Even as NASA celebrated the rollout of the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft for Artemis II over the weekend, NASA's new administrator, Jared Isaacman, made sure to put an asterisk on the program's future.
Protein precursors can form in cosmic dust clouds The post Space Dust Could Contain Building Blocks of Life appeared first on Nautilus .
During pregnancy, maternal and fetal cells migrate back and forth across the placenta, with fetal cells entering the mother's bloodstream and tissues. They can settle in maternal organs such as the thyroid, liver, lungs, brain and heart—and can persist there for decades.
There's no question that being in nature is good for well-being. Research shows that experiencing nature and listening to natural sounds can relax us.
New University of Hawaiʻi research confirms that "Sharktober" is real, revealing a statistically significant spike in shark bite incidents in Hawaiian waters every October. The study, which analyzed 30 years of data (1995–2024), found that about 20% of all recorded bites
For decades, researchers thought that an October 1843 earthquake on the small Greek island of Chalke caused a powerful tsunami and led to the deaths of as many as 600 people. But a new analysis of primary accounts of the event by Ioanna Triantafyllou at Hellenic Mediterranean
Important everyday products—from plastics to detergents—are made through chemical reactions that mostly use precious metals such as platinum as catalysts. Scientists have been searching for more sustainable, low-cost substitutes for years, and tungsten carbide—an Earth-abundant
According to a new study by the University of Würzburg, Bavarian meadows are the most monotonous insect habitats. Surprisingly, fields and settlements often offer more diversity than grassland.
Whether in the human body or on surfaces, bacteria protect themselves from outside attackers using biofilms. Physicist Eleonora Secchi is researching how these slime-like protective films are formed, with the aim of making it easier to remove pathogenic bacteria.
Africa confronts escalating internal migration and displacement crises fueled by intensifying climate hazards—particularly prolonged droughts—and persistent armed conflicts, which compound vulnerabilities across the continent.
Researchers at University of Tsukuba have developed a cellulose-based composite sheet that integrates paper pulp with starch, polyaniline (a conductive polymer), Prussian blue (a coordination compound), and alginic acid (a natural polysaccharide). These components were
Some stars appear to defy time itself. Nestled within ancient star clusters, they shine bluer and brighter than their neighbors, looking far younger than their true age. Known as blue straggler stars, these stellar oddities have puzzled astronomers for more than 70 years. Now,
Fewer people under age 50 are dying from cancer in the U.S., but colorectal cancer mortality rates continue to surge
Flowers emit scented chemicals to attract pollinators, but this perfume—and how pollinators interact with the plant—can go through profound changes as a crop becomes domesticated.
In inertial confinement fusion, a capsule of fuel begins at temperatures near zero and pressures close to vacuum. When lasers compress that fuel to trigger fusion, the material heats up to millions of degrees and reaches pressures similar to the core of the sun. That process
Inserting, removing or swapping individual atoms from the core of a molecule is a long-standing challenge in chemistry. This process, called skeletal editing, can dramatically speed up drug discovery or be applied for upcycling of plastics. Consequently, the field is witnessing
Physicists have used a new optical centrifuge to control the rotation of molecules suspended in liquid helium nano-droplets, bringing them a step closer to demystifying the behavior of exotic, frictionless superfluids.
A recently identified tree species in Queensland has been given the name "zombie" by scientists who say ambitious assistance is needed to reverse its "living dead" status.
Harnessing the power of artificial intelligence to study plant microbiomes—communities of microbes living in and around plants—could help improve soil health, boost crop yields, and restore degraded lands. But there's a catch: AI needs massive amounts of reliable data to learn
Greenland, which has been prominently in the news in recent days, hosts a vast ice sheet. If it melts, it will become one of the largest contributors to global sea-level rise. Under a high-emissions scenario, the Greenland Ice Sheet is expected to largely disappear over time,
Decades later, extraterrestrial rubbish is quickly piling up The post The First Person to Get Hit by Space Junk appeared first on Nautilus .
Florida State University researchers have discovered a pathway within a certain type of molecule that limits chemical reactions by redirecting light energy. The study could enable development of more efficient reactions for pharmaceuticals and other products.
Families of the astronauts lost in the space shuttle Challenger accident gathered back at the launch site Thursday to mark that tragic day 40 years ago.
Using robotic fins, researchers at the University of California, Riverside have learned how stingrays are able to swim with impressive control. These insights could help underwater vehicles avoid disastrous ground collisions.
A new study has examined how future human missions to Mars could access one of the planet's most vital resources—water. The "Martian aqua: occurrence of water and appraisal of acquisition technologies" paper, published in the Advances in Space Research journal, presents a
Oskari Lahtinen, Senior Researcher at the INVEST Research Flagship Center at the University of Turku in Finland, has developed validated tools for studying "woke" attitudes on both the political left and the political right.
