A drug that turns cells’ protein recycling machinery against advanced prostate cancer reduced tumor activity and pain in an early clinical trial, suggesting a possible way around resistance to hormone therapy. Prostate cancer treatments often work by depriving tumors of testosterone, a hormone that helps drive their growth. That approach can hold the disease in […]

The advance of urbanization in the São Paulo Metropolitan Area in Brazil is causing the collapse of food webs in local streams. A study published in August in the journal Nature Cities reveals that the impact of the metropolis goes far beyond a simple reduction in species. Degradation selectively eliminates organisms based on their size and simplifies ecological interactions. Networks of 190 connections plummet to just three.

Honey’s medical uses may go beyond healing wounds, as laboratory experiments suggest multifloral honey could strengthen human skin cells’ defenses against damaging UV radiation. Ultraviolet (UV) radiation from sunlight can accelerate skin aging and place cells under stress, potentially contributing to damage that precedes skin cancer. As scientists explore ways to better protect the skin, […]

The petition had attracted more than 115,000 signatures as of Saturday afternoon.

An experimental weight-loss injection may offer more than a way to shed pounds, with clinical trials suggesting it could also ease the burden of painful knee arthritis. Losing weight can help relieve knee osteoarthritis, yet the condition often makes weight loss difficult in the first place. When walking, climbing stairs, or simply standing up from […]

Since 2022, astronomers have been puzzling over a new kind of cosmic object called long-period radio transients. These are objects that emit bright flashes of radio waves into space every few minutes to every few hours. Some have been traced back to binary systems consisting of a small, dim, cool star called a red dwarf in orbit with a stellar remnant called a white dwarf.

A powerful polar vortex over Antarctica pushed the ozone hole to one of its largest extents in years in 2026, exposing how extreme atmospheric conditions can temporarily disrupt the recovery of Earth’s protective ozone layer. Despite decades of progress in reducing ozone-destroying chemicals, the Antarctic atmosphere has demonstrated that the path to recovery remains uneven. An Exceptionally Strong Polar Vortex Fueled the Ozone Hole’s Expansion The Antarctic ozone hole reached 10.5 million square miles on September 18, 2026, approximately 90% of the largest hole ever recorded, which occurred in September 2000. The unusual expansion was driven by an exceptionally strong and persistent Antarctic polar vortex, a vast circulation of cold winds that forms high above the continent during the Southern Hemisphere’s winter. Scientists identified unusually stable atmospheric conditions that allowed ozone depletion to continue over a larger area than in recent years. “An unusually powerful polar vortex has extended ozone depletion in the Antarctic this season, allowing the hole to grow to proportions we haven’t seen in a decade,” said Paul Newman, a senior scientist at the University of Maryland and longtime leader of NASA’s ozone research team, in a news release. The polar vortex operates in the stratosphere, where…

Even Elon Musk said the monthly fee is “too high.”

Donald Trump’s return to the Oval Office has been a devastating blow for American soft power, the network of global institutions that structurally tie foreign economies to US capital. Under his second administration, programs like the US Agency for International Development have become shells of their past iterations, leaving countries dependent on US support struggling in the short term and US interests weakened on the world stage for years if not decades to come. A case in point is the US’s disastrous war against Iran. After suffering generations of brutal economic sanctions from the US, the Iranian state and its allies have imposed a kind of reverse-sanction on their adversaries, choking a crucial supply of oil from world markets. In Nigeria — which has been a key US stronghold in Africa for years — the rising costs of oil resulting from Trump’s compounding failures in Iran are driving more and more markets away from the US-dominated fossil fuel economy altogether, and straight into the hands of increasingly accessible Chinese solar infrastructure. New reporting by the Los Angeles Times details just how widespread this pivot has become in West Africa. In one of Africa’s largest electronics bazaars, located in the Nigerian…

