The US Senate on Wednesday approved President Donald Trump's re-nomination of billionaire Jared Isaacman to head NASA, following months of backtracking and uncertainty over the space agency's future.
The identity of a Roman-era individual found in southern England has finally been resolved after scientists at the Natural History Museum were able to sequence high quality DNA from her skeletal remains.
Every living being must cope with a changing world—summer gives way to winter, one year it floods and the next is a drought. It's obvious that populations of plants and animals must constantly face new challenges, says University of Vermont scientist Csenge Petak. But what's
The ancestors of our furry cats and dogs once looked similar to today's modern mongoose, a mammal with a long body and small, round ears. In fact, all members of the order Carnivora, which includes a variety of mammalian species, such as bears, wolves and even seals, evolved
Globally, soils contain three times as much carbon as exists in the atmosphere and all plants, combined. Which means that understanding how soil microbes recycle organic materials—sometimes sending CO2 back into the atmosphere, sometimes mineralizing it for long-term
A plant's success may depend on how well the three sets of genetic instructions it carries in its cells cooperate, according to a new study led by plant scientists at Penn State. In an analysis of the hybrids of two crossbred tree species, the researchers found that two sets of
Groundwater is a critical resource in Southern California, where long-term drought and climate change place increasing pressure on local aquifers. Some regions, like the Hollywood Basin (a small region in and around the West Hollywood neighborhood), are increasing their
After nearly five years on Mars, NASA's Perseverance rover has traveled almost 25 miles (40 kilometers), and the mission team has been busy testing the rover's durability and gathering new science findings on the way to a new region nicknamed "Lac de Charmes," where it will be
Why did humans evolve the eyes we have today? While scientists can't go back in time to study the environmental pressures that shaped the evolution of the diverse vision systems that exist in nature, a new computational framework developed by MIT researchers allows them to
A joint research team from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and the Unmanned Exploration Laboratory (UEL) has developed a transformative wheel capable of navigating the moon's most extreme terrains, including steep lunar pits and lava tubes.
This misconception can prompt us to feel pessimistic about our peers—and the world The post We Overestimate the Prevalence of Online Trolls appeared first on Nautilus .
Researchers from the Institute of Applied Ecology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have developed a "top-down" synthetic microbiome strategy to enrich microbial consortia capable of efficient lignin degradation from straw compost and straw-returning soils, providing new
In a new study published in The Crop Journal on November 7, researchers developed an AI model named TillerPET that enables simultaneous in-situ high-throughput phenotyping of tiller number and compactness from post-harvest rice RGB images. It demonstrates stable performance
Jurassic Park—and its never-ending sequels and spinoffs—starts with a basic premise: extracting the DNA of long-dead dinosaurs from mosquitoes frozen in amber.
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) have been mass produced for decades in consumer products like frying pans, water-resistant clothing, food packaging and cosmetics. They have also been used in a range of industrial applications, including firefighting foam, metal
A July 2025 report from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) claims that U.S. tide gauge measurements "in aggregate show no obvious acceleration in sea level rise beyond the historical average rate." However, a new study by Chris Piecuch, a physical oceanographer with the Woods
Democratic congressmembers are significantly more likely to post on social media following a mass shooting event in the US compared to Republican congressmembers, according to a study published in PLOS Global Public Health by Dmytro Bukhanevych from New York University, United
Describing matter under extreme conditions, such as those found inside neutron stars, remains an unsolved problem. The density of such matter is equivalent to compressing around 100,000 Eiffel Towers into a single cubic centimeter. In particular, the properties of so-called
A new study from North Carolina State University found that neutrophils—white blood cells that are a key part of the immune system—play a role in the early stages of atopic dermatitis flares in dogs. The work is a first step toward understanding the role that these immune cells
Electrons determine everything: how chemical reactions unfold, how materials conduct electricity, how biological molecules transfer energy, and how quantum technologies operate. But electron dynamics happens on attosecond timescales—far too fast for conventional measurement
Our hunter-gatherer ancestors have given us many things. They passed down mastery of fire for cooking and early survival technologies, such as stone tools. They may also have given us the secret to a long life. A new study published in the journal GeroScience found that Italian
The way in which well-known music streaming platform Spotify can hold on to users depends less on headline-grabbing technical expansion than on how effectively its various features satisfy its listeners, according to a study in the International Journal of Electronic Customer
How is it December already? What happened to 2025? And how did we suddenly jump from eating Easter eggs to putting up Christmas trees?
The expansive, dense eelgrass beds that line much of the U.S. coastline provide invaluable habitat and other services to support rich coastal ecosystems.
