Science
Why do black hole flares die out? It may be down to how stars spin
Some stars encounter supermassive black holes and live to tell the tale. New research shows why the flares these encounters cause dim over repeated episodes.
Anti-influenza therapies that target the host
A drug that targets the host rather than the virus could get around the problem of antiviral resistance. Every year, hundreds of thousands of people die of seasonal influenza caus…
Experiment sees surprising result in search for dark matter
For the better part of a century, people have been trying to understand dark matter. This invisible substance makes up roughly 85% of the mass in the universe but has never been d…
NASA's Roman Space Telescope is just one of a few missions named after real-life women
NASA's Roman space telescope, which launched on Aug. 30, is part of a small set of missions named after female historical figures.
Marmite lures discovery from lake depths
Dr. Roe Stuart didn't find a taniwha in the unexplored depths of New Zealand's lakes—but they may have found a new species of fish.
Ultrafast snapshots reveal the first moments on the way from light to electricity
Physicists at the University of Graz (Austria), in collaboration with colleagues from Marburg University and Forschungszentrum Jülich (Germany), have achieved a scientific breakth…
Screening tool amplifies tiny changes in protein levels within cells
Imagine a brain teaser where the challenge is to spot the difference between two nearly identical sandcastles. The only difference? The removal of three grains of sand. Scientists…
Ecological collapse in the world's largest mangrove forest is a preview of what's to come
The first thing that struck us wasn't the missing trees, but the missing water. In May 2026, we visited the Sundarbans, a mangrove forest in the delta where the Ganges, Brahmaputr…
5 planets will light up the September sky — here's how to see them
Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn are all visible this September. Here's when and where to look.
Repairing the ISS 250 miles above Earth | Space photo of the day for Sept. 1, 2026
A photo of ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot on the outside of the International Space Station captures the staggering altitude at which the crewed laboratory orbits Earth.
Could humans ever communicate with whales? - video
Ever since the earliest known recording of whale song was made in 1949, researchers have been captivated by the wails, rumbles, clicks, grunts and squeals of their communication. …
Growing bacteria line up single-file, then buckle in liquid crystals
When scientists study bacteria that are not in a Petri dish or a test tube but in environments that more closely mimic their actual microbial habitats, they often find delightfull…
Summer of 2026 was UK’s hottest on record, Met Office says
Meteorologists say average mean temperature of 16.5C was made 130 times more likely by climate crisisThis year’s summer was the UK’s hottest on record, according to provisional Me…
Drone laser scans map more than 1,000 trees across 90-acre campus
It took one drone, 300 million laser data points and seven teams of students on foot to map Wake Forest University's trees. Led by Ovidiu Csillik, an assistant professor of remote…
Bees see the world in more ways than previously thought
The honey bee has held a special place in vision research. It is one of the best-studied insects, and much of what scientists know about how bees perceive the world is based on st…
A supermassive black hole erupted in X-rays, and its radio jets followed 300 days later
By combining roughly two decades of observations from NASA's Swift X-ray Telescope with radio monitoring, astronomers have caught a supermassive black hole at the heart of the Per…
In Japan's mountains, a different way to manage bears
As a sensor sounded, scientist Akiko Takii hurried to a bear trap deep in the forests of Nagano, Japan, where rising nationwide attacks have sparked fear and the culling of thousa…
The Amazon’s Defenders Declare a State of Emergency
PUYO, Ecuador—People fighting oil wells, mines and other threats to their homelands did not come to this Amazonian city to lobby politicians at an environmental conference hosted …
Food innovation in your kitchen: Giving peas, beans and lentils a surprisingly meat-like bite
Separating things and then putting them back together is a common principle in industrial food production. Agricultural raw materials are broken down into their individual constit…
Nepal’s glacial collapse foreshadowed a future of climate disaster | Michael Mann
The deluge capped a summer of extreme climate events, from deadly heatwaves to wildfires. We must take action nowFor millennia, the high peaks of the Himalayas were held together …
Declining star formation not caused by simple 'fuel crisis,' new measurements suggest
The universe has been having fewer and fewer stellar "babies." Over the past 4.5 billion years, the rate of star birth has crashed to less than half of what it once was. But here'…
The Trump EPA Is a Toothless Friend of Polluting Industries, Analysis Shows
By its own account, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is doing a fantastic job. In a March report on its performance in the last fiscal year, the agency boasted that it had…
'Orbitals' is a co-op sci-fi adventure that recaptures the magic of Saturday morning cartoons
We buddied up to check out Orbitals, a sci-fi anime spin on "It Takes Two"'s classic co-op action.
Maryland Consumer Advocate Challenges PJM Plan to Buy Power for Projected Data Center Growth
Maryland’s ratepayer protection agency is fighting on two fronts simultaneously to shield households from paying hundreds of millions more in costs related to projected power dema…