Stay informed about scientific discoveries, research developments and new findings from around the world.
A kimchi-derived bacterium can bind to nanoplastics under gut-like conditions and may help carry them out of the body. In mice, the probiotic more than doubled the amount of nanoplastics detected in feces, pointing to a surprising potential use for microbes from fermented foods.
TOPIC:Physics The September/October 2026 issue of the CERN Courier is out Written by: CERN Courier — 17 September, 2026 (Image: Grégory Millasseau/CERN) In his landmark 1945 report Science, the Endless Frontier, Vannevar Bush argued that basic research is the fund from which applications, and with them prosperity, are drawn. Eight decades on, the High-Luminosity LHC is expected to return to society nearly twice its cost, before a single discovery is counted. The largest share comes from the skills researchers take into the wider economy. Technological spillovers come close behind, as demanding contracts leave suppliers with new techniques and markets. The LHC demanded large-scale industrial ...
Ongoing upgrades on the road to HiLumi Upgrading the CMS muon chamber electronics Work on the CMS muon system upgrade is now underway, with teams starting to install the new electronic system for the Drift Tube (DT) chambers. By 2028, all the 250 muon chambers in the CMS barrel will be equipped with the new mini crates housing the electronic boards to read out and control the DT chambers These boards digitise signals from muons passing through the DT with nanosecond-level precision and transmit the information via high-speed optical links to the backend electronics. The new architecture will contribute to improve the performance of the CMS trigger system for the High-Luminosity LHC era, whic...
Scientists discovered a new frog species in the flooded forests of the western Amazon, distinguishing it from nearly identical relatives through DNA and its unique call. Adenomera varcena highlights how much Amazonian biodiversity remains hidden even as habitat loss and climate change threaten these poorly understood species.
Archaeologists excavating a medieval settlement in northwestern Russia have unearthed an unusual 11th-century pendant that combines Christian and pagan imagery. It is the oldest amulet of its kind discovered in the region.The double-sided copper-alloy pendant was found during a summer excavation in Staraya Russa, a historic town between Moscow and St. Petersburg, according to a translated statement from Novgorod State University. One side depicts a Christian saint, while the other side has a Medusa-like figure. The artifact is known in Russian as a "snake amulet" or "serpentine pendant." Four other examples of this jewelry type are known from Christian sites in the area, but those have been ...
A pocket-sized, roughly $100 detector can reveal the invisible stream of cosmic particles constantly passing through Earth and even through our bodies. What began as a student physics project is now being used in major experiments, balloon missions, and potentially future spacecraft.
TOPIC:Accelerators The disconnection of the LHC has begun Work has begun to disconnect the focusing magnets on either side of the ATLAS and CMS experiments, a key step on the road to the HiLumi LHC Written by: Anaïs Schaeffer — 17 September, 2026 CERN Director-General, Mark Thomson, visited the LHC tunnel to mark the start of the dismantling of the accelerator sections that will be replaced by the new HiLumi LHC components. (Image: CERN) The 27 km circumference of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) contains thousands of magnets of different types – dipoles, quadrupoles, sextupoles, octupoles, decapoles, etc. – which each play a very specific role. Among them are the inner triplets: sets of thre...
Astronomers have confirmed a Jupiter-size planet less than a million years old, making Elias 2-24 b the youngest known planet and giving scientists a rare look at a world still being born. Its surprisingly rapid formation challenges leading theories about how giant planets come together, especially so far from their stars.
When AI agents hack real systems, the bigger issue may be the human choices that gave them access, autonomy and too few safeguards.
New supercomputer simulations suggest JWST’s puzzling Little Red Dots are rapidly growing black holes from the early Universe. Extreme radiation may have helped create unusually massive black hole seeds, while dense surrounding gas allowed them to grow dozens of times faster than black holes can today. The simulated objects closely resemble the Little Red Dots seen by Webb. If correct, they could solve the mystery of how enormous black holes formed so soon after the Big Bang.
The Amazon, Earth's largest tropical rainforest, could be on the brink of an irreversible change as the ongoing El Niño strengthens its grip on our climate.El Niño is the warm phase of a multiyear natural climate cycle that is often marked by rising global temperatures and disruptive weather. This time, scientists monitoring the event are warning that climate change has helped supercharge it to likely the strongest ever recorded.As temperature records are breached and the risk of a humanitarian crisis looms, already stressed natural systems are coming under unprecedented strain. The Amazon is one such system. Having suffered severe degradation in recent decades, some fear that a historic El ...
A natural compound produced by gut bacteria after digesting foods such as pomegranates, walnuts, and berries may help repair and protect the intestinal lining. The discovery reveals a surprising beneficial side of an inflammatory pathway and could inspire more targeted treatments for Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.
Just a couple of minutes of walking around or stretching every hour can improve memory and attention span
The malleability of memory once cast doubt on eyewitness identification in criminal cases, but new research reveals how eyewitness memory can be used accurately
Independent auditors are emerging as a key part of plans to rein in frontier AI. But the systems are evolving faster than the methods used to evaluate them
Scientists discovered that brain-cell axons may not be smooth tubes as textbooks have shown for more than a century, but instead naturally resemble strings of tiny pearls. Those pearl-like structures can change with neural activity and may help control how quickly electrical signals travel through the brain.
The surprising real-world applications of high-dimensional sphere packing and the 48-year-old barrier that OpenAI just broke
Artificial general intelligence was once a term confined to technical science papers, but its meaning has slipped
TOPIC:Computing Computer Security: Kids at the keyboard Written by: Computer Security Office — 17 September, 2026 Last weekend, while the sun was shining brightly, nature was flourishing in all its colours, flavours and scents and hundreds of birds were chirping their favourite tunes, I decided to go for a stroll with my dog. A nice two-hour walk in the vineyards around CERN, hiking up the Jura, enjoying the view and returning home full of energy. So nice and neat. Or not… Under the supervision (or not) of my eldest daughter, I left my young son at home (as both were, as usual, not interested in a walk, and I was not interested in an argument about that). My daughter upstairs chatting with f...
Texts from imperial China suggest that some crimes were punishable with unusual amputations and a 700-year-old skeleton appears to offer the first physical evidence of the practice
TOPIC:Physics Strong evidence for quantum entanglement between Z bosons found by ATLAS and CMS The mind-bending phenomenon is now becoming evident in a new particle Written by: Rory Harris — 17 September, 2026 Artistic impression of quantum entanglement between two Z bosons (Image: Daniel Dominguez/CERN) Quantum entanglement is certainly one of the stranger concepts to have emerged from the melting pot of 20th-century physics. Many great physicists, including Einstein, struggled to accept that the phenomenon could be real but, for decades now, the number of examples demonstrating it has been increasing. And, recently, the ATLAS and CMS Collaborations have added to these results by finding st...
Artificial intelligence is rapidly becoming part of how people learn, solve problems and construct knowledge. Yet whether AI strengthens human intelligence or encourages excessive dependence remains an open question.
Plug-in solar panels offer reduced bills and can help boost renewable energy on Great Britain's grid, but concerns around their safety remain
Scientists are testing a counterintuitive way to fight mesothelioma, an aggressive asbestos-linked cancer with few effective treatments. A new experimental mesothelioma drug kills cancer cells by disabling PRX3, an antioxidant defense that tumors use to survive intense oxidative stress. In an early clinical trial, it controlled disease progression in 67% of patients and produced encouraging survival results, raising hopes that the strategy could eventually be used against other cancers.