You could order your groceries yourself. Or you could engage in an excruciating Rube Goldberg machine of a conversation by micromanaging an AI agent to describe what food you need from the supermarket — just so it can mess up your order anyway. What, not excited for this billionaire-ordained future, you Ludditical lunk? Why is that? Is it because you’re too busy laughing at this AI meat proxy who admitted, of his own free will, that “an LLM hallucination resulted in 72 eggs being delivered to my house”? Because that’s not funny at all. “I put 4 cartons of Vital Farms pasture-raised large eggs (18 count each) in the cart you checked out,” the AI agent said, in a screenshot shared on X by Matt Smith from Rebellionaire, an equity firm led by hardcore Tesla investors. Smith, in the screenshotted exchange, demanded an explanation. But the AI couldn’t give one. “I don’t have a good answer,” the agent admitted. “I can’t find any note explaining why I chose 4.” The AI then suggested that it misread the line for eggs in a photo of the list Smith provided — except, as he immediately pointed out to the AI, “there wasn’t…

Today, Old Dongola is an abandoned settlement on the banks of the Nile in northern Sudan. Hundreds of years ago, however, this place looked very different.

NASA’s Voyager 1 is about to become humanity’s first object to reach one light-day from Earth as it pushes ever deeper into interstellar space.

The California Science Center has opened its new Samuel Oschin Air & Space Center in Los Angeles, placing NASA’s retired space shuttle Endeavour in a nearly 200-foot-tall launch configuration that visitors can explore from multiple levels. A Historic Space Shuttle Returns to the Spotlight in Los Angeles On November 13, 2026, the California Science Center welcomed visitors to a major expansion that has been more than three decades in development. At the heart of the new facility stands Endeavour, the NASA orbiter that completed 25 missions between 1992 and 2011. Unlike conventional museum displays, where spacecraft typically rest horizontally, Endeavour is positioned vertically, recreating the imposing appearance of a shuttle awaiting liftoff. The exhibit stretches nearly 200 feet (61 meters) above the ground, giving visitors a sense of the vehicle’s scale from perspectives rarely available outside NASA facilities. The experience begins with a video presentation that leads to a dramatic reveal of the shuttle itself. According to Space.com, which attended a media preview on October 28, the unveiling creates an immediate sense of the spacecraft’s enormous dimensions. For visitors accustomed to seeing Endeavour in photographs or historic launch footage, standing beneath the actual orbiter offers a different understanding of the…

Thanks to the gravitational lensing caused by a massive galaxy cluster and high-resolution images from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers discovered an exploding star when the universe was 4.9 billion years old. The discovery paper, posted to the arXiv preprint server on Oct. 23, presents a prediction for when the rest of the distorted images of SN Ares will arrive.

AI chatbots are taking over as the main way that people use the internet outside social media — and that includes shopping. It makes it pretty concerning, then, that they still have a bad habit of recommending shady websites that rip users off instead of providing the product they’re looking for. A new study conducted by Podqi and reported on by The Verge found that ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity — some of the industry’s leading chatbots — all showed shoppers risky sites that impersonated real retailers, puppeted dead ones, or sold knockoff products. The tests involved asking questions like “What are the top websites for buying [brand]?” and “Does [brand] ship internationally?” and “What are their regional websites?” They used about 151 different brands across the questions, running from smaller ones to major ones like Lululemon and Birkenstock. Perplexity was the worst offender, showing risky sites in 15 percent of its answers. ChatGPT sat in the middle with 8 percent, and Gemini was least likely to show dubious storefronts — albeit at a still-concerning rate of 4 percent. The chatbots didn’t necessarily endorse the websites in their answers. ChatGPT, for example, gave warnings about the risky sites it brought up…

From Touch ID shortcuts to smarter volume buttons and camera tricks, these tweaks make Apple’s foldable iPhone easier to use every day.

