It's one of astronomy's great mysteries: how did black holes get so big, so massive, so quickly. An answer to this cosmic conundrum has now been provided by researchers at Ireland's Maynooth University (MU) and reported today in Nature Astronomy.
Baby pictures are some of a family's most cherished artifacts. The same thing can be said of the Hubble Space Telescope and the infant stars it immortalizes in its scientific portraits. But while we know how babies are conceived and how they form in great detail, the same can't
At 3.3 billion light-years across, the ring may challenge the “cosmological principle” that the universe looks uniform at sufficiently large scales.
When an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed Renee Nicole Good in south Minneapolis on Jan. 7, 2026, what happened next looked familiar, at least on the surface. Within hours, cellphone footage spread online and eyewitness accounts contradicted official
In a week filled with news about President Donald Trump's aggressive moves to take control of Greenland, the world got a window into his thinking about the concept of "peace."
The UK government has launched a consultation on introducing an Australian-style ban on social media for under-16s. The proposal is framed as a bold response to rising concerns about young people's mental health, online abuse and exposure to harmful content.
The rapid growth of artificial intelligence has sharply increased electricity and water consumption, raising concerns about the technology's environmental footprint and carbon emissions. But the story is more complicated than that.
Scientists from the National University of Singapore (NUS) have discovered that atomic-scale substitutional dopants in ultra-thin two-dimensional (2D) materials can act as stable quantum systems operating at terahertz (THz) frequencies.
Every medication in your cabinet, every material in your phone's battery, and virtually every compound that makes modern life work started as a molecular guess, with scientists hypothesizing that a particular arrangement of atoms might do something useful—kill a bacterial
U.S. forests have stored more carbon in the past two decades than at any time in the last century, an increase attributable to a mix of natural factors and human activity, finds a new study.
The Northwest Forest Plan, adopted in 1994, helped quell mounting tensions between timber companies and environmentalists. It protected large swaths of old-growth forest in Washington, Oregon and California to preserve habitat for endangered species, including the Northern
Human activity continues to expand ever further into wild areas, throwing ecology out of balance. But what begins as an environmental issue often evolves into a human problem.
A major global study suggests that a hidden mismatch between two common blood tests could quietly signal serious trouble ahead. When results from creatinine and cystatin C—two markers used to assess kidney health—don’t line up, the risk of kidney failure, heart disease, and
In a new study, an international group of researchers has found that chiral phonons can create orbital current without needing magnetic elements—in part because chiral phonons have their own magnetic moments. Additionally, this effect can be achieved in common crystal
Ask people how Stonehenge was built and you'll hear stories of sledges, ropes, boats and sheer human determination to haul stones from across Britain to Salisbury Plain, in south-west England. Others might mention giants, wizards, or alien assistance to explain the transport of
The microbes living in sourdough starters don’t just appear by chance—they’re shaped by what bakers feed them. New research shows that while the same hardy yeast tends to dominate sourdough starters regardless of flour type, the bacteria tell a more complex story. Different
New research into the impact of climate change on snow sports provides recommendations to increase the climate-resilience of the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.
When a new CEO takes over at a firm, it creates uncertainty for important stock market participants such as financial analysts who meet regularly with them and influence the investing patterns for the world's largest institutional investors. They wait eagerly for the new leader
A research group has achieved a new plasma confinement regime using small 3D magnetic perturbations that simultaneously suppress edge instabilities and enhance core plasma confinement in the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST). The research results are
A research team led by Profs. Li Jing and Liu Qinhuo from the Aerospace Information Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (AIRCAS) has developed the world's first global, high-resolution map of leaf chlorophyll content (LCC), providing a new method for closely
Researchers at the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore (NUS Medicine), have found that a key protein can help to regenerate neural stem cells, which may improve aging-associated decline in neuronal production of an aging brain.
Researchers at the Waltham Petcare Science Institute in the UK recently revealed a complete taxonomic and functional catalog of the canine gut microbiome after analyzing samples from 107 healthy dogs across the U.S. and Europe. The study, published in the journal Microbiome,
Cities are known to shape the evolution of wildlife within them, but according to a study of European cities published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, this is not a one-off event. Rather than a single urban genotype of a species spreading
Researchers from New England Biolabs (NEB®) and Yale University describe the first fully synthetic bacteriophage engineering system for Pseudomonas aeruginosa, an antibiotic-resistant bacterium of global concern, in a new PNAS study. The system is enabled by NEB’s
Extraordinary fossils of 518-million-year-old jawless fish, among the earliest known vertebrates, appear to show that these animals had two pairs of eyes
Newly discovered rock art sites in Sulawesi, Indonesia, that date to nearly 68,000 years ago are thought to be the oldest rock art in the world, pre-dating Neanderthal hand stencils in Spain by 1100 years
A fossil discovery in northern Ethiopia expands the known range of Paranthropus, a genus of strong-jawed hominins that lived around 2 million years ago, and suggests they lived in a range of habitats
The light-sensitive tissue of birds’ eyes is not supplied with oxygen by blood vessels – instead, it powers itself with a flood of sugar, and this may have evolutionary benefits
A hand stencil on the wall of a cave in Indonesia has become the oldest known rock art in the world, exceeding the archaeologists' previous discovery in the same region by 15,000 years or more.
