Tropical Breed Gestation Length ‘79pc Heritable’: Study
Australian researchers have quantified gestation length in three tropical beef cattle breeds, finding a direct heritability of 79 percent, indicating strong genetic control. Brahman, Droughtmaster and Santa Gertrudis cows average 291.5, 288.2 and 285.1 days respectively, with male calves gestating up to three days longer than females. The study also links longer gestation to higher birth weight but shows no genetic correlation with weaning weight. These findings enable breeders to use gestation length EBVs for targeted genetic selection.
Climate Change Is Supercharging Pollen and Making Allergies Worse
Rising temperatures are lengthening and intensifying pollen seasons worldwide, leading to more severe allergy symptoms and rare but deadly "thunderstorm asthma" events. The 2016 Melbourne storm, which killed ten people and flooded hospitals, exemplifies how storm‑driven pollen fragments can trigger...
'Self-Regulating' Wound Patch Developed in South Korea
Researchers at KAIST unveiled a self‑regulating wound‑healing patch that merges a 630‑nm organic LED with a ROS‑triggered drug delivery system. The OLED emits uniform light to stimulate cell regeneration while nanocarriers release Centella asiatica extract in proportion to the generated...
Hidden Cave, Hippo Bones Under Welsh Castle May Rewrite History
Archaeologists have uncovered a hidden cave beneath Pembroke Castle in Wales containing hippo bones and a suite of Ice Age fauna. The five‑year project, led by the University of Aberdeen, aims to explore evidence of early Homo sapiens, possible Neanderthal...
Heartland Climate Conference: "What Is the Proof?"
Physicist John Clauser addressed the Heartland Climate Conference on April 9, focusing first on extreme‑weather events and then on Earth’s Energy Imbalance (EEI). In the EEI segment, Clauser highlighted recent satellite and oceanic measurements that show the planet is retaining more...
Science Shorts: Ginger Extract for Weight Loss, Ashwagandha for Sports and More
A wave of recent nutrition studies published in journals such as Nutrients and Phytotherapy Research highlights several promising supplement interventions. Steamed ginger extract (480 mg) demonstrated significant weight‑loss and body‑fat reductions over 12 weeks, while a multi‑nutrient fortified milk improved processing‑speed...
Merck’s PD-1/VEGF Data Star in Stacked Lineup of AACR ‘26 Data Reveals
Merck will unveil early clinical data on MK‑2010, a PD‑1/VEGF bispecific antibody it licensed from LaNova for $588 million, at the AACR 2026 meeting. The readout will test Merck’s ability to compete with ivonescimab and other emerging bispecifics from Pfizer/BioNTech and BMS....
‘Overdue’ Debate Unfurls over Neuroimaging Method
A recent Nature Neuroscience paper criticized lesion network mapping (LNM), claiming it yields biased, overlapping networks across disorders. Harvard’s Shan Siddiqi and Michael Fox responded by re‑analyzing their data with additional statistical controls, posting a bioRxiv preprint that defended LNM’s...
A Student-Led Experiment Sets New Limits in the Search for Axions
Undergraduate researchers at the University of Hamburg constructed a resonant‑cavity detector, dubbed SPACE, and published new exclusion limits for axion dark matter in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics. Leveraging equipment from the MADMAX collaboration and the university’s Quantum...
Does the Brain Really Make Its Own DMT? New Study Ignites Debate
A new study by Mikael Palner at the University of Southern Denmark examined rat brains ex vivo and found no detectable endogenous N,N‑dimethyltryptamine (DMT) in serotonin‑producing neurons, despite using MAO inhibitors to block degradation. This contrasts sharply with a 2019 microdialysis...
After a Saga of Broken Promises, a European Rover Finally Has a Ride to Mars
NASA confirmed that SpaceX will launch ESA’s Rosalind Franklin Mars rover on a Falcon Heavy rocket, targeting a late‑2028 departure and a 2030 landing. The mission, originally slated for Russian rockets, has been reshaped by geopolitical shifts and budgetary changes, with...
Community-Led Ecotourism Protects Rebounding Wild Cattle in Thailand
Thailand’s Huai Kha Keng Wildlife Sanctuary now hosts an estimated 1,400 critically endangered banteng, the largest herd in Southeast Asia. The rebound, driven by SMART ranger patrols, has led the animals to disperse into surrounding farms, sparking conflict concerns. In...
