Technology

The greatest puzzle in cosmology just got even more puzzling. Images from the James Webb Space Telescope have confirmed that the universe appears to be expanding significantly faster than it should be, researchers report in a…

For decades, scientists have vigorously debated whether an asteroid strike or massive volcanic eruptions ended the reign of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. Roughly three-quarters of all life on Earth, including all nonbird…

Candida auris, a fungus that causes sometimes deadly infections, can stick to almost any surface. In hospitals, “it’s very tenacious, very difficult to get rid of and ends up on all the surfaces around patients,” where it…

It’s big. It’s beautiful. It looks a bit like a sparkly, starry, slightly smooshed Eye of Sauron. It’s the galaxy NGC 4632, and new radio telescope images suggest that it sports a rare “polar ring” — a halo of mostly hydrogen…

A mysterious, prehistoric marine creature has spilled its guts. For the first time, scientists have unearthed a fossilized trilobite whose final meals were preserved within its digestive system. Paleontologist Valéria…

It’s official: Antimatter falls down, not up. In a first-of-its-kind experiment, scientists dropped antihydrogen atoms and watched them fall, showing that gravity attracts antimatter toward Earth, rather than repelling it. The study…

For the first time, scientists have observed antimatter particles -- the mysterious twins of the visible matter all around us -- falling downwards due to the effect of gravity, Europe's physics lab CERN announced on Wednesday. This…

A NASA astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts returned to Earth on Wednesday after being stuck in space for just over a year. American Frank Rubio set a record for the longest U.S. spaceflight — a result of the extended stay.…

Scientists found black dust and debris on the avionics deck of the OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security – Regolith Explorer) spacecraft on Tuesday, after the initial lid was removed,…

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman S Somnath announced on Tuesday that India's mission to Venus, the brightest planet in the solar system, has been configured. He said payloads for the mission have been developed, marking…

Names have significance, especially when they’re written in the stars. A group of astronomers is coalescing around an idea to rename two neighbors of the Milky Way, the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. Named after explorer…

There were drones, there were boats. There were spotters on land and a hydrophone listening for suspicious sounds underwater. In what may have been the biggest search of its kind in 50 years, crowds of people gathered this summer in…

A groundbreaking study has highlighted the possibility of self-sustaining chemical reactions capable of supporting alien life vastly different from that present on earth. While Earth's biology hinges on organic compounds, comprised mainly…

Our Fragile MomentMichael MannPublicAffairs, $30 Over four millennia ago, in the final days of the Akkadian Empire in Mesopotamia, a drought swept over the region, afflicting lands as far away as Greece and what’s now Pakistan.…

Saima Iqbal is the fall 2023 science writing intern at Science News. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Harvard College, where she studied the history of medicine, conducted research on cancer immunotherapies, and fell in love…

After seven years of expedition and logging over 6.2 billion km, mothership Osiris-Rex has succesfully delivered rubble from an asteroid, Bennu, situated at such a distance from Earth that it is believed to come ‘dagerously close’ to the…

NASA's first collection of asteroid samples, acquired from the depths of space, gently descended into the Utah desert on Sunday, marking the culmination of a seven-year mission. A pilot boards a helicopter before flying into the Utah…

NASA's first asteroid samples fetched from deep space parachuted into the Utah desert Sunday to cap a seven-year journey. This image taken from video provided by NASA TV shows the capsule released by the Osiris-Rex spacecraft lying on…

The climactic end of a seven-year voyage comes Sunday when a NASA capsule is due to land in the Utah desert, carrying to Earth the largest asteroid samples ever collected. This undated image provided by NASA shows the asteroid Bennu…

Meghan Rosen is a staff writer who reports on the life sciences for Science News. She earned a Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology with an emphasis in biotechnology from the University of California, Davis, and later…

Seven years is a long time to wait for your carrier service to deliver a package. That’s how long it’s been since NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft set off to gather rocks and dust from the asteroid Bennu. But the package is now nearly…

For Caribbean box jellyfish, learning is literally a no-brainer. In a new experiment, these animals learned to spot and avoid obstacles despite having no central brain, researchers report September 22 in Current Biology. This…

Meteorites offer tantalizing clues about what the early solar system was like. But finding them is far from rocket science. Often, researchers simply fan out across a landscape and walk for hours while staring at the ground. Now,…

Electricity Saved My Brain This is the final part in a series on deep brain stimulation for depression. Read from the beginning. Neurologist Helen Mayberg cringes at the slow pace of DBS research. Her first paper…

Electricity Saved My Brain This is the fifth part in a series on deep brain stimulation for depression. Read from the beginning. Like many people who have struggled with a mental illness, Emily Hollenbeck had plenty of…

Electricity Saved My Brain This is the fourth part in a series on deep brain stimulation for depression. Read from the beginning. “The only thing I’ll slightly complain about — and it’s very vain — I only wish the…

Electricity Saved My Brain This is the third part in a series on deep brain stimulation for depression. Read from the beginning. Early in the morning on August 22, 2022, Jon’s medical team told him that neurologist…

NEW DELHI: India is set to become the first nation in the world to witness the "waking up" of Chandrayaan-3 mission's lander and rover after the end of a two-week long "sleep" due to sunset on the moon, as the sun is set to rise during the…

Electricity Saved My Brain This is the second part in a series on deep brain stimulation for depression. Read from the beginning. Jon Nelson’s depression was poison. “I had poison in every single bit of my body. It…

Electricity Saved My Brain This is the first part in a series on deep brain stimulation for depression. On a hot, sunny Sunday afternoon in Manhattan, time froze for Jon Nelson. He stood on the sidewalk and said…