stressors, or threats, affect hedgehog health and welfare, supporting conservation and rehabilitation of this declining species.
The Black Death is often remembered as a single catastrophic event that swept across Europe between 1347 and 1353, killing millions. Yet the disease did not disappear after that first devastating outbreak. For more than four centuries, plague continued to return in recurring waves, reshaping communities, economies and societies across Europe and beyond. A new study led by researchers at the University of Tartu sheds fresh light on this long and complex history by analyzing the DNA of the plague bacterium preserved in archaeological human remains. The study is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.