Headlines

Americans are asking too much of their dogs

Americans love dogs. Nearly half of U.S. households have one, and practically all owners see pets as part of the family—51% say pets belong "as much as a human member." The pet industry keeps generating more and more jobs, from vets to trainers, to influencers. Schools cannot

When you do the math, humans still rule

Artificial intelligence has attained an impressive series of feats—solving problems from the International Math Olympiad, conducting encyclopedic surveys of academic literature, and even finding solutions to some longstanding research questions. Yet these systems largely remain

Could electronic beams in the ionosphere remove space junk?

A possible alternative to active debris removal (ADR) by laser is ablative propulsion by a remotely transmitted electron beam (e-beam). The e-beam ablation has been widely used in industries, and it might provide higher overall energy efficiency of an ADR system and a higher

Image: Strong solar flare

This Feb. 4, 2026, image from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) captures a strong solar flare erupting from the star. Solar flares are powerful bursts of energy that can, along with other types of solar eruptions, impact radio communications, electric power grids,

How rice plants tell head from toe during early growth

Scientists from Tokyo Metropolitan University have uncovered how fertilized rice seeds begin to divide and establish their "body axis." Using a new imaging method, they discovered that while the first cell divides in an asymmetric way initially, this is followed by random

Pairing mangroves and coral reefs could boost carbon storage

As carbon emissions continue to be pumped into the atmosphere at record levels, it will be critical to recapture and sequester as much of these warming gases as possible. While technological approaches face many barriers before they can be scaled up, efforts to capture carbon

Glaciers in retreat: Uncovering tourism's contradictions

As glaciers around the world melt at unprecedented rates, tourism in these icy landscapes is booming, adding pressure to vulnerable regions and disrupting delicate ecosystems. A collective effort, led by UNIL and published in Nature Climate Change, points to ways of balancing

A road map to truly sustainable water systems in space

If humans want to live in space, whether on spacecraft or the surface of Mars, one of the first problems to solve is that of water for drinking, hygiene, and life-sustaining plants. Even bringing water to the International Space Station (ISS) in low Earth orbit costs on the