The human voice
Editor in Chief Nancy Shute discusses the power of the human voice, hopeful advances in treating stiff person syndrome and new controversy about using AI in mathematics.
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Surveying the genetic battlefield to uncover the rules of rapid evolution
The Malik Lab thrives on competition. But for HHMI investigator Harmit Malik and his team at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, it's the genomes—not the people—that are in conflict. The lab studies rapid evolution—the genetic changes that happen in a species over a few
Child-led citizen science helps Ecuadorian community tackle beach pollution and shape environmental decisions
Pollution from human-generated waste in marine ecosystems has reached critical levels, with cigarette butts (CBs) among the most persistent and harmful pollutants. Globally, an estimated 4.5 trillion cigarette butts are discarded annually, making them the most common type of
Habitat explains Finnish animal distributions better than climate, study finds
Researchers at the University of Helsinki wanted to understand which is the dominant factor for species occurrence and abundance: the climate or habitat-related variables, such as their natural state and the share of land shaped by human activity. Solutions to mitigate
Power cuts and sleep: Students link load shedding to anxiety, disrupted rest and lower grades
South Africa endured its worst year of load shedding (scheduled power cuts by the country's utility, Eskom) in 2023. The power went off on 335 of the year's 365 days, often several times a day. Since then, the country has gone more than a year and a half without these planned
Mother Bats’ Hearts Quicken When They Hear Baby’s Cries
Like humans, bat moms are primed by evolution to spring into action The post Mother Bats’ Hearts Quicken When They Hear Baby’s Cries appeared first on Nautilus .
Glowing plants reveal immune responses around infection sites via two colors
Researchers at the MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences (LMS) have developed a new way to make glowing biological reporters more accurate, allowing scientists to track gene activity in living plants over days, weeks and potentially even months and years. The approach could help
Study maps the human side of flood risk
When heavy rain hits a city, knowing where water will accumulate is only part of the picture. Who lives in the affected buildings? How might flooding disrupt their lives? And where could additional support make the greatest difference?
Ice Age Europeans Were More Connected Than We Thought
A prehistoric French woman’s DNA tells the story The post Ice Age Europeans Were More Connected Than We Thought appeared first on Nautilus .
Counting magnetic flux quanta offers new way to measure photon numbers
Researchers at AIST have directly observed magnetic flux quanta generated in a superconductor by photon absorption and demonstrated a new principle of photon detection that identifies the number of photons based on the number of these flux quanta.
'It's pretty toxic… but just a little, I want to be like that': What young men think of manosphere content
Masculinity content promises young men self-optimization and success, but often delivers health harms, risk-taking, unattainable standards, gender stereotypes and misogyny. The latter is the strongest predictor of violent extremism.
Scientists demonstrate AI-designed enzyme for drug synthesis
The new RFD4-Proteina unified generative model for protein design—created by the Institute for Protein Design (IPD) in collaboration with NVIDIA—uses advanced AI to generate entirely new protein sequences and structures, achieving computational design success rates five to 10
How Multiple Births Can Accelerate A Mother’s Biological Age
As any mom can tell you, having a baby takes a big toll. Growing an entire new human being inside your body demands a lot of resources, energy, and time and it can lead to dramatic physiological changes. There’s some evidence that child-bearing benefits longevity , but
Chemically modified sugars enable direct nanostructure formation
Researchers at AIST have demonstrated the synthesis of nanoporous carbonaceous materials and carbonaceous materials with layered nanostructures through a simple process involving the chemical modification of common sugars such as sucrose and fructose.
The psychology of why we overpay for used cars—study points to left-digit bias
Consumers routinely ignore information when making purchases. They overlook the tax attached to a price, skim past ingredient lists and often fail to process exact numbers with any precision.
Designing better adsorbents to remove PFAS from water
A review by Tohoku University researchers identifies key molecular features that could guide the development of more effective materials for removing PFAS from water. The study is published in the journal ACS Materials Au.
Plain silicon grating reveals a hidden 'twist' in light from electron beams
In 1953, two physicists showed that an electron beam skimming past a grating emits light whose color depends only on the electron's speed and the grating's spacing. Known as Smith-Purcell radiation, this phenomenon has become a useful tool for building compact, tunable light
NASA lays out a packed 14-day schedule for 2027’s Artemis III moon mission
The mission, scheduled for the summer of 2027, will include be pivotal in deciding whether SpaceX or Blue Origin supplies the lunar lander for the first crewed trip to the lunar surface in decades
Elections are more predictable than they look
As politics in America become more polarized and each voting cycle seems more fraught than the last, a common narrative in the media is that each election is unique and increasingly unpredictable. But new research shows that congressional elections follow strong statistical
Bacteria reinvent their weapons through selection, chance and gene swapping
Many of the most potent antibiotics originate from bacteria. A large proportion belong to a class of compounds known as nonribosomal peptides (NRP). They are produced by large bacterial enzyme machineries—the nonribosomal peptide synthetases, or NRPS for short. These function
New marker panel and free web tool help track stem cells as they develop
How can the identity of pluripotent stem cells be determined more reliably during their differentiation? Researchers from the IUF—Leibniz Research Institute for Environmental Medicine and Heinrich Heine University Duesseldorf have systematically validated marker genes for this
Can we stop antibiotic resistance from ruining promising drugs before they reach patients?
What if we could predict early in drug development which antibiotics bacteria are most likely to become resistant to? In a review published in Nature Reviews Microbiology, researchers from the HUN-REN Biological Research Centre, Szeged (HUN-REN BRC Szeged) and the Hungarian
Potatoes could be the secret to better plant-based meat, say food scientists
Potatoes could hold the key to making better gluten-free plant-based meat, according to a new study.
