Science
How bumblebees keep up with a flower that won't stay still
Landing on a moving target is a challenge for all flying animals. For bumblebees, a flower swaying in the wind creates an erratic landing pad. Reaching it means matching its sidew…
Whole genome duplication shaped the evolution of the salmon family
Evolution is driven by changes in DNA that sometimes promote adaptation, altering traits like disease resistance or reproduction. Often, these changes are minuscule, modifying a s…
Long After Wildfire Smoke Is Gone, Heavy Metals Could Still Be Harming Survivors’ Lungs
After three years helping Maui wildfire survivors track their health progress, Dr. Martina L. Kamaka is used to seeing high levels of heavy metals in their bodies. A family medici…
Incoming El Niño Is so Extreme It Doesn’t Have a Scientific Name
Daniel Swain has made a name for himself studying the extremes of a warming planet. Fires, floods, droughts, heat, storms: if it’s a record breaker, Swain has probably studied it.…
Drones Are Already on the Front Lines of Wildfire Response. Robots and AI Could Be Next.
During the Sand Creek Fire, which has burned since the start of August in southwestern Montana, difficult terrain and fire-weakened trees posed hazards to crews searching for area…
AI identifies Senegal's smallholder crops 84% of the time using limited training data
Food in Senegal is mostly grown on small-scale, rain-dependent farms, leaving much of the population vulnerable to climate shocks, according to the World Food Programme. However, …
APOD: 2026 September 29 – Sh2-188: The Shrimp Nebula
APOD Science APOD APOD: 2026 September 29 –… Today’s APOD Archive Submissions Index Search Calendar RSS Education About Discuss APOD Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the co…
Fire Cloud with a Pileus on Top
Scientists captured rare observations of an ephemeral pileus cloud hovering over a smoke-infused cloud that rose above a wildfire in Montana.
Are household cleaning products damaging our health? – podcast
Our use of cleaning products has increased since the pandemic, but do we understand what they could be doing to our health? The journalist Rebecca Seal recently wrote for the Guar…
Mars Has Its Charmes
Written by Athanasios (Thanos) Klidaras, Ph.D. candidate at Purdue University Sept. 21, 2026 After a long hiatus, the Perseverance rover updates page is back. A lot has happened …
Alito’s Recusal From Climate Case: Too Little, Too Late?
Justice Samuel Alito decided Monday to sit out one of the most consequential climate change cases to reach the Supreme Court, but legal experts expected continuing ramifications d…
When microbial DNA is scarce, new profiling method helps separate genuine signals from contamination
In acute, life-threatening infections, rapidly characterizing the microorganisms in a patient sample can help guide diagnosis and treatment. Computational methods known as taxonom…
Trump Slashes Fuel-Economy Standards in Blow to Climate, Health, EV Market
The Trump administration Monday finalized the rollback of a major fuel economy standard for cars and trucks, a move critics say will cause more climate-warming pollution, human he…
Two-color glowing molecule could make wind tunnel tests more accurate
Most sensors can measure only one thing at a time, like a thermometer for temperature or a pressure gauge for pressure. Measuring two properties accurately from the same surface a…
Hydrogen's distant glow opens new way to investigate dark energy
The Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) has shown for the first time that it can detect the faint glow of hydrogen gas from deep in the universe's past using on…
October’s Night Sky Notes: Spooky Stargazing
The Ghoul Located within the constellation Perseus lies a star called Algol, also known as ‘Demon Star’ or ‘The Ghoul’. You can spot this star during the autumn months, along with…
Assembly pathway reveals how bacteria build protein coils that extend in acid
The assembly pathway behind refractile-body proteins may have finally been resolved, researchers from Science Tokyo report. Using genetic engineering and several techniques for an…
Avian odysseys: Tracking raptor migrations from Europe to Africa
At the southwest tip of Sweden, the Falsterbo Peninsula stretches into the Baltic Sea, creating a natural bottleneck for hundreds of millions of birds traveling south for the wint…
Experimental evidence of altermagnetism in a layered material opens a promising path toward future spintronics
To build the ultrafast computers of the future, scientists are looking beyond the electrical charge of electrons to another property: their spin. While conventional hardware relie…
Meteor hit Oklahoma 100 million years later than previously thought
Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have rewritten a small part of Oklahoma's geologic history with global implications for ancient life. Below the surface of the sma…
Samuel Alito steps aside in a major climate case amid scrutiny over oil stock holdings
Decision from conservative justice comes before court hears case on whether fossil-fuel firms deceived US publicSupreme court justice Samuel Alito recused himself Monday from a ma…
Uncovering species–specific chemical sensitivity by focusing on mammalian hormone receptor evolution
Chemicals affect biological species in different ways, posing a major challenge for assessing environmental chemical risks. However, the mechanisms behind these differences have r…
Mapping the 'social network' of proteins in the cell to understand how genes shape living things
One of biology's fundamental questions is how our genes shape who we are. Adrian Serohijos and Stephen Michnick, professors in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicin…
Changing climate may influence risks from deadly rodent-borne diseases
Changes in rainfall can trigger increases in rodent populations and subsequent spikes in infection, new research has found, revealing how a changing climate could have consequence…