Asteroid-Mining Microbes Extract Metal From Rocks in Space
Scientists demonstrated that bacteria and fungi can leach precious metals from asteroid material in microgravity, marking a breakthrough for in‑situ resource utilization (ISRU). The BioAsteroid project tested the bacterium Sphingomonas desiccabilis and the fungus Penicillium simplicissimum on Earth and aboard...
Voyager and IBM Demonstrate Post-Quantum Security on the International Space Station
Voyager Space and IBM have demonstrated a post‑quantum secured link between Earth and the International Space Station using Voyager’s Space Edge™ micro‑datacenter and IBM’s Quantum Safe Remediator. The system upgrades legacy encryption through a software proxy that translates to NIST‑standardized...
Stem Cell Editing Programs the Immune System to Make Own Therapeutic Proteins
Researchers at Rockefeller University used CRISPR to edit hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs), programming them to produce therapeutic antibodies or other proteins after vaccination. In mice, as few as 7,000 edited HSPCs generated durable, high‑titer antibody responses that protected...
Northumbria University Wins £4m to Crack the Code on Earth’s Deadliest Space Radiation
Northumbria University has secured a £4 million (≈$5.1 million) grant from the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council to study the erratic behavior of Earth’s radiation belts. Led by Professor Clare Watt, the five‑year project will merge spacecraft data from global missions...
Seifertite Elasticity Explains Deep Mantle Seismic Anomalies
Researchers used density‑functional theory to calculate seifertite’s elastic constants at core‑mantle‑boundary pressures, revealing compressional and shear wave speeds that surpass those of bridgmanite and post‑perovskite. The mineral’s strong anisotropy and a CaCl₂‑type to seifertite transition that reduces shear velocity by...
Will Retatrutide Help Me Lose Weight or Look ‘Shredded’?
Retatrutide, an experimental triple‑hormone peptide, has shown more than 20% body‑weight loss in a 48‑week clinical trial, outperforming existing GLP‑1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Researchers say it works by modulating GLP‑1, GIP and glucagon pathways to suppress appetite and...
Agrovoltaic Systems Can Save Water, Generating Energy and Making Tomato Cultivation More Sustainable at the Same Time
Researchers from the University of Seville and the Polytechnic University of Madrid demonstrated that tomatoes can be cultivated under photovoltaic panels while generating solar power, creating a dual‑use agrovoltaic system. By pairing regulated deficit irrigation with the shade of solar...
Indian Wastewater Rife with Drug Resistance Genes
Researchers examined 447 wastewater samples from Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai, uncovering abundant antimicrobial‑resistance (AMR) genes that were strikingly similar across the four metros. The Nature Communications study highlights sewage as a critical hotspot where resistant bacteria proliferate and exchange...
Double Shifts Disrupt Normal Cortisol Patterns
A recent study in Nursing Open examined how single‑ and double‑shift schedules affect salivary cortisol among 52 female nurses in Turkey. Researchers collected cortisol samples before, after, and at midnight for each shift type and found that double‑shift workers had...
Ceruloplasmin Deficiency Drives a Fusiform-Centric Lipid–Myelin Pathology Underlying a Visual Subtype in Autism
A multimodal study of 179 children with autism identified a distinct fusiform‑centric lipid‑myelin pathology in those with atypical visual processing (ASD‑AVP). Using Dixon‑based PDFF mapping, synthetic MRI myelin quantification, and serum iron‑ceruloplasmin‑lead profiling, researchers found elevated lipid accumulation and abnormal...
New Open-Source Python-Based Software Boosts Space-Weather Modeling
University of Birmingham researchers, together with Los Alamos, Exeter and Northumbria, have released PIRAN, a free open‑source Python package that computes relativistic diffusion coefficients for wave‑particle interactions in Earth’s radiation belts. The tool reproduces results from legacy proprietary codes while...
Methane Emerges From Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS as It Exits the Solar System
Interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, the third‑ever detected object from outside the solar system, is now exiting beyond Jupiter after a close solar pass in October 2025. Using JWST’s mid‑infrared spectrograph, Caltech researchers observed a marked increase in methane outgassing as the...
