Today's Science Pulse
UK-led study reveals hidden massive star clusters deep within nearby galaxies
Astronomers using the VLA and ALMA uncovered previously unseen giant star clusters embedded deep inside nearby galaxies. The findings show that young stellar activity drives the evolution of these galaxies, reshaping their interstellar environments. Multiple observations confirm the clusters act as hidden “ring factories” of star formation.
Also developing:
By the numbers: Foundation Alloy raises $22M Series A
Common Asian Plant in Brazil Shows Potential for Removing Microplastics From Water
Researchers at ICT‑UNESP in Brazil demonstrated that a saline extract from Moringa oleifera seeds can coagulate and remove microplastics from drinking water, performing on par with aluminum sulfate and even better in alkaline conditions. The study, published in ACS Omega, used jar‑test simulations with PVC microplastics and confirmed removal efficiency via scanning electron microscopy. The team highlighted the low‑cost, biodegradable nature of the Moringa extract, making it suitable for small‑scale or rural water‑treatment systems. Ongoing field trials on the Paraíba do Sul River are validating the approach in real‑world water.
SpaceX Starship Next Launch Targets May 2026 for V3 Debut
SpaceX’s twelfth integrated Starship test, Flight 12, targets a May 2026 launch from the newly built Pad 2 at Starbase, Texas. The mission will be the first flight of the Starship V3 configuration, featuring 33 Raptor 3 engines and a payload capacity of over...
The Coming Psychedelic Holiday
Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann first synthesized LSD in 1938, but only in April 1943 did he discover its powerful mind‑altering effects after accidentally absorbing the compound and then intentionally ingesting 0.25 mg. The resulting vivid hallucinations during a bicycle ride through...
OpenAI Starts Offering a Biology-Tuned LLM
OpenAI unveiled GPT‑Rosalind, a large language model fine‑tuned for biology workflows. Trained on 50 common biological tasks and public databases, it can suggest pathways, prioritize drug targets, and connect genotype to phenotype. The model is deliberately more skeptical to curb...
They Froze a Brain to −196°C. Then Brought It ‘Back to Life’ in a Groundbreaking New Study.
Researchers at the University Hospital Erlangen demonstrated that mouse hippocampal tissue can survive vitrification at –196 °C and resume normal neuronal activity after rewarming. The study, published in PNAS, showed structural integrity and functional synaptic signaling in brain slices, with modest...
Understanding Material Degradation in Solar Cells
A Helmholtz‑Zentrum Hereon team repurposed operando spectroscopic ellipsometry to monitor photoelectrode degradation in real time. The technique measures nanometer‑scale thickness changes across the entire surface while the cell operates under realistic illumination and electrochemical conditions. Testing ultrathin titanium‑dioxide layers revealed...
Designing Implants that Don’t Scar the Brain
A new study systematically compared stiff silicon electrodes with flexible polyimide probes for intracortical neural implants. The researchers found that material choice dominates tissue response: polyimide probes trigger far less scarring and inflammation than silicon, while probe thickness or wireless...
Your Brain Just Made up the Color You’re Looking At
An online visual illusion arranges black spokes with short red and blue segments, causing viewers to perceive a continuous neon‑colored circle that doesn’t actually exist. The effect, known as neon color spreading, demonstrates how the brain interpolates missing hue information....
A Single Measurement Sorts Chiral Molecules by Type, Handedness, and Ratio
Researchers have unveiled a terahertz circular dichroism platform that uses an achiral gradient metasurface to identify chiral biomolecules, their handedness, and mixing ratios in a single broadband scan. The metasurface reflects terahertz light from 0.5 to 1.8 THz without adding background...
Anglo-Saxon Burial Holds an Older Sister Cradling Her Little Brother After They Both Died 1,400 Years Ago, Possibly of an...
Archaeologists uncovered a seventh‑century Anglo‑Saxon double burial in Cherington containing a teenage girl and a young boy. DNA analysis by the Francis Crick Institute confirmed they were siblings, a rare find for this period. The positioning of the sister cradling...
How Controlling Light Inside a Tiny Resonator Could Speed AI Chips and Secure Communications
KAIST researchers unveiled a dual‑bus integrated photonic resonator that can precisely shape the spectrum and phase of light, overcoming the limitations of traditional single‑bus designs. The device enables engineered interference, allowing optical signals to be customized for high‑performance computing. Led...
