Science News and Headlines
Science News and Headlines
A new Neuron study shows that astrocytes in the mouse basolateral amygdala, not neurons, encode anxiety‑like states. Calcium imaging revealed astrocytic activity spikes during exposure to open, threatening environments and closely mirrors freezing and hesitancy. A machine‑learning model using astrocyte signals predicted maze location with 82 percent accuracy, while neuronal data performed at chance. The work suggests astrocytes act as top‑down safety signals, reshaping how emotional processing is understood.
Two high‑profile gut‑microbiome studies—one on Parkinson’s disease published in Cell in 2016 and another on anxiety published in Nature in 2022—have been flagged for duplicated mouse‑behavior data. The duplications were uncovered by a software engineer using a repository‑scanning tool and...
University of California, San Diego researchers introduced a physics‑based model that quantifies the sensitivity limits of competitive lateral flow assays (cLFAs). By applying the model, they engineered fentanyl test strips that are roughly 100 times more sensitive than existing commercial...
Researchers at UC Berkeley demonstrated that the Eastern phantom crane fly can remain airborne by splaying its six legs into a drag‑producing cone, effectively “flying” without wing motion in an updraft. High‑speed camera and wind‑tunnel tests showed the leg cone...
Transparency and seeing are the two primary atmospheric metrics that dictate the quality of astronomical imaging. Transparency describes how clear the sky is, influencing how faint an object can be seen, while seeing measures atmospheric steadiness, affecting image sharpness. Amateur...
U.S. states including California, New York and Illinois have banned single‑use hotel toiletries, prompting chains like Marriott and InterContinental to roll out refillable dispensers. Hotels tout the switch as a waste‑reduction win, claiming hundreds of millions of mini bottles are kept...
The Department of Energy’s Genesis Mission is creating an integrated ecosystem that ties together supercomputers, artificial‑intelligence platforms and emerging quantum technologies across its 17 national laboratories. Argonne National Laboratory, leveraging its multidisciplinary CELS Directorate, is positioned to accelerate discovery through...
Optibrium has released a new PyMOL plugin that adds a graphical user interface to its QuanSA ligand‑based affinity prediction tool. QuanSA uses physically‑motivated machine learning to deliver free‑energy perturbation‑level accuracy without needing a protein structure, dramatically lowering computational cost. The...
NASA announced it will cancel the Lunar Gateway orbital station and redirect its resources to build a $20 billion lunar surface base over the next seven years. The decision was made by new NASA chief Jared Isaacman, who said the agency...
Karyopharm reported mixed results from its Phase 3 SENTRY trial of selinexor in myelofibrosis, achieving a statistically significant reduction in spleen volume but raising safety concerns. The data fell short of expectations for overall survival benefit. Meanwhile, Rezolute announced it will...
On Manatee Appreciation Day, the article highlights the rescue and lifelong care of a manatee calf named Daniel by Mexican scientist Dr. Benjamín Morales. It explains how manatees graze underwater vegetation, maintaining water quality and supporting fisheries. The piece notes...
NASA announced that a lunar outpost is now a formal element of its upcoming roadmap, moving the Artemis program toward a twice‑annual launch cadence. The agency also unveiled plans to field a nuclear‑propelled spacecraft for a Mars mission by the...
NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day showcases a striking photograph of light pillars over Mohe, China’s northernmost city. The pillars arise from flat ice crystals near the ground that reflect artificial lights rather than sunlight. The image also captures the...
A study in Experimental Brain Research examined 13 elite Rubik’s Cube speed‑cubers who average 17 seconds per solve. Using EEG caps, researchers recorded brain activity during a 15‑second mental planning phase and the subsequent physical execution. They found that the...
Physicists on the CMS experiment at CERN are installing a new ultra‑fast timing detector that can measure particle arrival times with 30‑picosecond precision—roughly the distance light travels in a centimeter. The system combines about 10,000 crystal sensors in a barrel...
T‑cell engagers are bispecific antibodies that redirect T cells to destroy cancer cells and are being explored for autoimmune disorders. Seven companies are leading the field: Adaptin Bio secured FDA IND clearance for APTN‑101 in glioblastoma; Candid Therapeutics merged with...
