Technology

After 35 years, the Hubble Space Telescope is still churning out hits. In just the last year or so, scientists have used the school bus–sized observatory to confirm the first lone black hole, reveal new space rocks created by a…

As a fight to the death reached its end around 1,800 years ago, a victorious lion sank its teeth into a young man’s thigh bone. Those feline bite marks, preserved on a skeleton interred in northeast England, provide the first…

Warming temperatures may cause methane emissions from wetlands to rise — by helping methane-producing bacteria thrive. Higher temperatures favor the activity of wetland soil microbes that produce the potent greenhouse gas, at the…

The rapid pace of change under the current presidential administration has been amping up people’s feelings of uncertainty. That collective unease can take a toll on societal well-being, researchers say.   “Given that…

A puppy’s thinking ability may indicate how responsive the dog will be to training and whether it’ll grow up to be well-behaved. Traits such as impulsivity, ability to follow gestures and reaction to unsolvable tasks in 3- to…

Food poisoning isn’t an experience you’re likely to forget — and now, scientists know why. A study published April 2 in Nature has unraveled neural circuitry in mice that makes food poisoning so memorable. “We’ve all…

NASA’s Perseverance rover, currently exploring the rim of Jezero Crater on Mars, has made a striking new discovery—an unusual, dark-colored rock now officially named “Skull Hill.” This angular, jagged formation stands out dramatically…

Adam Becker’s new book, More Everything Forever, investigates the dangers of a billionaire-driven tomorrow, in which trillions of humans live in space, served by AI.

On the eve of Daylight Saving Time, I flew home to Vermont from California. Crossing several time zones, I arrived near midnight. At 2 a.m., the clock jumped ahead an hour, leaving me discombobulated. “How messed up am I?” I…

Across the world, loneliness tends to increase after midlife. But for reasons that aren’t altogether clear, the United States is an outlier, with loneliness steadily decreasing from the middle to later years of life, researchers…

Two small clinical trials revive hope for an old idea: Cells injected into the brain might replace the nerve cells that die in Parkinson’s disease. The studies, published April 16 in Nature, represent early steps for stem cell…

A long-elusive, hypothetical subatomic particle called the axion can be simulated and potentially detected in a type of thin material.

Beneath the great, white expanse of the Antarctic Ice Sheet, a mysterious realm of streams and lakes lies out of sight. Much about this hidden water world remains poorly understood. But a new study suggests that if scientists…

Earth’s landmasses are holding onto a lot less water than they used to — and this loss is not just due to melting ice sheets. Terrestrial water storage, which includes water in underground aquifers, lakes, rivers and the tiny pore…

Autism is more common than ever before, a new report suggests. As of 2022, about 1 in 31 children in the United States were diagnosed with autism by the time they were 8 years old, researchers reported online April 15 in the…

For the first time, astronomers have confirmed the existence of a lone black hole — one with no star orbiting it. It’s “the only one so far,” says Kailash Sahu, an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute in…

The Trump administration has reportedly disrupted over 100 clinical trials. Science News spoke to researchers about the impacts on four of them.

The carbon that once warmed Mars’ atmosphere has been locked in its rusty rocks for millennia.  That’s the story revealed by a hidden cache of carbon-bearing minerals unearthed by NASA’s Curiosity rover along its route up a…

You may have already seen the headlines: Signs of life have reportedly been discovered on an alien world.  A team of astronomers led by Nikku Madhusudhan of the University of Cambridge used the James Webb Space Telescope to…

Will Nediger, a crossword constructor and Ph.D. in linguistics, edited this puzzle. Looking for answers? Go to sciencenews.org/puzzle-answers. We’d love to hear your thoughts. Email us at puzzles@sciencenews.org.

On a bright, late-summer day in north-central Europe around 300,000 years ago, a team of perhaps a couple dozen hunters got into their assigned positions for a big kill. Little did they know that remnants of this lethal event…

Soot from forest fires in the Amazon might play a role in the melting of faraway ice in Antarctica. For decades, scientists have known that black carbon from burning fossil fuels or forests accelerates ice melt in different…

A potential dark galaxy — one made primarily of dark matter — may have been spotted in the local universe. Dark galaxies are theoretical, starless systems whose discovery could help astronomers better understand galaxy…

India, a civilization-rich country that spans millennia, remains a repository of globally acclaimed heritage. India, as of 2025, has 43 UNESCO World Heritage Sites — 34 cultural, 7 natural, and 2 mixed sites. These sites are the best …

Editor in chief Nancy Shute discusses the booming online market for semaglutide, new findings on how early humans used sophisticated thinking and whether Spinosaurus could swim.

Mars—once believed to have looked much like Earth with vast oceans and a thick, life-supporting atmosphere—is now a cold, dusty wasteland. For decades, scientists have puzzled over what truly caused this drastic transformation. But now,…

All about AI Scientists are working on AI technology that has brain-inspired hardware, architecture or algorithms. Such neuromorphic AI could be nimbler, more efficient and more capable than traditional AI, freelance writer…

Researchers in the United States have used lasers and advanced tracking technology to enable five individuals to see a colour no human has ever seen before. The researchers have published details of the experiment in Science Advances on…

Pseudoscience Lydia Kang and Nate PedersenWorkman Publishing Company, $25 Have you ever taken a personality test seriously? Or maybe you’ve wondered if you could freeze yourself in liquid nitrogen to help revitalize your body…

People in the United States are in the midst of an ongoing opioid epidemic and a wave of mental health problems. So funding and staff cuts to a federal agency that supports mental health care, suicide prevention, and addiction…