Latest science news, discoveries and scientific developments.
A groundbreaking study challenges 70 years of assumptions about how human language works. By analyzing billions of word uses, scientists discovered that meaning is organized around power, danger, and order rather than emotion alone. Even more surprisingly, human language shows a powerful hidden preference for safety, suggesting that our words may reflect ancient survival instincts.
In places like South Asia, Africa and parts of the Americas, monsoon rains supply water for drinking, crops and hydropower for billions of people. Understanding the patterns that monsoons tend to follow can help people plan for drought risks affecting agriculture, reservoirs and hydropower across distant regions.
Tiny samples from asteroid Bennu are rewriting scientists' understanding of how our Solar System formed. New evidence suggests that Bennu was born where material from the inner and outer Solar System mixed, with Jupiter playing a surprising role in shaping its formation.
Scientists have proposed a way to detect “mirror life,” a hypothetical form of life that could pose serious risks to humans, animals, and ecosystems if artificially created. Using special fluorescent molecules and a type of polarized light also used in 3D movie technology, researchers believe they could distinguish ordinary organisms from their mirror-image counterparts.
The Sun’s seemingly peaceful regions are hiding a surprisingly complex magnetic world. Using a balloon-borne telescope high above Earth, scientists discovered delicate, thread-like magnetic structures woven through the solar atmosphere, apparently shaped by twisting motions on the Sun’s surface. They also mapped magnetic fields inside towering jets of solar material, revealing how those fields change with height.
Tiny snakes in Southeast Asia have mastered an extraordinary escape technique: rolling across the ground at speeds up to four times faster than ordinary slithering. Scientists discovered that dwarf reedsnakes accomplish this feat through precisely coordinated body movements that allow their bodies to rotate while their heads remain remarkably stable.
Relatively simple changes to the way traditional brick kilns operate in Bangladesh can reduce pollution, save fuel and improve the quality of bricks they produce.
The fossilized skull of a new species of mysterious meat-eating dinosaur from the Isle of Wight has been rediscovered in the collections of the Natural History Museum after over 100 years in storage.
The largest artificial intelligence (AI) firms increasingly understand that they are hostages of one another. If one firm pushes ahead recklessly, others may feel compelled to follow. If one deploys a dangerous model without adequate safeguards, others may see it as a green light to do the same. The debate over AI has centered on what governments should do to regulate this frontier technology. That remains essential. But a more immediate question is emerging: Can the companies building these powerful systems take action independently before they lose credibility and suffer legal consequences? That question no longer looks theoretical and is being recognized as an urgent challenge. We've alre...
A major study has uncovered hidden warning signs of inflammatory bowel disease in the blood up to 10 years before diagnosis. Researchers discovered distinct antibody patterns that could help predict who would later develop Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis, even distinguishing people at risk of more complicated disease.
Scientists have discovered that switching off a protein called Mitch makes human cells burn more fat and prevents new fat cells from developing. The breakthrough builds on experiments in mice that showed remarkable resistance to obesity and improved muscular endurance, raising hopes for a new approach to weight-loss treatment.
Editor in Chief Nancy Shute discusses the power of the human voice, hopeful advances in treating stiff person syndrome and new controversy about using AI in mathematics.
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...
They weren't afraid of no ghost
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.
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.
NASA is moving fast on its plans to build a moon base and return astronauts to the lunar surface in as little as two years.
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...
Flex your math muscles with this weekend’s brain teaser. Play now
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.