It took a while, but Apple has finally launched its first foldable: the iPhone Duo is now available in Star White or Night Sky finishes, starting at $1,999 and up, depending on how much storage you want inside. Apple has built a variety of adaptations into iOS to support the iPhone Duo, so icons and menus will shift if the software detects it’s running on the inner or outer display of the foldable, rather than a standard iPhone. In addition, iOS developers are updating their own apps to better suit the two new screen sizes introduced by the foldable. We’re also seeing several apps built or optimized specifically for the iPhone Duo, to take advantage of that foldable screen. Whether you’ve got the phone or not, they’re worth checking out as a showcase of what’s possible with the new form factor. Toastie Toastie ($2.99) is a rather whimsical game for the iPad, iPhone, and iPhone Duo. The aim is to make the best grilled sandwich you can, and on Apple’s foldable phone you snap the handset shut and open it again to control the cooking time for your toasties. You can pick different ingredients and bread types as you go,…

FAA administrator Bryan Bedford also said there’s “zero evidence of anything AI-related.”

Earth’s orbit has reached a troubling tipping point: space debris could continue multiplying even if humanity stopped launching rockets entirely. A new study reveals why preventing catastrophic collisions may be more effective than trying to remove every abandoned object circling the planet. A Growing Collision Threat Is Reshaping Earth’s Orbit The scale of the problem is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. Between December 2024 and May 2025, SpaceX’s Starlink satellites performed 144,404 collision avoidance maneuvers, according to regulatory filings submitted to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). That figure illustrates how much active navigation is now required to operate large satellite constellations safely. According to Universe Today, the underlying danger extends far beyond functioning spacecraft. Abandoned rocket stages, failed satellites, and fragments from previous collisions continue orbiting Earth, creating hazards that cannot simply be switched off or remotely controlled. A study by Dr. Slava Turyshev of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, published in the journal Acta Astronautica, argues that solving this problem requires a fundamental shift in how governments and satellite operators manage orbital risk. Rather than concentrating exclusively on collecting debris, Turyshev examines three interconnected strategies: reliable satellite disposal, more precise collision predictions, and targeted interventions against dangerous objects. His analysis…

By filling the tiny pores of fragile materials with an unusual liquid, scientists have found a way to create intricate patterns without destroying their structures. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) contain networks of tiny pores that can trap gases, capture pollutants, and support chemical reactions. These properties make them attractive for advanced sensors and electronic devices, but […]

As if cyclists didn’t have reason enough to fear cars on the road, it turns out that Tesla’s self-driving cars hate them as much as human motorists. In tests of the Elon Musk automaker’s Full Self-Driving software, a team of researchers at the pedestrian and road safety organization Johanna.be found that it frequently made a mockery of traffic laws. The cars blazed through neighborhoods and residential roads well above the speed limit, according to findings spotlighted by Momentum Mag, and kept trying to overtake cyclists, despite it being illegal in Belgium, where the tests were conducted. In 55 percent of the 30 kilometer per hour zones tested, FSD traveled at an average speed of 44 kilometers per hour. Its system displayed the wrong speed limit to the driver in 90 percent of the zones, cruising through at 50 kilometers per hour despite correctly identifying a sign with the posted limit of 30 kilometers per hour moments earlier. Its behavior was even worse on cycle streets, which are shared roadways in Belgium designed to give preference to bicycles. On top of repeatedly trying to overtake the cyclists, “in none of the six tested cycle streets did FSD correctly indicate the applicable 30…

Earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old, according to estimates. However, rocks dating back to the planet’s earliest days are extremely rare. Hence the excitement over the discovery in northern China of some of the oldest known rocks on Earth, dating back 3.95 billion years. And one of the reasons for all the attention is that they’re revealing new clues about how Earth’s crust formed and evolved.

Three men set sail off Australia’s coast in April 2007 and were never seen again. Days later, their yacht was found drifting at sea, with its engine running, food still on the table, and nobody aboard. What happened to the crew of the Kaz II remains a mystery nearly 20 years later. On April 15, Derek Batten, 56, Peter Tunstead, 69, and James Tunstead, 63, left Airlie Beach in Queensland aboard a 40-foot catamaran. They were heading to Townsville before continuing along Australia’s northern coastline and eventually returning home to Western Australia. The three men had some sailing experience and had planned their journey carefully. They even brought a camera to record the trip. But just hours after leaving the marina, something went wrong, and the footage they recorded would become the last known images of them. The Yacht Was Still Running, But The Crew Was Gone The Kaz II left Abel Point Marina at around 8 a.m. Two hours later, James filmed his companions enjoying the start of their journey. Batten was steering with a blue coffee mug nearby, while Peter sat at the back of the boat with a fishing rod. The final recording, made at around 10:05…

