Astrophysicists from the University of Waterloo have observed a new jellyfish galaxy, the most distant one of its kind ever captured. Jellyfish galaxies are named for the long, tentacle-like streams that trail behind them. They move quickly through their hot, dense galaxy
Humans have climbed to the top of the food chain by skillfully hunting, trapping, and fishing for other animals at scales that far exceed other predators, altering how the animals behave and earning the tag of a "super-predator." But a new study led by the Center for Ecological
Jessica Allen crunched through fallen leaves among Manzanita trees hunting for something few have spotted before: the Manzanita butter clump—a rare and little-known yellow mushroom found, so far, only along North America's Western coastlines.
A global study has revealed the conditions under which non-native plants thrive in the world's many dryland regions and the factors that limit their spread. Using data from 98 study sites across 25 countries on six continents, researchers found that non-native plants often grow
Extreme heat can have a devastating effect on seagrass, but new research from Edith Cowan University (ECU) could shape how these vitally important marine ecosystems are managed and restored. In separate studies carried out on both the west and east coasts of Australia,
Survival of the fittest. Nature red in tooth and claw. The common view of natural selection is based solely on the individual: A trait allows an organism to out-compete its rivals and is thus passed down to its offspring. To suggest otherwise can provoke the ire of certain
Scientists have long seen a puzzling pattern in tokamaks, the doughnut-shaped machines that could one day reliably generate electricity from fusing atoms. When plasma particles escape the core of the magnetic fields that hold the plasma in its doughnut shape, they stream down
Religious “nones” may be less socially liberal than they used to be The post Does Belief in God, not Political Party, Drive Conservatism? appeared first on Nautilus .
The low-noise, high-gain properties needed for high-performance quantum computing can be realized in a microwave photonic circuit device called a Josephson traveling-wave parametric amplifier (JTWPA), RIKEN researchers have shown experimentally. This advance stands to speed up
A team from the University of Freiburg led by neurobiologist and behavioral biologist Prof. Dr. Andrew Straw studied the flight behavior of honey bees. Using a drone, the researchers tracked honey bees as they flew between their hive and a food source about 120 meters away in
In The Story of Stories , technologist Kevin Ashton explores how storytelling has evolved and why stories matter.
Dark energy is one of those cosmological features that we are still learning about. While we can't see it directly, we can most famously observe its effects on the universe—primarily how it is causing the expansion of the universe to speed up. But recently, physicists have
Deep inside the Greenland ice sheet are giant swirling plume-like structures. These have puzzled scientists for over a decade, but UiB researchers now believe they have cracked the mystery by applying the same mathematics used to understand how continents drift apart.
Scientists have produced the first global map and analysis of small mare ridges (SMRs) on the moon, a characteristic geological feature of tectonic activity. Published in The Planetary Science Journal Dec. 24, 2025, the analysis performed by scientists at the National Air and
The United Arab Emirates announced on Tuesday that it would extend its Mars probe mission, now in its fifth year, for an additional three, underlining the oil-rich state's space ambitions.
Fifteen years ago, Beijing's Liangma riverbanks would have been smog-choked and deserted in winter, but these days they are dotted with families and exercising pensioners most mornings.
Singapore was a thriving trading hub hundreds of years before popular narratives depicted it as a quiet fishing village, according to a study of the cargo of a centuries-old shipwreck. Sometime during the middle of the 14th century, a merchant ship sank off the coast of
Triceratops and similar horned dinosaurs had unusually large nasal cavities compared to most animals. Researchers, including those from the University of Tokyo, used CT scans of fossilized Triceratops skulls and compared their structures with modern animals such as birds and
Henry Yuen is developing a new mathematical language to describe problems whose inputs and outputs aren’t ordinary numbers. The post A New Complexity Theory for the Quantum Age first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Researchers have shed new light on the features that enable tree-dwelling mammals to move effectively through their environments, providing insights into the evolution of the distinct upright postures seen in primates. The study, published in eLife, is the first to compare
“The findings could save lives” The post Scientists Create Map of Deadly Scorpion Hotspots appeared first on Nautilus .
