All Stories
- Particle Physics
CERN shutters the Large Hadron Collider for a major transformation
The High-Luminosity LHC, planned to switch on in 2030, could help physicists unravel mysteries about the Higgs boson, dark matter and more.
- Animals
A whopping 14 million species of insects — or more — may roam Earth
New calculations suggest that the insect species inhabiting our planet may be double or triple previous estimates.
- Science & Society
A discovery about this bat’s diet was hiding in a Renaissance painting
Renaissance painter Jan Brueghel the Elder painted a bat eating a bird — 400 years before scientists would document the behavior.
- Health & Medicine
Acetaminophen in pregnancy shows no link to autism or ADHD, again
Reassuring evidence on acetaminophen’s safety in pregnancy keeps growing, with another study that compares siblings with different prenatal exposures.
- Artificial Intelligence
How big a cybersecurity threat are the latest AI models, really?
New AI models are accelerating the game of cat-and-mouse as cybersecurity experts try to keep ahead of would-be hackers. An AI expert explains the risks.
- Animals
Giant, deep-sea roly-polies steal a gene to endure starvation
The enormous deep-sea cousins of your garden’s pill bugs can go five years without food. A gene they pilfered from bacteria may be part of the secret.
- Neuroscience
Brains break and repair DNA to grow
Newborn mice neurons can snap both DNA strands to migrate, then repair the breaks within a day. The process may be a normal part of brain development.
- Microbes
New science on algae die-offs is too late for the Reflecting Pool
Iron and hydrogen peroxide trigger cell death via ferroptosis, which cascades killer molecules through the population, causing mass die-offs of algae.
- Paleontology
Ancient flowering plants may have used dinosaurs to spread their seeds
Scientists thought angiosperms didn’t use animals to spread seeds until after the Age of Dinosaurs. Fossilized fruits from these plants challenge this idea.
- Archaeology
We’ve had fire for longer than we thought
Archaeologists have unearthed new evidence that indicates hominids used fire up to 1.79 million years ago.
- Planetary Science
A Mars rover found organic carbon just sitting on a rock
The organic molecules could come from life or from ordinary chemistry — only samples returned to Earth can settle it.
- Physics
A potential hindrance to fusion power may help instead
Researchers were unsure whether alpha particles would aid or hinder fusion. Simulations suggest they help, by dampening turbulence.