A burial ground on Spain’s southern coast suggests ancient communities may have continued building massive shared tombs during the Bronze Age, rather than simply reusing older monuments. A 3,800-year-old burial mystery on Spain’s southern coast is challenging what archaeologists thought they knew about prehistoric burial traditions. At a time when communities across the Iberian Peninsula […]

Some governments moved to confirm chip supply commitments, while others are monitoring the impact on local projects or addressing ongoing investigations.

Nearly 3 million years after the Taung Child lived, its fossil is challenging long-held assumptions about humanity’s origins, suggesting our ancient family tree was far more diverse than scientists once believed. A century ago, a child’s fossil helped establish Africa as the birthplace of humanity. Now, that same discovery is raising another question about our […]

It’s more apparent than ever just how harmful social media is to the impressionable minds of teens. But that’s not a story that social platforms want you to hear. According to explosive new reporting by Bloomberg, both Meta and TikTok secretly paid off a dozen teen plaintiffs in settlements most of which ranged anywhere from $2 million to $2.5 million in a bid to keep their claims out of the public eye. The teen plaintiffs accused the companies of causing their depression, self-harm, eating disorders, and anxiety. According to the publication’s insider sources, Meta paid just two teens a combined $7 million to keep them quiet — a startling revelation that highlights how far these companies are willing to keep a highly sensitive subject out of the headlines. Experts say it’s also a part of a broader effort to discourage other plaintiffs to come forward, a gambit that isn’t exactly paying off. Per Bloomberg, there are almost 10,000 personal injury cases still pending in both state and federal courts against Meta, YouTube, Snapchat, and TikTok following landmark trials that opened the floodgates. Over 1,000 school districts are also accusing social media companies of harming students, prioritizing profits over the safety…

“It isn’t clear that ice baths really are the best way to recover post exercise”

Lake Baikal in Siberia holds around 20% of the world’s surface freshwater, making it the most voluminous freshwater lake (Lake Superior on the United States–Canada border is the largest by surface area). This makes the lake one of the most important environments for biodiversity—in fact, it was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1996 because of this. Yet it has shown considerable decline over the last century, with aridification spreading across East Asia.

NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope has completed a major alignment milestone, bringing its instruments into precise synchronization for scientific observations. The achievement strengthens the observatory’s ability to maintain exceptionally stable pointing while preparing to study distant galaxies, dark energy, and planets hidden in the glare of nearby stars. Why NASA’s Roman Telescope Needs Such Extreme Precision According to NASA, the achievement follows a series of observations designed to measure subtle changes in the telescope’s optical alignment. Although Roman’s mirrors and instruments were carefully positioned before launch, vibrations during liftoff, temperature variations, and the transition to microgravity can alter their relative positions. Even small deviations matter when an observatory must hold its gaze steady enough to collect faint light over extended periods. “Roman requires exquisite alignment because it has to be at least ten times more stable than our Hubble or Webb space telescopes to conduct the science it’s setting out to do,” said Dominic Benford, Roman’s program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Roman’s power comes from two things: how big a view it gives us, and how small we can make the uncertainties in its measurements.” That combination defines Roman’s scientific potential. Its Wide Field Instrument can capture…

It seems straight out of a Disney movie—wild animals from two different species becoming inseparable friends. And yet that’s what happened at the Raven Ridge Wildlife Center in southeastern Pennsylvania, between a turkey and a mourning dove.  Last spring, the wildlife center received two likely orphaned turkey poults (young turkeys). To calm them down, the team put them with a feather-duster as a stand-in mother turkey. Because turkey poults are easily stressed, they are difficult to rehabilitate, according to a Facebook post by the wildlife center. In fact, one of them didn’t make it.  “Since we never raise baby animals alone, we had to find a companion for the remaining poult,” the wildlife center wrote. “We paired it with a baby mourning dove of similar size, hoping they would comfort each other while eating and exploring as they are both ground eaters.” The mourning dove and turkey have formed a tight bond. Image: Raven Ridge Wildlife Center. The pairing turned out to be a raging success. They formed an inseparable bond that Raven Ridge Wildlife Center had never seen before. Months later, the team gave the dove a soft release, meaning the bird could leave whenever it wanted. But he…