Whether it's Greek ouzo, French pastis or Turkish raki, when these spirits are diluted with water, the mixture becomes cloudy. The reason for this is that the aniseed oils contained in the spirit dissolve well in alcohol but not in water. The clear ouzo from the bottle has a
Some situations in life are zero-sum. On Super Bowl Sunday, two teams take the field but only one will emerge victorious, Vince Lombardi Trophy in hand. In a presidential election, only one candidate can win enough votes to take the nation's highest office.
Reagent-free (photo)electrochemical systems effectively break down cobalt–organic complexes while simultaneously recovering cobalt, presenting a promising strategy for advanced wastewater treatment and resource recovery.
A team of researchers from Yokohama National University, Japan, have discovered a previously unknown species of marine fungus that can kill harmful, bloom-forming algae.
There’s more than what meets the eye in a color-swapping insect The post These Butterflies Change Visual Systems with Seasons appeared first on Nautilus .
The Terra Hunting Experiment will track the wobbles of dozens of stars nightly for years in the most focused hunt yet for an Earth twin.
Woodrats weigh less than half a pound but can survive venomous rattlesnake bites that would hospitalize, or even kill, a full-grown human.
There is more than one way to describe a water molecule, especially when communicating with a machine learning (ML) model, says chemist Robert DiStasio. You can feed the algorithm the molecule's structural information: two hydrogen atoms flanking an oxygen atom with the bonds a
In astronomy, there is a concept called "degeneracy." It has nothing to do with delinquent people, but instead is used to describe data that could be interpreted multiple ways. In some cases, that interpretation is translated into exciting new possibilities. But many times,
"We need your data." The message is repeated in emails and requests to Danish farmers. Not from the EU, but from dairies, slaughterhouses, banks, and other partners. Climate metrics, biodiversity, animal welfare; everything must be documented. It is no longer enough to deliver
A new method of using microwave vacuum drying can create crispy beet snacks—a potential alternative to traditional drying or frying that could preserve nutrients while yielding shelf-stable products.
Imagine a container of tomatoes arriving at the container terminal in Aarhus. The papers state that the tomatoes are from Spain, but in reality, we have no way of knowing if that is true.
Ray Madoff, a Boston College law professor, has written a new book: "The Second Estate: How the Tax Code Made an American Aristocracy." She recently spoke to Kara Miller, host of the podcast "It Turns Out," about how the American tax system has changed over the past 40 years,
Researchers from the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, in collaboration with Huzhou University, discovered that the entanglement workhorse of most quantum optics laboratories can have hidden topologies, reporting the highest ever observed in any system: 48
Switching off can be surprisingly expensive. Much like the smoking cessation boom of the 1990s, the digital detox business—spanning hardware, apps, telecoms, workplace wellness providers, digital "well-being suites" and tourism—is now a global industry in its own right.
Despite decades of commitments to gender equality, women remain marginalized in news media. According to the latest report of the Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP)—the largest research study on gender equality in the media—women constitute only 26% of news subjects and
The idea began in California's Sierra Nevada, a towering spine of rock and ice where rising temperatures and the decline of snowpack are transforming ecosystems, sometimes with catastrophic consequences for wildlife.
Researchers in the Nanoscience Center at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, have developed a pioneering computational model that could expedite the use of nanomaterials in biomedical applications. The study presented the first generalizable machine-learning framework capable
CatDRX is a generative AI framework developed at Institute of Science Tokyo, which enables the design of new chemical catalysts based on the specific chemical reactions in which they are used. The model learns from large reaction datasets and predicts how well a catalyst will
For decades, school districts have struggled to adopt later high school start times, despite overwhelming medical evidence that early bells harm teen health. A new study in the journal Management Science demonstrates that advanced analytics can finally break the logjam, showing
Animals help disperse seeds and spores for many plant and fungal species. This typically happens when animals eat the fruiting bodies of plants and fungi and pass seeds and spores through their digestive systems.
Criminal networks are known for their ability to reorganize and continue operating even after major law enforcement crackdowns. New research from the University of Amsterdam's Informatics Institute and Institute for Advanced Study shows why: The networks adapt in ways that
Why do parasites harm their hosts? That's a question evolutionary biologists ask as they try to predict how a parasite might evolve and perhaps become more lethal in response to control methods, such as vaccines or drug treatments.
Researchers have unveiled a breakthrough technology that could transform the way scientists build and study lab-grown brain tissue models. The innovation, called Cellular RedOx Spreading Shield (CROSS), delivers long-lasting antioxidant protection to stem cells, enabling the
But the moon’s slushy interior could still harbor pockets of life-sustaining water The post Titan May Not Host a Massive Ocean After All appeared first on Nautilus .
A distant world with carbon in its atmosphere and extraordinarily high temperatures is unlike any other planet we’ve seen, and it’s unclear how it could have formed
