Technology

Watch and wait may be an alternative to surgery for some women with a very early form of breast cancer. A new study of 957 women evaluated whether it was safe to do active monitoring of a low-risk form of ductal carcinoma in…

Citations B. Chan et al. Buprenorphine discontinuation in telehealth-only treatment for opioid use disorder: A longitudinal cohort analysis. Journal of Substance Use and Addiction Treatment. Vol. 167, December 2024, 209511. doi:…

Science News drew millions of visitors to our website this year. Here’s a look back at the most-read and most-watched online news stories of 2024. Top news stories 5. Psilocybin temporarily dissolves brain networks The…

Next time you’re caught in the rain, thank your eyelashes for keeping your vision clear. Experiments with human eyelashes and eyelash-mimicking fibers pinpoint several features that help fling water away from the eyes,…

Surface features of a distant star — Science News, December 21, 1974 & December 28, 1974 Thanks to high-speed photography and modern data processing, are beginning to be able to suppress the effects of twinkling….…

A new degradable microbead could soon replace plastic exfoliants in skin cleansers. The polymer spheres effectively remove permanent marker and eyeliner on animal skin samples and break down into molecules similar to sugars and…

Over time, deaths from cold temperatures have increased in the United States. From 1999 to 2022, the country’s age-adjusted, cold-related mortality rate rose from about 4 per 1 million people to 9, researchers report December…

Nancy Shute is editor in chief of Science News Media Group. Previously, she was an editor at NPR and US News & World Report, and a contributor to National Geographic and Scientific American. She is a past president of the…

2024 was studded with record-setting scientific discoveries. From tracing the origins of glow-in-the-dark animals to developing the world’s fastest microscope, these superlative feats captured our imagination. Ancient Airburst…

Humans’ noses can be adept at detecting delicate hints of apple or smoke in a glass of whiskey. But with machine learning, computers might also be Whiskey Masters. By connecting the molecular makeup of 16 different whiskies…

Scotch tape is great for wrapping presents — and for science, too.  With some Scotch tape and a little creativity, it’s possible to create sheets of diamond up to five centimeters wide and as less than a micrometer thick, a…

The future of U.S. space exploration and NASA-funded science is up in the air as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to return to office. “There’s just so many question marks,” says political scientist Victoria Samson. Where…

The world faced many public health challenges this year, including dangerous heat waves and outbreaks of the infectious diseases dengue and mpox. In the United States, after years of increases, there are early but promising signs…

From superpowered bees to theatrical snakes, these reports from the animal kingdom drove us wild in 2024. Mighty morphin’ beluga blobs You can learn a lot about a beluga (Delphinapterus leucas) by watching its forehead.…

Dec 17, 2024 11:31 PM IST Two stars may be orbiting each other near a supermassive black hole in our Milky Way galaxy NEW YORK — Scientists have spotted what appear to be two stars whipping around each other near the…

Grizzly details about ancient child sacrifices, a map of a lost city in the Amazon and the answer to a Stonehenge mystery are some of this year’s insights into human history. Bygone brains Discovering a human brain at an…

A bit of ear goop can reveal if sheep are eating dangerously poisonous plants. Earwax from sheep that have eaten death camas contains the plants’ toxins within a few days following the noxious meal, researchers report in the…

Each year, scientists break new ground in their quest to understand life and the mysteries of the cosmos. Here are eight milestones in 2024 that caught our attention Reading a fruit fly’s mind The first complete map of a…

Dec 16, 2024 09:32 PM IST How old are Saturn's rings? Study suggests they could be as old as the planet CE CANAVERAL, Fla. — New research suggests that Saturn’s rings may be older than they look — possibly as old as the…

The ultrathin tendrils that zip messages around the nervous system are often drawn as smooth lines. But a new study adds some flourishes to that classical picture. Like a garland of cranberries hung on a Christmas tree, nerve…

A 4,000-year-old murder mystery began with a massacre in what’s now southwestern England. Then came dismemberment, possibly accompanied by cannibalism. At least 37 men, women and children suffered this violent fate, ending up…

The Geminids — among the few major meteor showers to come from asteroids — peak on Friday. It's one of the year's last chances to see fireballs in the sky. HT Image The shower often produces meteors with a distinctly more yellow…

Have you ever felt like there was a pit in your stomach? What about a flutter in your heart? It turns out that the anatomical connections we make with certain emotions and feelings — what researchers call embodied emotions —…

In 2024, researchers turned up possible evidence of ancient life on Mars, hints that Alzheimer’s disease can spread from person-to-person and a slew of other scientific findings that could be a big deal — if they’re the real deal.…

Nearly 6 million deaths from five common cancers were avoided through prevention, early detection and better treatments, a new study reveals. Biostatistician Katrina Goddard from the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda,…

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Scientists threw everything they had at the sky during the solar eclipse that swept across much of the United States on April 8, 2024. They deployed high-altitude aircraft, enlisted volunteers to launch weather…

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Earth’s inner core, a solid metal ball gyrating within the molten outer core, may be both slowing down and changing shape. Recent analyses of earthquake waves have suggested that around 15 years ago, the…

McKenzie Prillaman is a science and health journalist based in Washington, DC. She holds a bachelor’s degree in neuroscience from the University of Virginia and a master’s degree in science communication from the University of…

WASHINGTON D.C. — The Perseverance Rover on Mars may have stumbled upon the oldest rocks humans have ever seen and, possibly, evidence of a new setting that ancient Martian organisms could have inhabited, if they ever existed.…

The tall, stony coastlines of the northeast Pacific Ocean are much quieter than they were just a decade ago. Following a punishing marine heat wave in the region, the raucous seabird colonies that once crowded the sea cliffs are…