Like many of its experimental products, Tesla’s Solar Roof — a solar panel array engineered to look like discreet roof tiles — has been a stunning failure. Nowhere is that flop more apparent than on the roof of Ambrose Conroy, a California homeowner who’s spent over six years battling with Tesla over the solar installation from hell. According to Electrek, the whole saga began back in 2020, when Conroy entered an agreement to buy a 13.1 kW photovoltaic system from Tesla. Though the process was supposed to take a few weeks, it ran years late, as compounding errors and logistical disasters threw the project into chaos. A year into the grueling setup, costs had overrun by the tens of thousands of dollars as no less than seven project managers cycled in and out, making communication and accountability nearly impossible. By Spring of 2021, Conroy was ultimately on the hook for a $110,000 bill — nearly $30,000 more than the initial price he agreed to pay. By April of 2022, Tesla was offering to buy Conroy out of his contract with a paltry settlement of just $5,000 — after the company’s technicians had obliterated his roof and left it covered in…

Scientists have recreated the first 2 billion years of the universe in a massive computer simulation called Lumina. The results show how the first stars and black holes changed the cosmos, while raising new questions about the surprisingly massive galaxies spotted by the James Webb Space Telescope. The simulation was developed by a team at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian and it follows how gas, dark matter, and radiation interacted as the first galaxies formed. There’s also a puzzle behind the project. Webb has found more bright galaxies in the early universe than scientists expected. Some initial estimates have since been revised, but existing models still struggle to explain how so many massive galaxies appeared so early. Massive Simulation Reveals Early Universe Led by researcher Oliver Zier, Lumina recreates a region of space roughly 1.6 billion light-years across. That’s an enormous area to model, especially when the calculations also have to account for how radiation moves through gas. According to the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, Lumina is the largest cosmological radiation-hydrodynamics simulation created so far. It covers more than 100 times the volume of comparable earlier simulations. The project tracks over 400 billion elements,…

How do rituals for communing with the dead affect the mind? And conversely, how does the way your brain is wired affect the perception that these experiences are real?  A team of researchers decided to find out in pointed style: by isolating research subjects in a dark room where they were directed to sit in front of a mirror for nearly an hour. Strange things, they reported in a study in Journal of Anomalous Experience and Cognition, then ensued. The setup may sound familiar to paranormal enthusiasts: it’s what’s known as a psychomanteum, a place that supposedly lets you communicate with the spirits of the dead. Trapped in the darkness of the space, your only company is a mirror that’s tilted up at the ceiling so it reflects nothing but blank space, providing the canvas for ghostly forms to appear. For the experiments, the researchers recruited 30 people, with half of them being those who had reported a previous experience with a ghost, and the other half having a condition called synesthesia, in which the brain’s sensory pathways are jumbled up, commonly manifesting as tasting or hearing colors. Before going in, the participants were told to think of a deceased…

How unequal were prehistoric societies? And how can archaeologists measure wealth in cultures that left behind no written records, no tax registers and no census data?

The images are part of Euclid’s first major data release

For more than three decades, a dive instructor on a tiny Indian Ocean atoll kept swimming over the same folded coral at different dive sites, never suspecting it might all be one thing. Whenever he tried to follow it, it just kept going. If anyone asked where it ended, he had a simple answer: you couldn’t see the end of it. Scientists have now followed it to the end. Off Australia’s remote Cocos (Keeling) Islands, a team of divers has mapped a rose coral colony that runs for more than a kilometer and a half along the reef, one of the largest coral colonies ever recorded. A Diver’s Hunch, 30 Years in the Making Long before any scientist measured it, dive operator Dieter Gerhard, based on Cocos, first spotted the coral more than 30 years ago. He saw it at several of his dive sites but didn’t realise its full size. Other local divers had seen parts of the colony for decades without connecting the pieces. Talking to marine biologist JP Hobbs of Adelaide University, Gerhard would always say the same thing: the coral never seemed to end. Hobbs decided to test that. Gerhard’s dive sites were about 600 metres…

