Explore the latest scientific discoveries, science news, breakthroughs and developments from around the world.
It took around 480,000 trucks to haul away 4.8 million metric tons (5.3 million tons) of rubble across western Jamaica after Hurricane Melissa tore through the Caribbean in 2025, United Nations satellites showed.
A surprising discovery reveals how psilocybin, the active compound in magic mushrooms, rapidly reshapes the brain by creating new neural connections and strengthening them. Researchers found that the drug behaves differently in healthy and chronically stressed mice, potentially helping repair brain circuits damaged by prolonged stress. Most intriguingly, they identified a way to trigger this brain rewiring without the behavioral response associated with psychedelic effects.
A figure in red trudges across a blanket of white. Snow squeaks under the scientist's feet, too dry to be slick or soft. Only a line of flags and a few large buildings—the scientist's destination—break up the landscape. The sun hovers on the horizon, never quite setting against a blue sky devoid of clouds.
A compound naturally found in broccoli could help fight Friedreich ataxia, a devastating genetic disease that progressively damages the nervous system, by boosting a vital protein and protecting nerve cells. Scientists hope the discovery could lead to an affordable treatment, although clinical trials are still needed to establish its effectiveness in patients.
Spring is the season of blooming flowers and buzzing bees.
Few insects have a more gruesome lifestyle than Darwin wasps. Rather than simply hunting other animals, these parasitic wasps lay their eggs on or inside living hosts, including caterpillars, beetles and spiders. Their larvae then feed on their hosts, gradually consuming them and eventually killing them.
Astronomers have discovered a strange double ring of planetary wreckage around a dead star, revealing a possible preview of our Solar System's distant future. The two rings are separated by a mysterious gap that researchers believe is maintained by surviving planetary bodies, including one potentially as large as Pluto or the Moon. Their different chemical compositions suggest they may contain the remains of separate destroyed planets.
Traditional lenses and mirrors focus light using curved surfaces. Metasurfaces can achieve similar functions with a flat layer of nanoscale structures that locally control the phase of light. Extending these flat optics into the ultraviolet could support compact systems for high-resolution imaging, spectroscopy, and sensing, but it introduces a fundamental materials problem: many of the materials used to make metasurfaces strongly absorb UV light.
Metabolites are consumed by enzymes to produce other vital molecules as well as to control metabolite levels. But how do cells avoid consuming too much? Researchers from the MPI of Biochemistry, with the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and the de Duve Institute in Brussels, have deciphered such molecular regulation in tryptophan metabolism. The essential amino acid tryptophan binds to a second site on the enzyme TDO2, distinct from where it is consumed. This sequesters a region needed by two effectors, the kinase CK2 and the ubiquitin ligase CUL1–β-TrCP, which act sequentially to signal TDO2 degradation. The findings are now published in Molecular Cell.
After more than 60 years of unsuccessful attempts, scientists have finally isolated stable examples of elusive boron-oxygen molecules once considered too unstable to capture. The surprising breakthrough, achieved using relatively simple chemical reactions, could pave the way for an entirely new class of exotic compounds.
Microplastics have been found in our bodies and the food we eat—and even in remote environments around the world, including seawater and ice in the Arctic. Despite their prevalence, little is known about how they move through the atmosphere. New CIRES-led research, which demonstrates a new method for sampling microplastics in the atmosphere using an uncrewed aerial system (UAS), aims to change that. The findings are published in the journal Scientific Reports.
The extreme heat waves we have seen over the last few years may only serve as a preview of what is to come as a result of climate change. A new study led by researcher Philipp Aglas-Leitner from Freie Universität Berlin, published in Nature Communications, finds that future heat waves could last longer, impact larger areas, and be much more severe.