Science News

Astrocytes, once thought to be mere support cells, are now shown to play a leading role in regulating behavior by modulating neuronal activity through slow biochemical circuits. In zebrafish, researchers discovered that ...

The record sheds light on the climate early humans experienced when they were spreading out of Africa.

Frontotemporal dementia (FTD), a common form of early-onset dementia, is often misdiagnosed due to its overlapping symptoms with psychiatric and neurological disorders. In a new NIH-funded study, researchers identified k...

NASA's PUNCH mission, a tiny constellation of four satellites, captured a photo of the moon drifting across the sky through a haze of sunlight. The mission is still undergoing commissioning and is expected to start scien...

Discovering existing deposits of the gas that can be economically tapped is key. So, researchers whipped up a guide for hydrogen prospectors. The post Scientists Say Earth Has Made Enough Hydrogen to Power Humanity. Here...

The weakening of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is boosting the sea level along the New England coast on top of sea level rise from melting ice, adding to flooding

As climate change and growing energy demands strain global systems, scientists are increasingly turning to passive cooling technologies--ways to cool objects or spaces without using electricity. One promising method is r...

When adults pretended to be in pain, children as young as 9 months old comforted them, pushing back the earliest age when humans are known to display empathy

New research has linked sea level rise and an increase in flooding in the U.S. Northeast over the past 20 years to the breakdown of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC).

More than 15 billion miles from home, Voyager 1's ailing thrusters were threatening to abort the craft's mission. Until NASA engineers brought them miraculously back to life.

Some jobs are more satisfying than others, and they're not necessarily the ones with a high income or a lot of prestige

Three 1,500-year-old burials in the Negev desert have pendants of bone and ebony that may depict the deceased individuals' ancestors.

A research team from the School of Engineering at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology has developed a new computational model to study the movement of granular materials such as soils, sands and powders. B...

At CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC), lead atom nuclei, accelerated in opposite directions, collide at speeds close to the speed of light. In such scattering processes, the quarks and gluons that make up these nuclei co...

A new theory suggests that psychedelics promote empathy, insight, and psychological flexibility by making the brain's right hemisphere temporarily dominant over the left. Known as HEALS--Hemispheric Annealing and Lateral...

Although glasses exhibit disordered atomic structures, X-ray and neutron scattering reveal a subtle periodicity. Researchers at the University of Tsukuba have demonstrated that this hidden periodicity--referred to as "in...

After decades of mystery, researchers have finally identified the gene behind orange fur in domestic cats: a deletion mutation in the X-linked gene ARHGAP36. This mutation increases gene activity in pigment-producing ski...

Whether diving off docks, cannonballing into lakes or leaping off the high board, there's nothing quite like the joy of jumping into water.

A team of researchers from TU Dortmund University, the University of Paderborn, and the University of Nottingham has developed a new optical method to detect ultra-weak atomic motion. Their experiment performed in Dortmu...

The best telescopes for kids that we recommend are not toys but usable instruments, based on how easy they are to use for younger astronomers who want to gaze at the heavens.

Americans tend to judge organ transplant eligibility based on the cause of a person's illness rather than their race or ethnicity. Survey participants consistently favored recipients whose conditions were seen as less se...

Long thought to be mere support cells, astrocytes are now shown to play a powerful, dynamic role in regulating brain function and behavior. New research in fruit flies and rodents reveals that astrocytes don't just suppo...