New research from the University of Copenhagen suggests that volcanic eruptions during the Ice Age may have triggered sudden climate change by disrupting the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), causing temperatures to fluctuate between hot and cold for thousands
When psychologist Darby Saxbe began studying how parenthood shapes the brain, she made a seismic discovery that upended a long-held assumption: that only mothers undergo major biological shifts after a child's birth. Her pioneering research on what's now called "dad brain"—the
An international team featuring faculty at Binghamton University, State University of New York has drilled the longest ever sediment core from under an ice sheet, providing a record stretching back millions of years that will help climate scientists forecast the fate of the ice
Subtle shifts in how users described symptoms to AI chatbots led to dramatically different, sometimes dangerous medical advice.
What types of photos make people reach for their wallets? New Stanford University-led research suggests that brain activity can help forecast which wildlife images will inspire people to engage online and donate to conservation causes.
Using the Very Large Telescope (VLT), astronomers have discovered a compact binary system consisting of two white dwarfs in the center of a nearby globular cluster designated NGC 6397. The finding was presented in a paper published February 9 on the arXiv preprint server .
Physicists in Germany have carried out the most accurate measurement to date of the width of the proton. By examining a previously unexplored energy-level transition in the hydrogen atom, Lothar Maisenbacher and colleagues at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics have
Researchers have found more evidence that microplastics are impacting freshwater wildlife in different countries around the world. A new study, led by the University of Glasgow and published in the journal Environmental Research, documents the presence of microplastics in the
When light passes through materials, it typically changes direction and bends in predictable ways. This change in direction, known as refraction, is caused by a change in the speed of light as it enters a new medium. In some rare cases, however, light bends differently,
Researchers investigating crops grown in soil contaminated by the 2015 mining disaster in Brazil discovered that toxic metals are moving from the earth into edible plants. Bananas, cassava, and cocoa were found to absorb elements like lead and cadmium, with bananas showing a
Each year, antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is the reason that more than a million people die from infections that no longer respond to existing antibiotics, making AMR one of the greatest global health challenges of our time.
Teacher retention remains a significant concern in Australia, with stress, burnout, and job dissatisfaction being major contributors to educators leaving the profession.
For years, big tech companies have placed the burden of managing screen time squarely on individuals and parents, operating on the assumption that capturing human attention is fair game.
Somewhere along the way to adulthood, time to play fades away. We tend to trade silliness and imagination for seriousness and busyness.
An Ice Age double burial in Italy has yielded a stunning genetic revelation. DNA from a mother and daughter who lived over 12,000 years ago shows that the younger had a rare inherited growth disorder, confirmed through mutations in a key bone-growth gene. Her mother carried a
Every living organism has its own genetic "blueprint": the source code for how it grows, functions and reproduces. This blueprint is known as a genome. When scientists sequence a genome, they identify and put in order the chemical building blocks—adenine (A), thymine (T),
James Cook University (JCU) research argues Australians urgently need better education about heat to prepare for longer, hotter and more dangerous heat waves driven by climate change.
When you look out across a snowy winter landscape, it might seem like nature is fast asleep. Yet, under the surface, tiny organisms are hard at work, consuming the previous year's dead plant material and other organic matter.
Scientists scanning the heart of the Milky Way have spotted a tantalizing signal: a possible ultra-fast pulsar spinning every 8.19 milliseconds near Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at our galaxy’s core. Pulsars act like incredibly precise cosmic clocks, and finding
As sea level rise pushes saltwater farther into the Florida Keys, it is not only roads and neighborhoods that are at risk; it is also the record of the region's earliest human history. For University of Miami archaeologist Traci Ardren, that urgency shapes the focus of her
An environmental scientist’s analysis reveals who will win and who will lose in the push to put federal land into private hands
AI is forcing us to redraw the line between author and tool
Play this crossword inspired by the March 2026 issue of Scientific American
Researchers found that walkable city design—not personal motivation—was the key factor behind people taking 1,100 more steps per day
A Greenland mystery; booming dunes
When a patient shared the story of her sister’s death, an AI captured the clinical details—freeing physician Christopher Sharp to just be present
When alerts misfire or can’t explain themselves, nurses still carry the risk