Stay informed about scientific discoveries, research developments and new findings from around the world.
What happens when scientists start changing the brain—the very system through which an animal's mental states are expressed in behavior?
A new study, led by IIASA researchers and coauthored by UNEP colleagues, finds that if governments fully implement their methane reduction plans, they could reduce global emissions by 11% between 2020 and 2030. This would reverse the current trend of increasing methane emissions, but would not be sufficient to achieve the goal of the Global Methane Pledge.
"Why haven't farm animals evolved to protect themselves against humans?—Sarang, age 15, Latur, Maharashtra, India"
Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) were surprised to discover the earliest phases of giant planet formation between the dense layers of gas and dust in the "Gomez's Hamburger" system, referred to as GoHam.
The gas orbiting Sagittarius A (Sgr A*), the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy, is rich in metals, researchers at McGill University's Trottier Space Institute have found. The metal enrichment probably resulted from stars that exploded and released material into the black hole's surroundings over time, they said.
Earlier this year, I gave birth to my fourth child. My baby and I entered "karasunk," the traditional Armenian 40-day postpartum period during which mother and newborn remain close to home, sheltered from the outside world.
The Martian Moons Exploration mission will aim to bring back samples from Phobos
Every loaf of bread has a carbon footprint, a supply chain and a workforce behind it. As climate change, food safety and labor rights attract growing attention, corporate disclosures on environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues are becoming increasingly important. But what do companies disclose, and have their priorities changed?
Archaeologists have unearthed an 11th-century wooden kitchen gadget with an ancient board game carved into the back. Medieval bakers may have used the wooden paddle not just to transfer bread into an oven but also to pass the time while they waited for the food to cook, the researchers said."We discovered a fragment of a fairly large shovel," Sergey Toropov, director of Novgorod State University's Center for Archaeological Research, said in a translated statement. "Most likely, it was a bread shovel, which was used to bake bread in an oven. On the reverse side, however, three squares have been carved, one inside the other."The "bread shovel" — also known to contemporary home bakers as a wood...
A gene variant called APOE4 dramatically increases the risk of late-onset Alzheimer's disease, the most common form of dementia. Now, emerging research is revealing APOE4's true role in the condition, and a new study pinpoints a possible way to treat it.Historically, scientists studying Alzheimer's disease have focused on two proteins that accumulate in patients' brains: amyloid-beta and tau. However, there's a "third thing that people didn't pay attention to, until recently," said study co-author Li-Huei Tsai, a neuroscientist at MIT. That third thing is the accumulation of droplets of fat, or lipids, in the brain, she told Live Science.The APOE gene makes proteins responsible for transport...
We have long had a seemingly simple question about neutrinos: how much do they weigh? Now, a gigantic experiment in China is poised to find out – and the answer could transform particle physics forever
How close is too close for encounters between sensitive spacecraft orbiting Earth? With a mysterious approach to another satellite, Russia’s military may be trying to find out
When should your child start engaging with screens? How long should they use them for? Can they watch or play alone? Should there be a gap before bed?
One-quarter of the world's data centers are located in areas where water demand exceeds supply for at least one month each year, according to a new global analysis. Researchers reporting in Environmental Science & Technology mapped data center locations against available water resources and found that, under a future climate scenario, the proportion of facilities in water-stressed areas could rise to one-third.
Better electronic health (e-health) literacy encourages young adult patients to visit doctors' offices rather than replace professional consultations with self-treatment.
Voltage fluctuations, light fluctuations, temperature fluctuations—any fluctuations are troublesome and thus undesirable. They don't just cause discomfort; in engineering and medical applications, they affect the accuracy of measurements or introduce errors in controls. Even at the minute level of quantum phenomena, fluctuations are considered undesirable.
When Earth formed billions of years ago, its metallic core was wrapped in a global ocean of molten rock, which eventually cooled and crystallized to form the mantle. Today, when deep-rooted mantle plumes rise toward the surface and produce volcanic eruptions, the resulting lava can contain hydrogen from deep inside the planet.
The Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science (KRISS) has remeasured a key transition frequency of the strontium (Sr) atom for the first time in 88 years, since 1938, using a photonic grating chip. It has established a new absolute frequency value with a measurement uncertainty reduced by more than 50 times. By providing an accurate reference value for next-generation quantum technologies, this achievement is expected to contribute to the precise control and miniaturization of quantum devices, including atomic clocks and neutral-atom quantum computers. The work is published in the journal Metrologia.
The European Space Agency's Euclid space telescope has discovered its first previously unknown comet in images taken between Sept. 16 and 24, 2026.
Communicating effectively with others involves recognizing emotions from faces and voices. How does the brain process and integrate emotional information from what others show and say?
New research from the University of St Andrews has shed light on the evolution of an important yet thus far poorly understood group of marine invertebrate animals—brachiopods. The work, published in Science Advances, presents the first comprehensive phylogenomic analysis of all five extant brachiopod orders and related lineages.
The emotions themselves may be more important than the senses we use to perceive them
A drone powered by artificial intelligence (AI) has completed a championship race course faster than some of the world's best human drone pilots. In a study published Oct. 14 in the journal Science Robotics, scientists created an AI system capable of pushing a quadcopter through a demanding course at over 60 mph (100 km/h), using little more than a single forward-facing camera, an inertial measurement unit, and a tiny onboard computer. The system, called MonoRace, even won the 2025 Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League drone racing competition, outperforming every rival autonomous team and posting faster times than three former human world-champion drone pilots.MonoRace accomplished this withou...
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has recently been discussing "artificial general intelligence" that matches or surpasses human capabilities. This is from the same person who has said children born today (including his own) will "never be more intelligent than AI, from a 'raw IQ'" (intelligence quotient) perspective.