News
- Astronomy
Stars may keep spinning fast, long into old age
NASA’s TESS telescope has spotted an old star that spins too fast for theory to explain, suggesting that stars may have a magnetic midlife crisis.
- Life
Monkeys can use basic logic to decipher the order of items in a list
Rhesus macaque monkeys don’t need rewards to learn and remember how items are ranked in a list, a mental feat that may prove handy in the wild.
- Health & Medicine
A new study challenges the idea that the placenta has a microbiome
A large study of more than 500 women finds little evidence of microbes in the placenta, contrary to previous reports on the placental microbiome.
- Tech
Tiny magnetic coils could help break down microplastic pollution
Carbon nanotubes designed to release plastic-eroding chemicals could clear the long-lasting trash from waterways.
- Astronomy
TESS has found the first-ever ‘ultrahot Neptune’
NASA’s TESS telescope has spotted a world that could be a bridge between other types of exoplanets: hot Jupiters and scorched Earths.
- Particle Physics
How a 2017 radioactive plume may be tied to Russia and nixed neutrino research
A botched attempt at producing radioactive material needed for a neutrino experiment may have released ruthenium-106 to the atmosphere in 2017.
- Life
Immune system defects seem to contribute to obesity in mice
Subtle defects affecting T cells altered the animals’ microbiome and fat absorption, providing hints of what might also be going on in people.
- Particle Physics
Dark matter particles won’t kill you. If they could, they would have already
The fact that no one has been killed by shots of dark matter suggests the mysterious substance is relatively small and light.
- Climate
How today’s global warming is unlike the last 2,000 years of climate shifts
Temperatures at the end of the 20th century were hotter almost everywhere on the planet than in the previous two millennia.
- Neuroscience
A frog study may point to where parenting begins in the brain
Two brain regions, including one active in mammal parents, lit up with activity in both male and female poison frogs when caring for their tadpoles.
- Chemistry
Droplets of these simple molecules may have helped kick-start life on Earth
Simple molecules called alpha hydroxy acids form cell-sized structures in conditions mimicking early Earth chemistry.
- Neuroscience
Boosting a gut bacterium helps mice fight an ALS-like disease
Gut bacteria may alter ALS symptoms for good or ill.