‘Godzilla El Niño’ Threat Looms as Indonesia’s Fire Season Starts Early
Indonesia’s 2026 fire season is accelerating, with burned area already at 32,637 ha—about 20 times the size recorded at the same time last year. The surge coincides with a 50‑80% probability of a weak to moderate El Niño and a 25% chance...
From Lockdown to the Lab: Researcher Develops 'Decoy Molecule' To Slow Down Coronavirus
During the COVID‑19 lockdown, Ph.D. candidate Koen Rijpkema engineered decoy molecules that bind tightly to the coronavirus Mac1 enzyme, which normally dampens immune signaling. By mimicking the enzyme’s natural substrate, the decoys keep Mac1 occupied, allowing the immune system to detect...
Gut Microbes Reveal a Surprising Tie to Cortisol Spikes During Acute Stress
Researchers at the University of Vienna have shown that greater gut microbial diversity and the capacity to produce specific short‑chain fatty acids are linked to heightened cortisol spikes and perceived stress during acute challenges. The study, published in Neurobiology of...
Boeing and Millennium Space Systems Add Mid-Class Resolute Satellite Bus
Boeing and its subsidiary Millennium Space Systems unveiled Resolute, a new mid‑class satellite bus delivering 2‑4 kW of power. The platform bridges the capability gap between Millennium’s 50 W‑1 kW small sats and Boeing’s 4‑30 kW larger systems, leveraging existing flight computers, avionics, and...
Quantum Bottleneck Breaks Wide Open as One Light Beam Carries 23 Secure Channels at the Same Time
Bar‑Ilan University researchers have demonstrated a way to transmit, manipulate, and measure quantum information across many frequency channels at once, breaking the long‑standing detector bandwidth bottleneck. Using broadband squeezed light, spectral shaping and parametric homodyne detection, they performed continuous‑variable quantum...
Oldest Reptile Mummy Sheds Light on the Ancient Art of Breathing
Paleontologists from the University of Toronto have described a 289‑million‑year‑old mummified reptile, *Captorhinus*, that possesses the oldest known costal (rib‑assisted) breathing system in a vertebrate. The fossil, recovered from an Oklahoma cave, retained bone, skin, cartilage and even protein fragments,...
Latvia to Sign Artemis Accords
NASA announced that Latvia will sign the Artemis Accords on April 20, 2026, becoming the 62nd nation to join the U.S.-led space partnership. The ceremony at NASA Headquarters will feature Latvia’s minister for education and science alongside senior U.S. officials....
Menstrual Cycle Reshapes Nearly 200 Blood Proteins, Offering a Broader View of Women's Health
A team at Aarhus University mapped the blood proteome across the menstrual cycle, identifying nearly 200 proteins that fluctuate systematically. The study, published in Nature Medicine, reveals that these changes affect immune, hormonal, and metabolic pathways far more than previously...
780,000-Year-Old Charcoal Reveals How Early Humans Mastered Fire
Archaeologists analyzing 780,000‑year‑old charcoal from Israel’s Gesher Benot Ya’aqov site discovered that early hominins relied on driftwood gathered along a lakeshore for fire. Microscopic examination of 266 fragments revealed a diverse mix of species, including ash, willow, olive and the...
Gene Discovery Opens New Path for Disease-Resistant Rice Breeding
Researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and partner universities have cloned a broad‑spectrum bacterial blight resistance gene, Xa48, in the indica rice variety Shuangkezao. Xa48 encodes an NLR immune receptor that directly detects the XopG effector, triggering degradation of...
High-Precision Human Immune Aging Clock Identifies RUNX1 as Key Target for T Cell Senescence
Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences unveiled a high‑precision Human Immune Aging Clock (HIAC) that leverages single‑cell multi‑omics to predict immune age with a 5.66‑year mean absolute error. The clock identifies T cells as the most sensitive cellular indicator...
Sharp HealthCare Taps Apple Vision Pro for Surgical Innovation
Sharp HealthCare in San Diego has launched an IRB‑approved clinical study to evaluate Apple’s Vision Pro headset in cataract surgery. The feasibility and safety study will measure how spatial‑computing tools affect depth perception, workflow efficiency, and surgeon ergonomics. Conducted at Sharp...
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,...
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...
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...
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...
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 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...