Everyday Mylar turned into a promising insulator for lunar habitats
Establishing a long-term presence on the moon will require solving challenges that are easy to overlook on Earth. Lunar temperatures, for instance, can vary from hundreds of degrees below zero to boiling, making effective insulation essential for lunar habitats.
Warhound wants to engineer and clone military superdogs—can they do it?
The start-up is the brainchild of a founder of Anduril, the military tech firm, and Colossal Biosciences, a biotech company known for its de-extinction efforts
Chaos makes sense of market movements in a crisis
Research shows that crises do more than cause financial market volatility and falling share prices—they lead to markets becoming far more interconnected.
Stellar collision may explain why Orion Nebula's planet-forming disks appear younger than its stars
The Orion Nebula is a large star-forming region visible to the naked eye. Some of the young stars in the nebula are surrounded by disks of gas and dust in which planets form. Radiation from the massive central star, 1 Ori C1 (Theta-1 Orionis C1), gradually strips material from
Scientists uncover the molecular pillars that shape our cells' powerpacks
Mitochondria are the tiny powerpacks that supply most of the energy our cells need. Their ability to generate this energy relies on a distinctive architecture: two membranes, one tucked inside the other, separated by a narrow gap called the intermembrane space (IMS). This tiny
Mechanism behind PARP1-mediated DNA repair characterized, offering insight into targeted cancer therapy
When DNA is damaged, cellular processes respond and repair the DNA. Inhibiting DNA damage repair can be therapeutically beneficial in cancers with genetic vulnerabilities related to DNA damage response. Scientists at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital have uncovered a
Rare fossils reveal what ancient Denisovans may have looked like
Whenever anything is written about the Denisovans, the word "mysterious" is almost guaranteed to appear. That is because we just don't know a lot about this extinct human group that may have lived in East Asia from at least 300,000 to 45,000 years ago and was closely related to
Strange triangular craft reported in new U.S. government UFO release
The latest batch of declassified files includes eyewitness sightings from earlier this year of a flying black triangle performing inexplicable aerial maneuvers
Black holes spinning near maximum rate could split in two, calculations suggest
Two black holes can collide and merge into one. But could the opposite happen: could a single black hole split into two smaller ones? That question is explored in a new theoretical study: "When Black Holes Admit Pair-of-pants Topologies," published in the journal Physical
Hoarders without borders: Study suggests investors aid international expansion
Venture capital firms can help young businesses expand internationally by providing funding as well as market knowledge, expertise and access to professional networks, according to a research literature review published in the International Journal of Management and Enterprise
Was This the Exact Date of Van Gogh’s “Starry Night”?
Astronomers look beyond the stars in search of Van Gogh’s inspiration The post Was This the Exact Date of Van Gogh’s “Starry Night”? appeared first on Nautilus .
Why did humans’ brains surpass chimps’? A tiny foe might help explain it
A viral infection from millions of years ago may have influenced chimp brain evolution through DNA leftovers in the genome.
From sea anemone to human fertility: A new research organism for understanding meiosis
Every egg cell and sperm cell depends on meiosis, a tightly choreographed process in which chromosomes find their partners, exchange genetic material and then divide. When meiosis goes awry in humans, the consequences can include infertility, miscarriage and birth defects.
An ancient virus in chimpanzee DNA switches off a gene that is active in humans
Humans and chimpanzees share almost all their genes. Despite this, our brains have developed in different ways. Researchers at Lund University in Sweden have now shown that a viral pandemic dating back several million years is likely to be part of the explanation.
As flood risk rises, some communities question the idea of resilience
Climate change is increasing flood risk across the U.K. As floods become more frequent and intense, communities are increasingly encouraged to become resilient and "live with water." Yet in some flood-prone areas, residents are rejecting these calls, concerned that resilience
Paleolithic human DNA reveals east-west connections across Ice Age Europe
More than 30,000 years ago, people associated with one of Europe's major Paleolithic cultures (the Gravettian) were more interconnected than previously thought. An international research team led by the University of Vienna has uncovered new genetic evidence of long-distance
Scientists find key to predicting some El Niño events 12 months ahead
Scientists have identified the conditions that make it possible to predict some El Niño and La Niña events up to a year in advance, potentially giving communities and decision-makers significantly more time to prepare for weather extremes.
The Trump administration is considering a ‘heat ray’ weapon for the border—here’s what to know
The Active Denial System uses millimeter waves to heat people’s skin from as far as a kilometer away
AI is solving math problems that stumped humans. What comes next?
A few short years ago, asking AI to add two four-digit numbers together for a third-grade math assignment would have been a bad idea. Over half the time, the answer would be wrong, studies have shown. Long division or a "leaky tank" problem, an algebra class staple? Forget
These Are the Most Stunning Weather Photos of the Year
The American Meteorological Society just announced the winners of its 2026 photo contest The post These Are the Most Stunning Weather Photos of the Year appeared first on Nautilus .
Eating too much sugar on antibiotics could squash helpful gut bacteria
In people being treated for blood cancer, consuming sugar while on antibiotics boosted harm to the diversity of the gut microbiome.
Malaria Parasite Caught in the Act of Breaking and Entering
To invade red blood cells, the deadly protist creates a temporary molecular portal that disappears behind it — a door we can now see in fine detail. The post Malaria Parasite Caught in the Act of Breaking and Entering first appeared on Quanta Magazine
How exposing yourself to your fears can tame your anxiety
It is possible to take lessons from exposure therapy and apply them outside the clinic, experts say
Electric stoves could help people with asthma breathe easier
Switching to an electric stove from a lung-irritating gas one may improve asthma symptoms. But if you’re stuck with gas, reducing exposure may help.
