Science
Experience: I found my long-lost twin aged 49
The joy, disbelief and shock of discovering I had a brother the same age as me came with a million questions. How were we separated and why?In 1975, my parents saw an advert in th…
Why has Britain's grass turned yellow? A plant scientist explains what happens next
Fields, parks and lawns across Europe have turned to straw this summer. Landscapes thousands of years old have been revealed as green outlines against yellow backgrounds, where an…
Two oceans, one country—and 20 times more sharks in the prehistoric Pacific
How many sharks should a coral reef have? It sounds like a simple question, but almost nowhere on Earth is there a reef that has not at some time been fished or otherwise affected…
Maryland Breaks Heat-Related Death Record With Weeks of Summer to Go
Prolonged heatwaves pushed death tolls to new levels this year in Maryland, which recorded its highest number of heat-related deaths with more than a month left of summer. At lea…
Theoretical framework expands directional light control beyond ordered crystal structures
A research team has developed a new theoretical framework that can suppress light scattering in certain directions while enhancing it in others, even in irregularly arranged mater…
Synchronized star pairs unleash radio bursts via a Jupiter-Io-like mechanism
Researchers have helped unravel the mystery of why certain pairs of stars pulse with regular, long-period bursts of radio waves. The particular class of objects observed comes in …
Butterfly effects of climate change
The Australian National Insect Collection at CSIRO holds 2,000 drawers of butterfly specimens, including some that were collected more than a century ago.
Mutation hotspots help 'friendly' viruses outmaneuver the bacteria in your gut
Every 15 minutes, someone in the U.S. dies from a drug-resistant superbug. A few decades from now, antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections threaten to become the leading cause o…
Proposed 900-telescope array could detect an Earth-like exoplanet's atmosphere in a single transit
What do you do when the observation you need comes around once a year? Well, preparation is key, but this is the awkward truth about finding another Earth. When a planet crosses t…
How a mystery kept in London led to the discovery of a new Ecuadorian frog
Scientists from the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador officially described Pristimantis milpe, an abundant and widely distributed species that had been confused with ano…
Safe havens protect Australian mammals from invasive predators. Why aren't they working for other animal groups?
Feral cats and foxes now roam across almost all of Australia. These predators are a major reason why many species have been driven to extinction.
TESS discovers a rare brown dwarf orbiting a massive, aging star
For decades, astronomers lumped brown dwarfs into a single category defined by mass alone—too big to be classified as planets but too small to become stars. However, this definiti…
NASA astronaut Mike Fincke retires after 30 years at the space agency
NASA astronaut Mike Fincke has retired from NASA after 30 years of public service, leaving behind a legacy of accomplishments and leadership including two-time commander of the In…
Rechargeable nickel reservoir enables nitrile production in organic solvents
Inspired by pumped-storage hydropower, a nickel-based redox reservoir enables spontaneous nitrile synthesis in organic solvents, while hydrogen gas is produced separately.
Montana’s Sand Creek Fire Burns Through Into Beloved Ski Area
The Sand Creek Fire had grown to 27,736 acres on Thursday after burning through parts of Maverick Mountain Ski Area in southwestern Montana, but firefighters succeeded in protecti…
Supermassive black hole spews energy 300,000 light years into deep space
That's three times longer than the Milky Way galaxy.
NASA’s 737 Reveals New Paint
NASA’s 737 aircraft was painted this week in Oklahoma as it progresses with modifications for use as a reduced gravity test aircraft for the agency. NASA’s Armstrong Flight Resear…
Magnetic mystery in thorium clusters resolved by new study
Scientists from the University of Manchester's Department of Chemistry, Centre for Radiochemistry Research and Photon Science Institute, led by Professor Steve Liddle, have uncove…
Copper's surprising melting behavior provides insights into future fusion design
Future fusion power plants aim to recreate the heart of a star here on Earth to power our future energy needs. While the core fusion plasma will burn at hundreds of millions of de…
How 'pioneering pairs' of ospreys drive population recovery
A new study by Bournemouth University (BU) has found that faster recovery of osprey populations relies on a small number of ospreys that, unlike most, prefer to nest away from oth…
For West Virginia Engineer, Home Is Where the Heart Is… and NASA, Too
Growing up in Grafton, West Virginia, engrossed in Star Wars and all things science fiction, Fletcher Newell had an early interest in space exploration. That interest only grew wh…
What a dry meteorite tells us about water on Mars
Detecting water where none remains today: Neutron and X-ray tomography make it possible. In an international study conducted with the participation of the Paul Scherrer Institute …
NASA's canceled lunar space station tech will help build the Artemis moon base
Northrop Grumman plans to take technology built into the HALO module for NASA's canceled lunar space station and repurpose it to help develop the Artemis moon base.
One in four cocoa farm audits contain data manipulated to meet sustainability targets, researchers find
ETH researchers have used a sustainability program for cocoa cultivation in Côte d'Ivoire to demonstrate that, in one in four cases, data was manipulated to meet the program's req…