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A distant neutron star unexpectedly reawakened, unleashing a powerful X-ray surge that may reveal how the universe’s most extreme stars feed....
Analysis of 309 strains suggests that the genus Escovopsis originated about 56.9 million years ago, but did not begin interacting with modern mutualistic ants until roughly 38 million years ago—challenging the idea that these groups arose simultaneously. A group of fungi once thought to be harmfu...
EO Science Earth Observatory A Subtle Return of La Niña Earth Earth Observatory Image of the Day EO Explorer Topics All Topics Atmosphere Land Heat Radiation Life on Earth Human Dimensions Natural Events Oceans Remote Sensing Technology Snow Ice Water More Content Search Collections Global Maps Worl...
Researchers at the newly discovered site reported finding more than one hundred vertebrate fossils per square meter, making it one of the densest fossil deposits known. The Hațeg Basin in Transylvania has long attracted global attention for its dinosaur fossils, which have been recovered from doz...
An entomologist at Anglia Ruskin University has discovered seven new species of leafhopper. A researcher at Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) in Cambridge, England has identified seven previously unknown species of a frog-like insect. The newly described insects are leafhoppers belonging to the g...
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Researchers discovered a hidden molecular “switch” that herpes viruses rely on to invade cells. By combining AI, simulations, and lab experiments, they identified and altered a single amino acid that shut down viral entry. What once might have taken years was achieved far faster using computational ...
The National Academy of Inventors (NAI) has named nine MIT affiliates as members of the 2025 class of NAI Fellows. They include Ahmad Bahai, an MIT professor of the practice in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), and Kripa K. Varanasi, MIT professor in the Departmen...
Consciousness evolved in stages, starting with basic survival responses like pain and alarm, then expanding into focused awareness and self-reflection. These layers help organisms avoid danger, learn from the environment, and coordinate socially. Surprisingly, birds show many of these same traits, f...
Carbon doesn t just vanish into the ground; it gets chemically captured. Scientists have long known that iron-rich soils quietly lock away vast amounts of carbon, keeping it out of the atmosphere for decades or even centuries. What remained unclear was how these minerals manage to hold on so tightly...
A new theory proposes that the universe’s fundamental forces and particle properties may arise from the geometry of hidden extra dimensions. These dimensions could twist and evolve over time, forming stable structures that generate mass and symmetry breaking on their own. The approach may even expla...
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Conditions can get rough in the micro- and nanoworld. For example, to ensure that nutrients can still be optimally transported within cells, the minuscule transporters involved need to respond to the fluctuating environment. Physicists at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU) and Tel Aviv Unive...
“Cooking is art—but baking is science,” Bill Nye the Science Guy once said. While a batch of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies doesn’t resemble anything you’d whip up in a chemistry lab (hopefully), there’s plenty of chemistry happening in your oven. Understanding those reactions can help you cra...
An ultra-hot rocky exoplanet may be wrapped in a dense atmosphere, defying expectations about what small planets can sustain. Scientists working with NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have found the clearest evidence so far that a rocky planet beyond our solar system has an atmosphere. Data fr...
Researchers at the University of Bonn aim to improve the cleanliness of wastewater. Water released from washing machines is widely recognized as a major source of microplastics, which are tiny plastic particles suspected of posing risks to both human and animal health. Scientists at the Universit...
Researchers have uncovered a method to purify a photon stream that is central to quantum circuitry. University of Iowa scientists have identified a new way to “purify” photons, a development that could improve both the efficiency and security of optical quantum technologies. The team focused on...
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A series of century-scale droughts may have quietly reshaped one of the world’s earliest urban civilizations. New climate reconstructions show that the Indus Valley Civilization endured repeated long dry periods that gradually pushed its people toward the Indus River as rainfall diminished. These en...
Scientists have found that with the help of a new chemical analysis, they could pinpoint the location of buried gold deposits beneath Scotland and Ireland. Sophisticated new chemical analysis of gases trapped in rocks for millions of years has cast new light on the origin of the gold deposits beneat...
New University of Maryland research suggests that dinosaur parenting strategies helped transform the Mesozoic world, as “latchkey kid dinosaurs” spread into ecological niches their parents left untouched. Imagine a young Brachiosaurus no bigger than a golden retriever, foraging alongside its sibl...
Australian researchers think the skeleton found in South Africa is not the same species as two found in the same South Africa cave system Little Foot, one of the world’s most complete hominin fossils, may be a new species of human ancestor, according to research that raises questions about our evolu...
New observations suggest that the relationship between light emitted by quasars has changed over cosmic time, hinting that the structure around supermassive black holes may not be as universal as once thought. Astronomers from around the world have uncovered strong evidence suggesting that the ma...
