Technology

An artificial intelligence system has revealed fresh details about one of the most famous Latin inscriptions: the Res Gestae Divi Augusti, once inscribed on two bronze pillars in Rome and in copies throughout the Roman Empire.…

It’s summer and a telltale drop of sweat tickles down your back. Next thing you know, sweat is coursing off you in rivers, and your shirt is soaked. Now a new study, which essentially turned six people into overheated burritos…

School’s out. Teens are bored. And the siren call of social media and video games beckons.   Parents and caregivers bungling through new summer routines, or lack thereof, have long sought to balance the time kids spend glued to…

The United States is facing a pivotal moment in efforts to keep one of the world’s most contagious diseases at bay. Measles cases have reached a 33-year high just halfway through 2025. This grim milestone has public health experts…

The fungus Entomophthora muscae turns flies into zombies and kills them at sunset. An internal kill clock may explain the mysterious timing.

Hidden cozied up to Betelgeuse, a bright red star in the constellation Orion, astronomers may have finally found the giant star’s long-sought companion. This close-orbiting partner, first postulated over a century ago, matches…

Exposure to air pollution may trigger DNA mutations that cause lung cancer in nonsmokers.

A quantum query A century ago, physicists laid the foundation of quantum mechanics. Today, with greater control of quantum systems, scientists are making major leaps in quantum computing, quantum gravity and more, senior…

Editor in Chief Nancy Shute reflects on the renewed specter of nuclear conflict to record-breaking heat driven by human-caused climate change.

If a panel convened by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has its way, a health risk warning included in hormone treatments for symptoms of menopause may soon be removed. On July 17, FDA Commissioner Martin Makary, a…

Some people may be predisposed to having children of just one sex. That’s the conclusion of new findings published July 18 in Science Advances. While the chances of having a male or female child across whole populations may…

New Delhi: In a major scientific leap, Chinese researchers have successfully developed a technique to transform methanol into white sugar, eliminating the need for traditional agricultural sources like sugar cane or sugar beets. The…

You and a friend have arranged to meet at a popular downtown mall between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. one afternoon. However, you neglected to specify a time within that one-hour window. Therefore, each of you will be arriving at…

In Rehab, journalist Shoshana Walter investigates the systemic pitfalls of drug treatment programs, which prevent people’s recovery from addiction.

July has washed across the United States with unusually destructive, deadly torrents of rain. In the first half of the month alone, historically heavy downpours sent rivers in Central Texas spilling far beyond their banks,…

Sometimes, the best thing for a penguin is to go with the flow. Magellanic penguins change their strategy for navigating home based on the strength of ocean currents, researchers report July 17 in PLOS Biology. In calm waters,…

Maybe your Pomeranian is a little too into The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. Your pit bull says he likes mixed martial arts, but really, he’s curled up in a onesie on the couch for The Bachelor. Some dogs pay attention to the…

Our species likes it cold. Homo sapiens evolved in — and still inhabits — one of Earth’s rare and fragile ice ages, periods distinguished not by an abundance of saber-toothed cats and woolly mammoths but by ice caps at the…

A young sunlike star called HOPS 315 seems to host a swirling disk of gas giving rise to minerals that kick-start the planet formation process.

Burmese pythons and other carnivorous snakes are well-known for swallowing their prey whole. But what comes out the other end doesn’t resemble what went in. There’s not a bone to be seen in their poop. The secret? A specialized…

A past predator of the seas may have had a secret weapon: noise-cancelling flippers that helped it sneak up on prey. Scientists analyzed a fossilized impression of a front flipper ascribed to the large marine reptile…

Citations S.K. Narang et al. Abusive head trauma in infants and children: Technical report. Pediatrics. Published online February 24, 2025. doi: 10.1542/peds.2024-070457. J.M. Leventhal, AG. Asnes and G.J. Otterman. How antiscience…

You could be 45 on paper but 60 in your kidneys. Turns out, your organs have birthdays of their own — and how well they’re faring may set the pace for your health, researchers report July 9 in Nature Medicine. Using data from…

For the first time, astronomers have spotted a star that exploded not once, but twice. A new image of a roughly 300-year-old supernova provides visual evidence that some dying stars undergo a double explosion, researchers report…

A large-scale study of proteins in blood and cerebrospinal fluid could pave the way for improved blood tests to diagnose multiple brain diseases — and potential early warning signs of disease risk — researchers report July 15 in…

Empire of AIKaren HaoPenguin Press | $32 If you’ve been following the meteoric rise of artificial intelligence in the last decade, you may have read articles by tech journalist Karen Hao in the Atlantic, the Wall Street…

Over a video call from a dig site near Oxford, England, Peter Falkingham points his phone down to show a fossilized footprint of what was probably a large sauropod. Stepping inside the long-necked dinosaur print, which could…

In a discovery that has rocked planetary science, researchers have found more than 9,300 miles of ancient river ridges on Mars, suggesting the Red Planet was once a thriving, water-rich world. These fossil riverbeds, some possibly mightier…

Senior physics writer Emily Conover has a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Chicago. She is a two-time winner of the D.C. Science Writers’ Association Newsbrief award and a winner of the Acoustical Society of America’s…

A millennium-long story about Greenland is written in the genes of the island’s sled dogs. A new genomic analysis, published July 10 in Science, suggests that humans (and their sled dogs) arrived in the region roughly 1,000 years…