Exercise may offer benefits for Parkinson’s disease that extend far beyond physical movement. Exercise may benefit people with Parkinson’s disease in ways that go far beyond building strength and improving mobility. A review of 129 studies suggests that contracting muscles release chemical messengers capable of influencing brain health, potentially helping vulnerable nerve cells resist damage. […]

In March 1930, an 11-year-old British schoolgirl came up with a name for a newly discovered planet during breakfast with her grandfather. Her choice, Pluto, soon reached astronomers in the United States, who selected it from numerous proposals. At the time, astronomers had finally identified an object they had spent years searching for under the provisional name Planet X. Located far beyond Neptune, it appeared as little more than a tiny point of light. Naming this new addition to the solar system became an unexpected challenge, attracting ideas inspired largely by classical mythology. The solution emerged not from an astronomical institution but from a family conversation in Oxford. NASA’s historical account traces how Venetia Burney’s proposal traveled through academic connections before reaching Lowell Observatory in Arizona. The story offers an unusual glimpse into how a child contributed to one of astronomy’s most recognizable names. A Schoolgirl Finds the Perfect Name On March 14, 1930, Venetia Burney was having breakfast with her grandfather, Falconer Madan, a former chief librarian of Oxford’s Bodleian Library. He was reading about the newly discovered planet and wondering what astronomers might call it. Venetia, familiar with Greek and Roman mythology from her childhood books, proposed Pluto,…

A split-second, a zoomed in frame, an element you’ve never noticed: close-up photography puts the tiniest details into focus. The Close-up Photographer of the Year 8 (CUPOTY 8) awards honor the greatest achievements in close-up, macro, and micro photography. A record-setting 15,388 images were entered into this year’s competition before being whittled down to a shortlist of 59 images across 11 categories. “Fight for the Perfect Fishing Spot”YoungI managed to photograph these two blue kingfishers in December while they were defending their fishing territory in Nymphenburger Schlosspark Munich. They faced each other directly and even tried to push one another under the water, showing how they compete for the best spots. This kind of behavior is quite rare, as kingfishers usually defend their territory by calling or chasing each other, rather than through physical contact. It shows how important a good fishing area is for their survival. When food is limited or a spot is especially good, competition can become much more intense.Credit: © Sasha Jumanca / CUPOTY Sasha Jumanca “Close-up photography has a wonderful way of revealing details and perspectives that often go unnoticed,” competition co-founder Tracy Calder said in a statement. “This year’s shortlist is a fabulous showcase…

For years, San Francisco has been a haven for AI optimists, leaving many of them baffled when they travel beyond the Bay Area and encounter people outside their industry who despise the tech. Increasingly, though, not even the City by the Bay is managing to keep AI hatred at, well, bay — at least if its dating scene is any indication. According to on the ground reporting by The Verge, AI has become a dealbreaker among the lovelorn on dating apps, despite the city being the intellectual heart of the AI boom. “Hinge has a prompt where you can say, ‘We’ll get along if.” Sometimes people will be like, ‘F*ck AI,’” a 25-year-old analyst told the outlet. It only took her a few minutes of swiping to pull up a profile that said: “You should *not* go out with me if… you use AI.” Even local voters are swiping left on the tech. Several Bay Area cities, including San Francisco, Oakland, and Richmond, have passed short-term moratoriums on data center construction over the past few months. Other intrusions of tech into daily life have caused friction among locals, including the proliferation of AI food slop posters and self-driving robotaxis. Some consider AI a…

In propulsion system design, engineers have long faced a trade-off between solid and liquid rocket fuels. Each has advantages and disadvantages, and in an effort to try to min/max the efficacy of different types of fuel, researchers have long placed an emphasis on a hybrid between solids and liquids—in other words, they’ve been working with gels. Unfortunately, gels have their own sets of problems to deal with.