NASA is contributing its Neutron Spectrometer System (NSS) to the JAXA‑ISRO Lunar Polar Exploration (LUPEX) mission, which plans to land a rover at the Moon’s South Pole no earlier than 2028. The NSS detects hydrogen signatures up to three feet...
A new umbrella review from the University of South Australia confirms that regular exercise enhances brain health, memory, and overall cognition for people of all ages. The analysis, the largest of its kind, found the most pronounced memory gains in...
Aardvark Therapeutics has paused two Phase 2 obesity trials, POWER and STRENGTH, after cardiac safety signals emerged in its lead compounds ARD‑101 and ARD‑201. The anomalies were observed in healthy volunteers receiving double the target dose, prompting a halt to the...
The Exploration Company (TEC) has signed a five‑year renewable agreement to license LEAP 71’s Noyron RP Large Computation Model for its next‑generation rocket engine development. Noyron RP encodes physics, engineering logic, and production constraints to autonomously generate engine component geometries from...
Scientists at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases have engineered a dual‑action antibody that simultaneously targets two stages of Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus (VEEV) entry. The single‑molecule treatment protected animals even when given after exposure and neutralized...
Viz.ai and Alnylam Pharmaceuticals have teamed up to launch an AI‑driven care pathway targeting cardiac amyloidosis, a frequently underdiagnosed heart disease. The solution embeds the FDA‑cleared Us2.ai echocardiography algorithm and generative AI into hospital IT systems to automatically detect subtle...
Astronomers have confirmed a second newborn solar system around the star WISPIT 2, located about 437 light‑years from Earth. Using the Very Large Telescope, they imaged two massive gas‑giant planets, one roughly ten times the size of Jupiter, and identified a...
Quotient Therapeutics and Merck have signed a multi‑year collaboration to use Quotient’s somatic genomics platform for discovering new drug targets in inflammatory bowel disease. The agreement provides Quotient with $20 million upfront and includes milestone payments that could lift the total...
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang announced on the Lex Fridman podcast that humanity has already reached artificial general intelligence, citing recent advances in large language models and the OpenClaw platform. He later qualified his claim, acknowledging that the probability of 100,000...
Researchers at UNIST and partner institutions identified microRNA‑93 as a central driver of metabolic‑associated fatty liver disease (MASLD) and demonstrated that vitamin B3 (niacin) can suppress this molecule, restoring SIRT1 activity and reducing liver fat in mice. The study, published in...
Radiopharmaceutical clinical trials are becoming a high‑velocity segment in 2026, but they remain vulnerable to three predictable bottlenecks: isotope supply chain fragility, imaging variability, and regulatory pathway selection. Axcellant, a boutique CRO with an integrated imaging core lab, demonstrates that...
Researchers at Ulm University and Friedrich‑Schiller‑Universität Jena have created a water‑soluble redox copolymer that functions as a molecular solar battery, achieving over 80% charging efficiency and storing energy for several days. The stored electrons can be released on demand as...
A pilot study of thirty adult women with ADHD who take amphetamine‑based stimulants found that symptom severity and negative mood spike during the menstrual phase, while mid‑follicular days show milder symptoms. Daily medication dosages remained unchanged across the cycle, indicating...
Artis BioSolutions, a San Diego‑based advanced therapies firm, has launched a synthetic DNA manufacturing hub in Boston using Syngoi Technologies' proprietary enzymatic platform. The new site complements its GMP manufacturing facility in Watertown, creating a bi‑continental network with an existing...
Recent research highlights glycidol, a genotoxic carcinogen generated when vegetable oils are refined for frying, as a hidden risk in fried foods. Average daily exposure in the U.S. may exceed 50 micrograms, far above the estimated safe level of less...
Researchers at the University of Victoria and the University of Minnesota used high‑resolution 3D simulations on cutting‑edge supercomputers to pinpoint stellar rotation as the missing mechanism that transports deep‑interior material to the surface of red giant stars. The simulations show...
Recent research published in Antiquity reexamines the damage to statues of Egypt’s 18th‑dynasty queen Hatshepsut, suggesting the destruction was not solely ordered by her successor Thutmose III. The study, led by doctoral candidate Jun Yi Wong, analyzed decades of excavation notes and photographs,...
British Army veteran Jon Noble has spent 100 days with Neuralink’s N1 brain‑computer interface implanted in his motor cortex, allowing him to play World of Warcraft using only thought. The implant translates neural activity into digital commands, letting him navigate...
