Technology

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The growth spurt hints that the free-floating object evolves like a star, providing clues about rogue planets’ mysterious origins.

Taste and smell are so intimately connected that a whiff of well-loved foods evokes their taste without any conscious effort. Now, brain scans and machine learning have for the first time pinpointed the region responsible for…

The advance hints at the possibility of portable muon-making devices that could help peer through solid materials for hidden contraband.

Vampire bats are a Halloween staple, and now they’ve got company. Another bat species snatches birds out of the air for a gruesome midnight feast. Songbird DNA has previously shown up in the guano of three bat species, so…

If you’ve ever had a slobbery ball at your feet and a dog’s hopeful eyes asking for yet another throw, then you know that some dogs really love to play. Now, scientists back that up by finding that some pups’ behaviors share…

Citations J.J. Mathews et al. Understanding dietary protein quality: Digestible indispensable amino acid scores and beyond, The Journal of Nutrition, posted July 15, 2025, doi: 10.1016/j.tjnut.2025.07.005  S.M. Forester, E.M. Reyes…

Richard Robson, Susumu Kitagawa and Omar Yaghi developed metal-organic frameworks, structures that can collect water from air, capture CO₂ and more.

When asked to generate resumes for people with female names, such as Allison Baker or Maria Garcia, and people with male names, such as Matthew Owens or Joe Alvarez, ChatGPT made female candidates 1.6 years younger, on average,…

When I sat down to write this story, I remembered the gummy worms in the snack drawer of my kitchen. So I got up and grabbed a handful. I should add that I had just finished lunch, and I don’t really like gummy worms. And yet,…

Antarctic krill keep revealing new superpowers. Euphausia superba, the Southern Ocean’s ubiquitous krill species, sequester large amounts of carbon via their profuse poop. Now, scientists have identified another way in which…

The longest woolly rhino horn ever found is providing new insights into the lives of these now extinct animals. The horn — found preserved in Siberian permafrost — stretched over 1.6 meters, nearly the size of a small adult…

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…

Our immune system is so powerful that it can sometimes attack parts of our body itself, leading to autoimmune disorders. Today, it is well known that the body has a regulatory mechanism, called peripheral immune tolerance, that prevents…

Work on peacemakers in the immune system won the 2025 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine. The peacemakers are regulatory T cells, a type of immune cell that calms the immune system after it has finished fighting…

GLP-1 injections use needles and require refrigeration. Pills that work in a similar way could be a cheaper, simpler solution.

Jane Goodall died on October 1 at the age of 91. When I heard the news, my mind raced back 35 years to a conversation I had with the pioneering observer and student of chimpanzee behavior. As the ‘90s began, Goodall had been…

In parts of Eurasia, the key to a tangy yogurt treat scurries along the forest floor. Red wood ants and their microbes acidify and thicken milk, helping ferment the liquid into creamy yogurt, researchers report October 3 in…

Katalin Karikó thought the call was a joke. It was 3 a.m. on October 2, 2023. Her husband answered the phone. As someone in building maintenance, “he quite frequently gets calls for fixing this and that,” Karikó says. But this…

New patches to biosecurity screening software can make it harder to produce potentially harmful proteins using artificial intelligence. Around the world, this software monitors processes to artificially make proteins, ensuring…

It’s surprisingly difficult — by puffing from any one direction — to send all of a dandelion’s delicate white seed tufts wafting away from their stem. A clump almost always clings on the opposite side of the stem no matter which…

Grape plant bacteria might help mitigate smoke taint in wine by breaking down chemicals that evoke an ashy taste.

Washington DC: A new study suggests a habitable past and signs of ancient microbial processes on Mars -- and Imperial scientists provided crucial context. Led by NASA and featuring key analysis from Imperial College London, the work has…

Parachutes inspired by Japanese paper cutting unfurl automatically and fall more predictably than standard parachutes.

Artificial intelligence can dash off more than routine emails. It has now written tiny working genomes.  Two AI models designed the blueprints for 16 viruses capable of attacking Escherichia coli in lab dishes, researchers…

The camels at Jebel Misma have been frozen in a march for 12,000 years. “They are really spectacular,” says paleoanthropologist Michael Petraglia. “They’re beautiful, monumental.”   A herd of the animals is cut into a cliff…

“Help me please … I can’t calm down without laying on the ground and freaking out for a good 20 minutes … Should I get medical help?” This plea came from a post on the social media site Reddit. The person who posted the…

Creating human eggs from adult cells just got one step closer to reality. A technique used in cloning combined with fertilization and a bit of chemical coaxing caused human skin cells to produce eggs able to give rise to early…

After evaluating several strategies, scientists have suggested a bold, unconventional approach to stop the “city killer” asteroid 2024 YR4 from colliding with the Moon — using nuclear explosives to destroy it. This artistic…

Being a punk rocker means being perpetually misunderstood. So perhaps it’s vindication that that some seafloor fossils, once considered just piles of decomposing gunk, may now be reclassified as animals — and fittingly named after…