Scientific Discoveries

Explore the latest scientific discoveries, science news, breakthroughs and developments from around the world.

Latest Scientific Discoveries

All News →
Tiny fossils show brittle stars gathered around a dead whale 9.5 million years ago
Science News

Tiny fossils show brittle stars gathered around a dead whale 9.5 million years ago

Tiny skeletal plates recovered beside fossil whale bones in southern Denmark offer a rare glimpse of life around a whale carcass approximately 9.5 million years ago. Researchers have identified a new species of brittle star, Ophiura huebnerjenseni, from the Gram Clay Pit and suggest it represents the first fossil record of brittle stars associated with a whale fall.

📅 2026-11-04 00:00:06    •    Phys.org
Disillusion runs deep among young Americans, poll reveals
Science News

Disillusion runs deep among young Americans, poll reveals

The kids are not all right on the future. For the first time in the 26-year history of the Harvard Youth Poll, more respondents expect to be worse off financially than their parents (27%) than better off (25%).

📅 2026-11-04 00:00:01    •    Phys.org
Asymmetric atomic structure improves sodium–sulfur battery performance
Science News

Asymmetric atomic structure improves sodium–sulfur battery performance

Chinese researchers have developed a new way to improve sodium–sulfur battery performance by changing the atomic structure of a catalyst. Led by professors Wang Hui and Zheng Fangcai from the High Magnetic Field Laboratory at the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the study is published in Angewandte Chemie.

📅 2026-11-03 23:40:05    •    Phys.org
Finding the fingerprints of noisy distributions in random quantum systems
Science News

Finding the fingerprints of noisy distributions in random quantum systems

Imagine shuffling a deck of cards where some of the cards are fading just because of the way they interact with the external environment as you shuffle them. Your job is to figure out the interplay between the shuffling, or "imposed randomness," due to the way you shuffle your cards and how that relates to the fading as cards are exposed to the external environment.

📅 2026-11-03 23:40:01    •    Phys.org
New framework helps turn biodiversity goals into measurable action
Science News

New framework helps turn biodiversity goals into measurable action

The new study by Newcastle University and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) offers a practical roadmap for tracking progress toward halting species extinctions by 2050. It guides users from understanding where species are most at risk in a given area, through taking action to reduce species threats, to measuring the real-world impact of conservation efforts on reducing species extinction risk over time.

📅 2026-11-03 23:20:07    •    Phys.org
Cooking is a bigger source of harmful air particles than vehicle exhausts in London and Beijing
Science News

Cooking is a bigger source of harmful air particles than vehicle exhausts in London and Beijing

There have been decades of regulations to make vehicles greener and improve air quality in London and Beijing, as well as a popular shift toward less polluting road transport. Now, total emissions of harmful air pollutants from vehicle exhausts are lower than those from cooking in the centers of these two megacities, a study has found.

📅 2026-11-03 23:20:02    •    Phys.org
Body size, not competition, may kick-start evolution
Science News

Body size, not competition, may kick-start evolution

A new evolutionary theory suggests changes in body size, rather than competition for food and habitat, may drive the earliest physical differences between species.

📅 2026-11-03 23:10:01    •    Phys.org
Talk of the town: Virtual world gets stroke survivors talking
Science News

Talk of the town: Virtual world gets stroke survivors talking

Have you ever felt like you know exactly what you want to say, but just can't get the words out? Having a word on the tip of your tongue can be frustrating at the best of times, but for people with communication difficulties, it can be a constant struggle to find the right words, make sentences and connect with others.

📅 2026-11-03 23:00:06    •    Phys.org
Scarcer food may have pushed early humans to rework stone tools for longer use
Science News

Scarcer food may have pushed early humans to rework stone tools for longer use

About 300,000 years ago, the emergence of the first Homo sapiens in Africa was accompanied by major cultural and technological changes, marking the beginning of a new archaeological period, the Middle Stone Age. At that time, African landscapes were also undergoing profound transformations. To understand how the earliest members of our species lived and adapted, it is therefore essential to reconstruct the environments in which they lived.

📅 2026-11-03 23:00:01    •    Phys.org