Artemis II Crew Describes Moon Mission and Splashdown Moment
NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and CSA astronaut Jeremy Hansen held a post‑mission press conference after completing Artemis II, a ten‑day crewed flight that looped around the Moon and returned to Earth. The mission launched on 1 April from...
Repurposing NASA’s Gateway Partnerships in the Face of ‘Ignition’
NASA announced a pause to its Gateway lunar‑orbit station, redirecting resources to the newly unveiled Ignition program that targets a permanent surface base on the Moon. The shift follows the Artemis II splashdown and comes amid a proposed $3.4 billion cut to...
Episode 194: Tommy Wood Discusses How to Future-Proof the Adult Brain
In this episode, neuroscientist Dr. Tommy Wood expands on his new book, The Stimulated Mind, outlining science‑backed strategies to future‑proof the adult brain against dementia. He emphasizes that neuroplasticity persists throughout life and that diet, exercise, and continual mental challenge...
NASA’s SPHEREx Maps Water Ice Across Cygnus X Star‑Forming Complex
NASA’s SPHEREx infrared observatory has produced a high‑resolution map of water‑ice distribution throughout the turbulent Cygnus X star‑forming region. The findings, published in The Astrophysical Journal, confirm that ice concentrates in the densest dust lanes, offering new constraints on models of...
Merlin Sheldrake to Discuss Fungal Intelligence at UC Santa Cruz Deep Read Event
British biologist Merlin Sheldrake will appear on May 31 at 4 p.m. for a Deep Read conversation with UC Santa Cruz historian Benjamin Breen at the Quarry Amphitheater. The event, part of the Humanities Institute’s seventh annual Deep Read series, highlights how fungal...
Vitamin C Cuts Iron‑Related Aging Markers in Monkeys
Researchers have demonstrated that high‑dose vitamin C supplementation lowers iron‑induced oxidative damage and senescence markers in aged cynomolgus monkeys. The findings point to a nutraceutical strategy for slowing cellular aging and have sparked interest across the biohacking community.
Rolls‑Royce Wins UK Approval for 470‑MW SMR Nuclear Reactors to Power 3 Million Homes
Rolls‑Royce SMR and Great British Energy – Nuclear received UK government approval on April 13 for three 470‑MW small modular reactors at Wylfa, Anglesey. The project, backed by a £2.5 bn partnership and a £599 m National Wealth Fund grant, aims to...
Re: Managing Resistant Hypertension . . . And Other Research
A retired physician, David Levine, wrote to BMJ questioning the reported cardiovascular event numbers in a recent LDL‑lowering study, noting that the intensive‑therapy arm was listed with 147 events versus 100 in the conventional arm. He suggests the figures may...
Laser Method Unlocks 3,000-Kelvin Thin-Film Synthesis for Quantum Materials
Caltech researchers have unveiled a laser‑based thermal evaporation (TLE) process that can produce thin films of ultra‑refractory materials at temperatures near 3,000 K. By focusing a 1‑kW fiber laser on a small region of a solid pellet, the method vaporizes material...
High-Dose Folic Acid Slashes Birth Defect Risks
A large Nordic study of over 13,000 pregnancies shows that high‑dose folic acid taken at least one month before conception cuts the risk of major congenital anomalies in children of women using antiseizure medications by about 45%, an absolute reduction...
NASA Shifts Mobile Launcher 1 to VAB Ahead of Artemis III
NASA moved Mobile Launcher 1 from Launch Pad 39B to the Kennedy Space Center Vehicle Assembly Building on April 16, 2026, marking a key step in preparing for the Artemis III lunar mission. The 4‑mile trek on crawler‑transporter 2 follows the Artemis II flight and precedes...
Nanoz Rolls Out AI‑powered 2 Mm Nanosensors for Health and Environmental Monitoring
Nanoz, a French deep‑tech company, announced the industrial launch of AI‑enabled nanosensors no larger than 2 mm. The devices combine metal‑oxide semiconductor gas detection with machine‑learning algorithms to identify disease biomarkers, cabin‑air hazards and urban pollutants, opening new markets in healthcare,...