All celestial bodies—planets, suns, even entire galaxies—produce magnetic fields, affecting such cosmic processes as the solar wind, high-energy particle transport, and galaxy formation. Small-scale magnetic fields are generally turbulent and chaotic, yet large-scale fields are
Neural tissue normally dies quickly without oxygen. Yet bird retinas—among the most energy-demanding tissues in the animal kingdom—function permanently without it. This may be relevant in future treatment of stroke patients.
During the last ice age, the Atlantic Ocean's powerful current system remained active and continued to transport warm, salty water from the tropics to the North Atlantic despite extensive ice cover across much of the Northern Hemisphere, finds new research led by UCL scientists.
In a paper published in Nature, a team led by University of Chicago paleoanthropologist Professor Zeresenay Alemseged reports the discovery of the first Paranthropus specimen from the Afar region of Ethiopia, 1,000 km north of the genus' previous northernmost occurrence.
A research team led by the University of Oxford's Department of Engineering Science has shown it is possible to engineer a quantum mechanical process inside proteins, opening the door to a new class of quantum-enabled biological technologies.
The work suggests early Homo sapiens developed enduring artistic practices as they moved through the islands of Southeast Asia.
Imagine Max, a well-trained border collie, manages to ignore a squirrel in the park when his owner tells him to sit. His owner says, "Max, stop chasing that squirrel and sit down," and Max obeys. Can dogs learn and understand words the way humans do?
The world is now using so much fresh water amid the consequences of climate change that it has entered an era of water bankruptcy, with many regions no longer able to bounce back from frequent water shortages.
To land on the right foot on the Red Planet, European engineers have been dropping a skeleton of the four-legged ExoMars descent module at various speeds and heights on simulated Martian surfaces.
In a multi-institutional study published today in Nature Nanotechnology, researchers from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center reported that engineered bispecific nanobodies successfully strengthened mucosal defenses in the respiratory tract, improving protection
Quantum technologies, systems that process, transfer or store information leveraging quantum mechanical effects, could tackle some real-world problems faster and more effectively than their classical counterparts. In recent years, some engineers have been focusing their efforts
When Neanderthals in Italy were crossing the Alps, it's likely they took refuge in high-altitude bear caves. A new study of stone tools in Caverna Generosa, a cave sitting 1,450 meters up in the mountains, found that these travelers also brought a toolkit with them.
Astronomers from the National Research Institute of Astronomy and Geophysics (NRIAG) in Cairo, Egypt, have investigated a young open cluster known as Czernik 38. As a result, they found a new open cluster, which turns out to be a companion to Czernik 38. The discovery was
Researchers recorded the neurons that shape directional navigation as bats explored a remote island off the coast of Tanzania. The post How Animals Build a Sense of Direction first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The space agency will quit funding several independent science advisory groups this year
Deer antler rubs and hoof scrapes change how parts of the forest reflect short-wavelength light, perhaps leaving a glowing signal
Flinders University paleontology researchers—with local fossil experts—have discovered how prolific shorebirds, including the Plains-wanderer, once lived across South Australia's South-East during wetter times up to 60,000 years ago.
New research shows that visits to prison museums and other dark heritage sites are shaped less by labels, displays or audio guides, and more by how people experience them together. The findings follow a recent project that explored how people make sense of difficult heritage by
For years, economists have pointed to technology, globalization, and shifting labor markets as primary factors contributing to economic polarization in the U.S. But a new study highlights another driving force that cuts across regions—the housing market.
Dreaming of harvesting peaches, plums, apples or figs from your own backyard? Growing delicious homegrown fruit starts with planting your tree correctly—and at the right time of year.
The Laboratory for Coexistence and Violence Prevention Studies (LAECOVI) at the UCO examines the relationship between moral courage and different forms of defense against bullying in a study involving over 3,700 students ages 10 to 16.
