News
- Astronomy
Massive stellar flare may have fried Earth’s nearest exoplanet
A massive flare made Proxima Centauri 1,000 times brighter in 10 seconds, dimming hopes that its planet may be habitable.
- Artificial Intelligence
In the future, an AI may diagnose eye problems
Artificial intelligence could help diagnose blinding eye diseases and other illnesses, speeding up medical care in areas where specialists might be scarce.
- Physics
Knotted structures called skyrmions seem to mimic ball lightning
Skyrmions in a quantum state of matter have something surprising in common with ball lightning — linked magnetic fields.
- Chemistry
Extreme cold is no match for a new battery
A rechargeable battery that works at –70° C could be used in some of the coldest places on Earth or other planets.
- Earth
Early land plants led to the rise of mud
New research suggests early land plants called bryophytes, which include modern mosses, helped shape Earth’s surface by creating clay-rich river deposits.
- Animals
It’s official: Termites are just cockroaches with a fancy social life
On their latest master list of arthropods, U.S. entomologists have finally declared termites to be a kind of cockroach.
- Health & Medicine
Human skin bacteria have cancer-fighting powers
Strains of a bacteria that live on human skin make a compound that suppressed tumor growth in mice.
- Microbes
A new way to make bacteria glow could simplify TB screening
A new dye to stain tuberculosis bacteria in coughed-up mucus and saliva could expedite TB diagnoses and drug-resistance tests.
- Cosmology
Here’s when the universe’s first stars may have been born
The first stars lit the cosmos by 180 million years after the Big Bang, radio observations suggest.
- Life
A rare rainstorm wakes undead microbes in Chile’s Atacama Desert
Microbial life in Chile’s Atacama Desert bursts into bloom when moisture is available.
- Neuroscience
Some flu strains can make mice forgetful
Mice infected with influenza had memory problems a month later, a result that hints at a link between infections and brain performance.
- Particle Physics
The quest to identify the nature of the neutrino’s alter ego is heating up
The search is on for a rare nuclear decay that could prove neutrinos are their own antiparticles and shed light on the universe’s antimatter mystery.
