Headlines

Hiroshima blast debris reveals a previously unknown alloy

The Hiroshima blast on Aug. 6, 1945, was one of the most devastating events in human history. Like all nuclear detonations, it created fleeting moments of extreme heat, pressure, mixing and cooling. These conditions can briefly produce materials that could never form under

One LED produces four stable colors at room temperature

Full-color displays normally require separate red, green and blue light emitters. A team from the University of Osaka and Ritsumeikan University has demonstrated another approach: a single light-emitting layer that produces several colors when electrically powered at room

What if the brain does not create consciousness?

Christof Koch is taking on one of science’s deepest mysteries: how the brain creates conscious experience, or whether it creates it at all. He argues that materialism has yet to solve this “hard problem” and will explore puzzling phenomena such as near-death experiences and

This 4,000-year-old city defied the rules of history

As Mohenjo-daro prospered, the gap between its richest and poorest households actually shrank. Its shared infrastructure, fair trade systems, and lack of powerful royal elites suggest that equality may have helped fuel the ancient city’s success.

Rice bran compound may help ease irritable bowel symptoms

A compound in rice bran may help calm an overactive gut by reducing the calcium signals that cause intestinal muscles to contract. Ferulic acid suppressed contractions triggered by several chemical messengers in laboratory experiments. The discovery could eventually support new

Tread softly: A new 'light touch' way to detect kauri dieback

Kauri dieback is one of the most serious threats facing Aotearoa New Zealand's kauri forests. The disease is caused by a soil-dwelling microbe, Phytophthora agathidicida, which infects kauri roots and eventually kills the tree. There is no cure, so finding infected trees early

Could quantum physics help us find Earth 2.0?

When astronomers talk about directly imaging an exoplanet orbiting a faraway star, the analogy they most commonly use is trying to spot a firefly next to a massive searchlight. An Earth-like exoplanet is incredibly dim—usually between 100 million and 10 billion times fainter

The trillion-dollar question behind corporate net-zero pledges

Corporate climate spending now steers trillions of dollars in transition finance worldwide. Does it drive genuine climate action? Research shows that accounting flexibility alone can make a company's reported emissions vary by roughly a factor of two—enough to appear either as

Alien signals may be hiding where we rarely listen

Astronomers may have been listening for alien civilizations in only a small slice of the radio spectrum while overlooking a largely unexplored range of higher frequencies. Using archived data from the ALMA telescope in Chile, researchers conducted the observatory’s first SETI

AI reveals explosive bursts in bird evolution

Songbirds appear to have evolved through rare explosions of change separated by long periods of slower development. Many of those bursts lined up with major climate shifts, suggesting that environmental upheaval can reshape life in powerful ways.

Daily multivitamin may help older adults stay independent

Taking a daily multivitamin may help older adults preserve the strength and stamina needed for everyday activities. After three years, users reported better functional health than those taking a placebo, although the preliminary findings still require peer review.