Science
Bacteria reinvent their weapons through selection, chance and gene swapping
Many of the most potent antibiotics originate from bacteria. A large proportion belong to a class of compounds known as nonribosomal peptides (NRP). They are produced by large bac…
Alabama’s New Data Center Rules Still Leave Customers in the Dark, Critics Say
Nearly all observers agree that Alabama’s new data center policies released this week are an improvement over the state’s old rules, which treat massive, power-hungry data centers…
New marker panel and free web tool help track stem cells as they develop
How can the identity of pluripotent stem cells be determined more reliably during their differentiation? Researchers from the IUF—Leibniz Research Institute for Environmental Medi…
Can we stop antibiotic resistance from ruining promising drugs before they reach patients?
What if we could predict early in drug development which antibiotics bacteria are most likely to become resistant to? In a review published in Nature Reviews Microbiology, researc…
Potatoes could be the secret to better plant-based meat, say food scientists
Potatoes could hold the key to making better gluten-free plant-based meat, according to a new study.
Everyday Mylar turned into a promising insulator for lunar habitats
Establishing a long-term presence on the moon will require solving challenges that are easy to overlook on Earth. Lunar temperatures, for instance, can vary from hundreds of degre…
Stellar collision may explain why Orion Nebula's planet-forming disks appear younger than its stars
The Orion Nebula is a large star-forming region visible to the naked eye. Some of the young stars in the nebula are surrounded by disks of gas and dust in which planets form. Radi…
RS-25 Engine Tests at NASA Stennis
Teams at NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi tested RS-25 engine No. 10001 on Oct. 21, 2026. The hot fire test lasted for almost eight-and-a-half minutes (…
Scientists uncover the molecular pillars that shape our cells' powerpacks
Mitochondria are the tiny powerpacks that supply most of the energy our cells need. Their ability to generate this energy relies on a distinctive architecture: two membranes, one …
Mechanism behind PARP1-mediated DNA repair characterized, offering insight into targeted cancer therapy
When DNA is damaged, cellular processes respond and repair the DNA. Inhibiting DNA damage repair can be therapeutically beneficial in cancers with genetic vulnerabilities related …
Rare fossils reveal what ancient Denisovans may have looked like
Whenever anything is written about the Denisovans, the word "mysterious" is almost guaranteed to appear. That is because we just don't know a lot about this extinct human group th…
Most of the World’s Shallow Coral Reefs Could Collapse in the Next 50 Years
By 2075, the vast majority of the world’s shallow coral reefs could cease to function as both critical habitat for marine life and a lifeline for hundreds of millions of people wh…
Black holes spinning near maximum rate could split in two, calculations suggest
Two black holes can collide and merge into one. But could the opposite happen: could a single black hole split into two smaller ones? That question is explored in a new theoretica…
From sea anemone to human fertility: A new research organism for understanding meiosis
Every egg cell and sperm cell depends on meiosis, a tightly choreographed process in which chromosomes find their partners, exchange genetic material and then divide. When meiosis…
An ancient virus in chimpanzee DNA switches off a gene that is active in humans
Humans and chimpanzees share almost all their genes. Despite this, our brains have developed in different ways. Researchers at Lund University in Sweden have now shown that a vira…
Halley's Comet dazzles from afar in spectacular astrophoto of Orionid meteor shower
This incredible composite image of Orionid meteors was captured as Earth passed through the debris trail shed by Halley's Comet.
NASA, Virginia Launch Power Partnership for Energy Security
NASA is helping to foster long-term energy security in Virginia. NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, is partnering with the Virginia Department of Energy to supp…
‘Realistic and reassuring’: UK public ‘responding calmly’ to Be Ready campaign
Government’s emergency planning advice has sparked sales of essentials but no panic stockpiling, say prepping shop ownersWhen the UK government launched its “Protect and Survive” …
Marine heat waves suppress nutrient use, reproductive flexibility in humpback whales
A new study led by University of Hawai'i (UH) at Mānoa researchers reveals how extreme ocean warming disrupts whale metabolism, nutrition and reproductive success and what the dev…
A Landmark Youth Climate Trial Against the Canadian Government Is About to Begin
In June 2013, torrential rain spurred one of the worst flooding events in Canada’s history. Sadie Vipond, who grew up in Calgary along the Bow River, was just a young child at the…
ALMA spots 'dragon egg' that may represent the earliest stages of massive star formation
Astronomers identified an exceptionally tiny core that may represent an early stage in the formation of a massive star. Located in an infrared-dark area called Dragon Cloud, the c…
PFAS Contamination in Drinking Water May Be Underestimated, New Study Suggests
When PFAS concentrations in drinking water fall below laboratory reporting limits, they are sometimes treated as “zero” in statistical analyses. But a new study published in Cell …
Open-source workflow makes spatial proteomics easier to use
Fabian Coscia and his team have published in Nature Methods an open-source workflow that makes Deep Visual Proteomics easier to use, adapt and scale. OpenDVP enables scientists to…
How autumn changes animal sexual behavior—including that of humans
In the Northern Hemisphere, days are getting shorter and temperatures are dropping—autumn has arrived. A common sign that winter is coming is trees losing their leaves. But did yo…