A new analysis of roughly 222,000 participants from the Women’s Health Initiative and the All of Us Research Program shows that higher dietary intake of several B‑complex vitamins—particularly B1, B2, B3, B6 and folate—correlates with up to a 20 percent lower...
A new United Nations report reveals that freshwater fish populations have plummeted 81 percent over the past 50 years, endangering hundreds of species that feed millions of people. The decline is driven by warming waters, pollution, dam construction and intensive fishing, with...
Researchers at the University of Brighton and the University of Strathclyde have created a fully 3D‑printed electrochemical sensor that detects the heart‑attack biomarker cardiac troponin I at 7.4 pg/mL in undiluted human serum. The electrodes, printed on a desktop FlashForge Creator Pro 2 using...
The CMS Collaboration announced a five‑sigma observation of a top‑antitop bound state, toponium, at the Moriond 2026 conference. By analyzing events where one top decays leptonically and the other hadronically, researchers measured unusually low relative velocities, a hallmark of binding....
Researchers introduced a carbon‑coated NiFe alloy (NiFe@NC) that uses a thin carbon shell to electronically reconfigure the catalyst surface, facilitating CO desorption and suppressing hydrogen evolution. Density‑functional theory and in‑situ spectroscopy confirm the electronic reconstruction and protective role of the...
A new analysis of the 2022‑2023 National Survey of Children’s Health, covering 65,652 U.S. youths, finds that chronic medical conditions are the strongest predictor of childhood depression, outpacing poverty or parental divorce. Each additional medical health risk nearly doubles the...
Researchers have quantified that Australia’s flying foxes generate between $195 million and $673 million annually by facilitating the growth of over 91 million trees, primarily eucalypts. Historically deemed pests and even eradicated with napalm, these large fruit bats now appear essential to the...
Stephanie Lo has been appointed Protein Function Content Team Leader at EMBL‑EBI, overseeing the curation of protein function data for UniProt. She brings experience from leading the Global Pneumococcal Sequencing project at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, where she linked bacterial...
Researchers examined how microstructural variations affect fatigue performance in laminated braided composites by fabricating thick‑ply and thin‑ply laminates with identical overall thickness. Quasi‑static and high‑cycle tension tests, coupled with macro‑ and microscopic analysis, revealed that thick‑ply configurations initiate damage at...
Researchers introduced the K‑R excitation‑regulation framework, an ODE‑based system that extracts Critical Slowing‑Down (CSD) indicators from rolling earthquake magnitude windows. Applying it to USGS catalogs in Japan (14,501 events) and Chile (9,150 events) revealed a consistent pre‑seismic CSD₅₀ suppression of...
Humans inherit roughly 100 new genetic mutations each generation, a rate that fuels ongoing debate about a potential decline in physical and mental fitness. Geneticist Michael Lynch warned that industrialized societies could see reduced fitness over centuries, while some studies...
Researchers introduced a knowledge‑aware framework that merges transformer‑based semantic encoding with graph‑structured reasoning for information retrieval. The system automatically builds a corpus‑level knowledge graph from entity relationships, generates dense embeddings via bi‑encoders with synonym expansion, and applies graph convolutional networks...
Researchers discovered that clemastine fumarate activates lipophagy in oligodendrocyte progenitor cells (OPCs), clearing lipid droplets that impede differentiation. In vitro, the drug enhanced OPC maturation and removed myelin debris, while in a cuprizone‑induced mouse model it restored myelin integrity and...
Researchers have created a Janus‑type nanofiber film that couples chiral quasi‑2D perovskite nanosheets with achiral perovskite nanocrystals or dye molecules via efficient energy transfer. This architecture raises the photoluminescence quantum yield of the achiral component by four times and pushes...
The new Functional Variance Hypothesis (FVH) argues that non‑reproductive helpers act primarily as stochastic buffers against rare, high‑lethality environmental crises rather than as growth enhancers. Using a nonlinear persistence model, the authors derive a unique stable optimal helper ratio that...
A new study of more than 53,000 UK adults shows that modest lifestyle tweaks—adding just 11 minutes of sleep, 4.5 minutes of brisk walking and 50 g of extra vegetables each day—can lower the risk of heart attacks and strokes by...