A research team at the University of Arizona College of Medicine–Tucson is developing a drug that works in combination with copper to kill bacteria, including those that cause MRSA, a type of staph infection that is resistant to usual treatments. The team's research is
China's rising demand for cooling doesn't have to drive rising temperatures. A recent study shows how rapid shifts to cleaner refrigerants and high-efficiency technologies could cut cooling-related climate impacts to near zero by mid-century. The work is published in the
Coral reefs, the "rainforests of the sea," provide habitats for 25% of all marine life. Critical to global biodiversity, they are essential for food supply, culture and recreation and coastal protection from hurricanes for communities around the world and even contain a vast
Scientists analyzing data from heavy ion collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)—the world's most powerful particle collider, located at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research—have new evidence that a pattern of "flow" observed in particles streaming from
Antibiotic resistance in human and animal health is at the forefront of public debate, but it's a less well-known issue in plant agriculture. However, antibiotics are important tools in fruit production, and their efficacy hinges on avoiding resistance to disease-causing
If Europeans eat less meat and dairy, this will have major consequences for farmers. New research shows that many barns and machines could lose their value. With the right policies, these losses can be limited. This is shown by research from Leiden, Oxford and Vienna.
Loneliness is a common problem among students. However, encouraging students to socialize at an early stage can improve the well-being of this group. This is evident from an experiment with a new preventive intervention developed by researchers at Radboud University. Their
Animal survival depends on effective attack and defense strategies, yet how these behaviors arise remains unclear. Addressing this question, a recent study shows that predator and prey behaviors emerge naturally as stable patterns shaped by simple sensory abilities and motor
Enzymes with specific functions are becoming increasingly important in industry, medicine and environmental protection. For example, they make it possible to synthesize chemicals in a more environmentally friendly way, produce active ingredients in a targeted manner or break
A single enzyme that can generate all four nucleoside triphosphates, the building blocks of ribonucleic acid (RNA), has been identified by researchers at the Institute of Science Tokyo. The study was published online in the journal Nature Communications.
The National Institutes of Health’s move to end support for research using fetal human tissue is “clearly a political decision, not a scientific one,” one expert says
Organic matter carried in rivers to the Russian part of the Arctic Ocean may be creating more clouds and keeping the region cooler, a new study has found.
Researchers from several European institutions, led by scientists from the University of Barcelona and the University of Alcalá, have demonstrated that the hunter-gatherers who inhabited the interior of the Iberian Peninsula during the Last Glacial Maximum (between
Researchers have reported new experimental results addressing the origin of rare proton-rich isotopes heavier than iron, called p-nuclei. Led by Artemis Tsantiri, then-graduate student at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) and current postdoctoral fellow at the
The scientific sage was always suspicious of grand promises delivered before details were understood The post What Would Richard Feynman Make of AI Today? appeared first on Nautilus .
The U.S. secretary of health and human services told USA Today that he believed the flu jab was a “potential culprit” for his spasmodic dysphonia that he could not “rule out”
Corn is a colossal grain in the global food and feed chain, with the U.S. producing roughly 30% of the world's supply, or nearly 278 million metric tons in the 2024–25 growing season alone. But its journey from wild grass to staple crop began in central Mexico with teosinte
For the ArchaeoSpain research team, it was a day just like any other on their dig at the castle of Zorita de los Canes (Guadalajara). They were working at the Corral de los Condes, where some knights from the Order of Calatrava are buried, when they came across some highly
A 5500-year-old genome recovered from human skeletal remains in Colombia may give insights into the early evolution of syphilis and its relatives
Space debris—the thousands of pieces of human-made objects abandoned in Earth's orbit—pose a risk to humans when they fall to the ground. To locate possible crash sites, a Johns Hopkins University scientist has helped to devise a way to track falling debris using existing
Scientists have recovered a genome of Treponema pallidum—the bacterium whose subspecies today are responsible for four treponemal diseases, including syphilis—from 5,500-year-old human remains in Sabana de Bogotá, Colombia. The research expands knowledge about the history of
Men assess potential rivals that have a larger penis as more of a threat, both physically and sexually, according to a study by Upama Aich at the University of Western Australia and colleagues, published in PLOS Biology.
Researchers at the University of Basel and the Laboratoire Kastler Brossel have demonstrated how quantum mechanical entanglement can be used to measure several physical parameters simultaneously with greater precision.
As the threat of falling spacecraft increases, using earthquake sensors to detect the effects of their sonic booms could better map trajectories.