Fully automated ransomware hasn’t arrived—yet. But seemingly unsophisticated attackers are using AI tools to wreak havoc.

A landmark study proposes a new way to identify people whose excess body fat is affecting their health

An experimental injectable sensor could give people with diabetes a more affordable way to track blood sugar, with early tests showing that a cheaper sensing ingredient performed similarly to its costlier alternative. For millions of people with diabetes, knowing how glucose levels are changing helps guide decisions about medication, meals, and daily activities. Continuous glucose […]

A simple change to your daily routine could make a surprising difference in how you feel, both physically and mentally. University of Missouri researchers found that older adults who followed consistent daily schedules reported less physical pain and fewer symptoms of depression, even when they struggled with insomnia. Keeping regular times for sleeping, eating, and other activities may help regulate the body’s internal clock, which influences mood, sleep, and overall health.

In remote Alaska, clear streams that once supported fish have turned the color of rust. Researchers have traced the change to ancient soil thawing under a warming climate, and the metals it releases are traveling far downstream. No place on Earth is insulated from the impacts of climate change, and that includes the Alaskan wilderness. Its pristine streams criss-cross the landscape and support a diverse ecosystem of fish, mammals, and birds, which makes the discoloration all the more troubling. What began as a single odd observation grew into a documented pattern. Scientists from several agencies have since pieced together what is happening beneath the surface, and why it matters well beyond the affected riverbanks. A Stream That Turned Orange The first signs came in 2018. Mike Carey, a research fish biologist with the United States Geological Survey (USGS), had worked in the area the year before. “We were out there in 2017 and everything was great—we were collecting fish and collecting macroinvertebrates,” he said in 2024. “Then we came back in 2018 and the whole river, the whole small tributary had turned orange…I couldn’t find any fish in the stream.” Satellite images show alaska’s changing rivers. Credit: Communications Earth &…

Blood pressure stayed lower for up to two years after treatment ended in a small follow-up study, suggesting some people with hormone-driven hypertension could avoid lifelong medication. For people with a common hormonal cause of high blood pressure, a cure has required surgery to remove an entire adrenal gland. Medication can keep their blood pressure […]

Beta Pictoris is a young star, roughly 20 million years old, and located about 64 light-years away from Earth. It is surrounded by a vast disk of dust and rubble where planets are still forming—astronomers have already found three. In a new Science study, a team led by Sarah Betti, an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, used the James Webb Space Telescope to look for ice in this disk. Researchers found both water and carbon dioxide ice. The water ice is glassy rather than crystalline, and it is mixed with carbon dioxide in roughly the same proportions we see in comets of our own Solar System. This suggests ingredients necessary to form water-rich worlds might be common around young stars. The missing ice Beta Pictoris is one of the best studied stars in the sky. Its disk was among the first ever imaged, back in 1984, and we see it almost exactly edge-on, which makes it a natural laboratory for studying how planetary systems grow. It’s what astronomers call a debris disk, where the dust is constantly replenished by collisions among comets and planetesimals, small bodies that are the building blocks of planets.Read full article Comments

A dinosaur dug out of an English clay quarry in 2001 has finally been recognized as a new genus and species. Named Paludohadros proudlovii, the plant-eater lived about 125 million years ago, when muddy wetlands covered much of southern England. Its identification is also pushing scientists to take a second look at other fossils that have sat in museum collections for decades. The bones were unearthed at the Ewhurst brick and roof tile works in Surrey and later donated to the Natural History Museum in London. For a long time, nobody realized they belonged to something unfamiliar. A Young Herbivore From the Mud Paludohadros was an iguanodontian, a widespread group of plant-eating dinosaurs distinguished in part by their thumb spikes. It walked on four legs and measured about 5 meters (16 feet) long. Its estimated weight was between 1.5 and 2 metric tons (3,300 to 4,400 pounds), roughly comparable to a rhinoceros. The individual wasn’t fully grown, and its bones were still developing, which suggests it died young, and a mature animal might have reached twice that size. The genus name draws on the Latin word palus, meaning “swamp,” a nod to the wetland world it inhabited during the Early…