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A study published in the Journal of World Prehistory suggests that some of the earliest known images of plants created by humans served a deeper purpose than decoration. According to the researchers, these ancient designs also reveal early mathemat...
Bees are often associated with large, queen-serving colonies featuring hundreds or thousands of insects. However, the reality is that "most bees are solitary. They lay their eggs in small cavities, and they leave pollen for the larvae to eat," explai...
Researchers have discovered a gene in the non-coding genome that directly controls cell size. This finding challenges the long-held idea that non-coding DNA, often labeled "junk DNA", plays little functional role. The study, conducted by a team at T...
Volunteers participating in the Lake Observations by Citizen Scientists and Satellites (LOCSS) project have been collecting water level data in lakes since 2017. Now, the LOCSS team has used these data to examine the accuracy of water level measureme...
A mouse study reveals that losing a small but critical segment of myelin can disrupt how the brain encodes and transmits information. Nerve cells are wrapped in a protective coating called (myelin), which enables electrical signals to travel rap...
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"Little Foot" Hominin Fossil May Be a Formerly Unknown Species of Human Ancestor One of the world's most famous hominin fossils may be a previously unidentified species of human ancestor. Nicknamed "Little Foot," the skeleton was discovered betwe...
NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Reaches 100,000 Images The NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has officially reached a major milestone, capturing its 100,000th image of the Martian surface. The orbiter, which has been circling Earth's clos...
The first planet ever found orbiting another star was detected in 1995, and it belonged to a class now known as a "hot Jupiter." These exoplanets are comparable in mass to Jupiter but circle their stars in just a few days. Scientists now believe th...
Scientists have developed a new theoretical explanation for how living cells might generate electricity on their own. At the center of the idea is the cell membrane, the thin, flexible layer that surrounds every living cell and controls what enters a...
Long-Term Variability and Clues to Supercritical Accretion A distant neutron star unexpectedly reawakened, unleashing a powerful X-ray surge that may reveal how the universe's most extreme stars feed. The research team investigated the long-ter...
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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 simul...
After a several-month hiatus, La Niña returned to the equatorial Pacific Ocean in September 2025 and has continued into December. However, this occurrence of El Niño's cooler counterpart is relatively weak, and its influence on weather and climate ov...
"Bones Almost on Top of Each Other" – Extraordinary Dinosaur Fossil Site Discovered in the Hațeg Basin Researchers at the newly discovered site reported finding more than one hundred vertebrate fossils per square meter, making it one of the dense...
It Looks Like a Frog, but It's a Bug: Scientist Discovers 7 Unusual New Insect Species Rarity, location, and methods of discovery An entomologist at Anglia Ruskin University has discovered seven new species of leafhopper. The newly describ...
Washington State University scientists have identified a way to interfere with a key viral protein, stopping viruses from entering cells where they can trigger disease. The finding points to a potential new direction for antiviral therapies in the fu...
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The National Academy of Inventors (NAI) has named nine MIT affiliates as members of the 2025 class of NAI Fellows. This prestigious honor recognizes their significant contributions as inventors and innovators. The new MIT NAI Fellows include: A...
Albert Newen and Carlos Montemayor describe consciousness as having three distinct forms, each serving a different role: 1) basic arousal, 2) general alertness, and 3) reflexive (self-)consciousness. The Evolution of Consciousness Evolutionari...
How Iron-Rich Soils Chemically Capture Carbon for Centuries 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. However, the molecular-level mec...
New theoretical work suggests that the fundamental behavior of nature could arise directly from the structure of spacetime, pointing to geometry as the common origin of physical interactions. Hidden Dimensions and Seven-Dimensional Geometry In ...
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 He...
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"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 ov...
An Ultra-Hot Rocky Exoplanet May Be Wrapped in a Dense Atmosphere 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 from the ultr...
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 huma...
Scientists Discover How To "Purify" Light, Paving the Way for Faster, More Secure Quantum Technology Researchers have uncovered a method to purify a photon stream that is central to quantum circuitry. University of Iowa scientists have identifie...
The Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) was one of the earliest known urban cultures, thriving between 5,000 and 3,500 years ago along the Indus River and its tributaries in what is now Pakistan and northwest India. At its peak from 4,500 to 3,900 years ...
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Helium Isotope Helps Pinpoint Deep-Earth Gold Deposits Scientists have found that a new chemical analysis using helium isotopes can help identify the location of buried gold deposits that originate deep within the Earth's mantle. The research te...
A Hidden Difference Between Dinosaurs and Mammals Is Changing Science's View of the Past Helicopter parents vs. latchkey kids New University of Maryland research suggests that dinosaur parenting strategies helped transform the Mesozoic world...
Little Foot, one of the world's most complete hominin fossils, may represent a previously unknown species of human ancestor, according to new research. The fossil, publicly unveiled in 2017, is the most complete Australopithecus skeleton ever found. ...
Astronomers Uncover Surprising Trends in Quasar Emissions 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 unive...
Mapping the dark universe Between 2013 and 2019, the Dark Energy Survey (DES) gathered observations with the Dark Energy Camera (DECam), which is installed on the 4-meter Blanco Telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. ...
Brightcast is dedicated to restoring faith in humanity by highlighting the progress, solutions, and kindness that often go unnoticed. We believe in a balanced worldview.
Read our full mission →
A caterpillar-looking bug hangs out on a stem, minding its own business. Suddenly, forceps emerge, moving towards the creature. As soon as they touch the chunky insect, it hisses and whips its body side-to-side. The peeved individual is a mature lar...
Deuteron Formation Revealed Researchers from the Technical University of Munich (TUM), working at CERN, have made a groundbreaking discovery that reveals how deuterons are formed. The experiments take place in proton collisions at the Large Hadr...
New Observations Hint at Dynamic Dark Energy Recent observational breakthroughs are beginning to challenge the long-standing view of dark energy as unchanging. Data from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), an advanced survey designe...
Archaeologists Uncover Intriguing Viking Age Grave Archaeologists in Norway have made an exciting discovery after a metal detectorist stumbled upon an oval brooch in Trøndelag County. The team has since been excavating the site in secret to prese...
Viewing Influenza Infection With New Precision Fever, sore muscles, and a runny nose often signal the arrival of winter, and with it, the yearly rise in flu cases. Influenza infections begin when virus-filled droplets enter the body, and the vir...
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NASA astronaut Jonny Kim will recap his recent mission aboard the International Space Station during a news conference at 3:30 p.m. EST Friday, Dec. 19, from the agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston. Kim returned to Earth on Dec. 9, along with R...
Scientists Find the Exact Laundry Cycle to Make Clothes Last Longer According to a study funded by Procter & Gamble, scientists in the United Kingdom have discovered the optimal laundry cycle to preserve clothes and extend their lifespan. The key...
Harvard researchers have discovered that cycads — an ancient lineage of seed plants — heat their reproductive organs to attract beetle pollinators, which in turn evolved specialized infrared sensors. First, male cycads warm their pollen cones to enti...
NASA's Webb, Curiosity Named in TIME's Best Inventions Hall of Fame Two iconic NASA missions, the James Webb Space Telescope and the Curiosity rover, have been honored by TIME magazine as part of its "Best Inventions Hall of Fame." This prestigio...
Gemini North captured new images of Comet 3I/ATLAS after it reemerged from behind the sun on its path out of the solar system. The data were collected during a Shadow the Scientists session—a unique outreach initiative that invites students around th...