Researchers Encode Full Hepatitis D Genome on IBM Quantum System One
Scientists from the Wellcome Sanger Institute, Oxford, Cambridge, Melbourne and Kyiv Academic University have loaded a complete Hepatitis D virus genome onto IBM Quantum System One’s 156‑qubit Heron processor. The milestone, achieved under the Wellcome Leap‑funded Q4Bio Challenge, demonstrates that...
MeiraGTx Reacquires Gene Therapy Candidate Bota-Vec for X‑Linked Retinitis Pigmentosa
MeiraGTx Holdings plc announced it has signed an asset purchase agreement with Johnson & Johnson to reacquire botaretigene sparoparvovec (bota-vec), its AAV‑RPGR gene‑therapy for X‑linked retinitis pigmentosa (XLRP). The company says the deal positions it to file Biologics License Applications...
NASA Artemis II Astronauts Say Thank You to the World
NASA’s Artemis II mission returned on April 1 after a historic 10‑day lunar flyby, marking the first crewed journey around the Moon in over five decades. Astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen highlighted both the triumphs—testing Orion’s manual piloting and...
More than 200,000 Lost Their Homes in the L.A. County Fires. For People Already on the Streets, the Damage Ran...
Four UCLA‑led studies link climate disasters to a surge in homelessness, using the January 2025 Los Angeles County wildfires as a case study. The fires destroyed roughly 200,000 homes and inflicted injuries, respiratory problems, and shelter loss on more than three‑quarters...
Dark Matter May Be Made of Black Holes From Another Universe
Physicists propose that dark matter could be primordial black holes that survived a cosmic bounce from a previous universe. A new model by Enrique Gaztanaga suggests structures larger than about 90 meters can endure the collapse of a universe and re‑emerge...
Staging, ctDNA, and the Art of Personalizing Metastatic Breast Cancer Therapy: Hayley Knollman, MD
Hayley M. Knollman, MD, highlighted how estrogen‑receptor‑positive metastatic breast cancer still relies on conventional staging—blood work, imaging, and tissue biopsies—while emerging HER2‑low categories gain relevance only after disease spreads. She noted that circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) and broad genomic panels are now...
Argonne Models Thousands of Cyclone Scenarios to Evaluate Coastal Infrastructure Risk
Researchers at Argonne National Laboratory used high‑performance computing to generate thousands of synthetic tropical cyclone scenarios for the Bay of Bengal, a region prone to extreme storm‑tide flooding. The simulations evaluate low‑frequency, 1,000‑year flood events that could threaten critical infrastructure...
Optical Links Replace Radio as Space Data Bottleneck
The radio spectrum is reaching the limit of space-to-Earth communication, with more spacecraft in orbit and more data to transmit each year. That’s why startup Transcelestial is working on optical communications for transferring data from Earth to space. https://spectrum.ieee.org/satellite-communication-laser-radio-transcelestial
Astronomers Observe Shape-Shifting Planetary System: TOI-201
Astronomers have mapped the TOI-201 system, a bright F‑type star 372 light‑years away that hosts a 1.4 Earth‑radius super‑Earth (TOI‑201d), a warm‑Jupiter (TOI‑201b) on a 53‑day orbit, and a massive brown dwarf (TOI‑201c) on an 8‑year highly elliptical path. The brown...
When Words Can’t Express The Wonders You’ve Seen
Keith Cowing, former NASA employee and founder of NASA Watch, reflected on a once‑in‑a‑lifetime moment when he and astronaut Scott Parazynski displayed four Apollo 11 moon rocks at the base of Mt. Everest. The anecdote resurfaced during a BBC World interview with astronaut...
This American Nuclear Startup Aims to Supply India’s Reactor Boom
Chicago‑based Clean Core Thorium Energy, one of the first U.S. firms cleared to export nuclear material to India, is set to announce a pilot manufacturing agreement with Canada’s National Laboratories. The startup’s proprietary fuel assemblies blend thorium with high‑assay low‑enriched...
OpenAI Debuts GPT-Rosalind, a New Limited Access Model for Life Sciences, and Broader Codex Plugin on Github
OpenAI unveiled GPT‑Rosalind, a domain‑specific reasoning model built to accelerate life‑science research, alongside a Codex plugin that links the model to over 50 public multi‑omics databases. The model demonstrated top‑tier performance on benchmarks such as BixBench and LABBench2, surpassing GPT‑5.4...
