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Science News

Latest science news, discoveries and scientific developments.

Watch the full 'Hunter's Moon' rise next to Saturn this weekend
Science News

Watch the full 'Hunter's Moon' rise next to Saturn this weekend

October's full "Hunter's Moon" is about to rise, and skywatchers will get two great chances to see it appear on the eastern horizon around sunset.Although it officially turns full at 12:11 a.m. EDT on Monday (Oct. 26), the Hunter's Moon will appear almost perfectly full as it rises on both Sunday (Oct. 25) and Monday evenings, giving skywatchers two opportunities to observe it. October's full moon is nicknamed the Hunter's Moon because it was traditionally a signal for hunters to prepare for the coming cold winter by hunting, slaughtering and preserving meat, according to Time and Date. That's an Anglo-Saxon name; Native American names for October's full moon include the Drying Rice Moon, th...

📅 2026-10-24 11:00:00    •    Live Science
Swinging virtual lightsabers and punching improve pattern-based learning in VR tests
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Swinging virtual lightsabers and punching improve pattern-based learning in VR tests

Punching a virtual response box or swinging a virtual lightsaber can dramatically improve learning on certain tasks, according to new research from Florida Atlantic University's College of Engineering and Computer Science, which challenges long-standing assumptions about how people learn.

📅 2026-10-24 10:20:01    •    Phys.org
Typhoon Champi knocks out power to thousands in Taiwan
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Typhoon Champi knocks out power to thousands in Taiwan

Emergency crews scrambled on Saturday to restore power to tens of thousands of homes in Taiwan after Typhoon Champi's fierce winds battered the island, with the storm moving toward China and Japan.

📅 2026-10-24 09:40:01    •    Phys.org
Why were the Nazca Lines built?
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Why were the Nazca Lines built?

The Nazca Lines are the most famous geoglyphs in the world. Dating back around 2,000 years and reaching a combined length of more than 800 miles (1,300 kilometers), they depict a variety of motifs, including humans, animals, geometric shapes, plants and flowers. These designs were constructed on the arid hills and valleys of coastal Peru by the Nazca people between 200 B.C. and A.D. 500, long before writing was used in the region.It's not clear exactly how many Nazca Lines there are, but they number in the thousands, with new geoglyphs continuing to be discovered with the help of AI.But why were the Nazca Lines built?Scientists have been debating this question since the lines were first form...

📅 2026-10-24 09:00:00    •    Live Science
Surveying the genetic battlefield to uncover the rules of rapid evolution
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Surveying the genetic battlefield to uncover the rules of rapid evolution

The Malik Lab thrives on competition. But for HHMI investigator Harmit Malik and his team at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, it's the genomes—not the people—that are in conflict. The lab studies rapid evolution—the genetic changes that happen in a species over a few generations rather than thousands of years. These fast changes are often fueled by genetic conflicts—competitions between different entities trying to maximize their success at the expense of another.

📅 2026-10-24 03:20:02    •    Phys.org
This 150-million-year-old bird had dinosaur teeth and a strange secret
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This 150-million-year-old bird had dinosaur teeth and a strange secret

A 150-million-year-old fossil discovered in China reveals a bizarre early bird with sharp teeth, a dinosaur-like claw, and a body built for life on the ground rather than flight. Scientists believe it represents the earliest known example of flight loss in birds, overturning assumptions about how these animals evolved.

📅 2026-10-24 02:42:19    •    ScienceDaily
Habitat explains Finnish animal distributions better than climate, study finds
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Habitat explains Finnish animal distributions better than climate, study finds

Researchers at the University of Helsinki wanted to understand which is the dominant factor for species occurrence and abundance: the climate or habitat-related variables, such as their natural state and the share of land shaped by human activity. Solutions to mitigate biodiversity loss depend on the answer to this question.

📅 2026-10-24 01:00:02    •    Phys.org
Glioblastoma breakthrough reveals how brain cancer cells become more aggressive
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Glioblastoma breakthrough reveals how brain cancer cells become more aggressive

Scientists discovered that the thick, sticky fluid surrounding glioblastoma tumors can make brain cancer cells smaller, more flexible, and better at invading surrounding tissue. Even more troubling, some of these changes persist after the cells leave the thick fluid, revealing a previously overlooked mechanism that could help this deadly cancer spread.

📅 2026-10-24 00:48:21    •    ScienceDaily
Glowing plants reveal immune responses around infection sites via two colors
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Glowing plants reveal immune responses around infection sites via two colors

Researchers at the MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences (LMS) have developed a new way to make glowing biological reporters more accurate, allowing scientists to track gene activity in living plants over days, weeks and potentially even months and years. The approach could help researchers study how plants respond to disease, pests and environmental stress, while opening the door to similar applications in animal and human disease models.

📅 2026-10-23 23:20:01    •    Phys.org
Study maps the human side of flood risk
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Study maps the human side of flood risk

When heavy rain hits a city, knowing where water will accumulate is only part of the picture. Who lives in the affected buildings? How might flooding disrupt their lives? And where could additional support make the greatest difference?

📅 2026-10-23 22:20:02    •    Phys.org
Christina Applegate misdiagnosis: Why can MS be difficult to diagnose?
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Christina Applegate misdiagnosis: Why can MS be difficult to diagnose?

Actor Christina Applegate was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) over five years ago — but this week, she announced that a recent reevaluation found that she doesn't have the condition after all. In the wake of that revelation, she's been left without a diagnosis, and she said on a podcast that she felt she was "back at square one, where I don't know what's going on with me."Applegate's case is not totally unique, although MS diagnosis has improved over the years. Studies offer different estimates of how frequently MS is misdiagnosed, with rates ranging from 5% to over 40%, depending on the patient population and clinical setting. There is also some degree of underdiagnosis — cases in wh...

📅 2026-10-23 21:25:48    •    Live Science
Counting magnetic flux quanta offers new way to measure photon numbers
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Counting magnetic flux quanta offers new way to measure photon numbers

Researchers at AIST have directly observed magnetic flux quanta generated in a superconductor by photon absorption and demonstrated a new principle of photon detection that identifies the number of photons based on the number of these flux quanta.

📅 2026-10-23 21:20:02    •    Phys.org
Scientists demonstrate AI-designed enzyme for drug synthesis
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Scientists demonstrate AI-designed enzyme for drug synthesis

The new RFD4-Proteina unified generative model for protein design—created by the Institute for Protein Design (IPD) in collaboration with NVIDIA—uses advanced AI to generate entirely new protein sequences and structures, achieving computational design success rates five to 10 times higher than previous models and generating candidates five to 10 times faster.

📅 2026-10-23 21:00:13    •    Phys.org
Chemically modified sugars enable direct nanostructure formation
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Chemically modified sugars enable direct nanostructure formation

Researchers at AIST have demonstrated the synthesis of nanoporous carbonaceous materials and carbonaceous materials with layered nanostructures through a simple process involving the chemical modification of common sugars such as sucrose and fructose.

📅 2026-10-23 20:40:08    •    Phys.org