Flawed Study Groups Failed and Successful Alzheimer Drugs Together
This new analysis of Alzheimer's drugs is such a good example of why we can't make any headway as a society. There is probably a good debate to be had on whether the risks and costs of the two approved beta...
For Regrowing Human Limbs, This Salamander Gene Could Hold the Key
Scientists identified SP6 and SP8 as conserved genes that drive limb regeneration in axolotls, zebrafish and mice, and demonstrated that a viral gene‑therapy delivering FGF8 can partially rescue digit regrowth in mice lacking these genes. The work, published in PNAS,...
Brain Circuits Underlying Placebo Pain Relief Identified in Mice
Scientists led by UC San Diego identified a cortical‑brainstem‑spinal circuit in mice that underlies placebo‑induced pain relief, pinpointing opioid peptide activity in the ventrolateral periaqueductal gray (vlPAG). By adapting a human placebo protocol, they showed that training mice with one...
Clinical Trial of a Prion Disease Drug Candidate Begins Enrolling Participants
Broad Institute and UMass Chan have launched the first human trial of a prion disease therapy, a divalent small interfering RNA designed to silence the prion protein gene. The phase 1 PRiSM study will enroll 15 symptomatic patients to assess...
In Search of Novel Means to Provoke Mild Mitochondrial Stress to Slow Aging
Researchers screened 770 FDA‑approved drugs to find compounds that safely trigger a mild mitochondrial stress response, a process known as mitohormesis that can improve cellular resilience. The screen highlighted terbinafine and miglustat, which extended lifespan and healthspan in C. elegans...
Orbiting Needs Speed, Not Height: Artemis II Curve Explained
Why does the @nasa Artemis II curve so much on launch? Getting into orbit is more about going fast than going up. For low Earth orbit, it's over 80 percent kinetic energy. https://www.instagram.com/p/DXMmMxrAOtJ/?img_index=1
P21⁺TREM2⁺ Macrophages Drive Inflammaging and Liver Disease
Delighted to be part of this study identifying p21⁺TREM2⁺ senescent macrophages as drivers of inflammaging and metabolic liver disease. A fantastic collaboration led by @ACovarrubiasPhD 👏
RSV Vaccines Work to Prevent Hospitalization
Recent clinical data show that newly approved respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccines dramatically cut hospital admissions. In infants, the vaccine lowered hospitalization risk by roughly 70%, while older adults experienced a 50% reduction in severe cases. The FDA has accelerated...
Artemis 4 Targets Moon’s South Pole for Water
Artemis 4 in early 2028 aims for a crewed landing on the Moon's south pole. Why the south pole? That's where we've found ice in permanently shadowed craters. Water on the Moon changes everything.
Lightweight 8 kW/Kg Motor Powers Hydrogen Hybrid Aircraft
The 12.5kg gas cylinder-sized motor achieves 8 kW per kilogram with a fault-tolerant design, targeting hydrogen hybrid regional aircraft under Project AMBER. https://t.co/vk6CdOCVvD
Arterial Plaque Impacts Women Differently From Men
A new analysis of the PROMISE trial shows that while women develop coronary plaque less frequently than men, they experience serious cardiac events with a lower plaque burden. The study compared imaging data from thousands of chest‑pain patients and found...
Even Small Alcohol Increases Heart Rate, Lowers HRV
"Researchers looked at over 5 million days of data and found that even a modest amount of alcohol caused resting heart rates to climb and heart rate variability (a sign of how well your body handles stress) to drop." https://t.co/qg4663hHCS
High‑Resolution TORC2 Structure Opens Path to Age‑Related Therapies
Activating TORC2 holds potential in medicine for treating age-related memory & hearing loss. New study out today @MolecularCell reveals the structure of TORC2 in highest-ever resolution - which is good news for drug developers & all of us who age...
UNM Astronomers Reveal Always-Changing Multi-Planet System
University of New Mexico astronomers have announced the discovery of a tightly packed, five‑planet system that defies conventional stability expectations. Using transit‑timing variations captured by the TESS mission, the team observed rapid orbital shifts that indicate strong gravitational interactions among...
Drug Discovery Expands Beyond AI to New Frontiers
The marked expansion of paths and methods for new drug development including and beyond AI @Joseph_C_Wu @james_y_zou @WuXuekun @ScienceMagazine https://t.co/hTJ4Rt181n https://t.co/H3U5BNR1ER