For more than a century, physics has been built on two great theories. Einstein’s general relativity explains gravity as the bending of space and time. Quantum mechanics governs the world of particles and fields. Both...
The vaquita ( Phocoena sinus ), a small porpoise found only in the shallow waters of Mexico's northern Gulf of California, is among the most endangered marine mammals on the planet. At roughly 5 feet long, it is the...
Researchers have identified a remarkable new spider species in Ecuador's Amazon rainforest that disguises itself as a parasitic fungus. The species, named Taczanowskia waska, represents the first known example of a...
For generations, scientists have viewed the inability to regrow lost body parts as one of the fundamental limitations of humans and other mammals. While creatures such as salamanders can regenerate entire limbs, humans...
When scientists cracked the human genome in 2003 – sequencing the entire genetic code of a human being – many expected it would unlock the secrets of disease. But genetics explained only about 10% of the risk. The other...
UC Davis researchers say an implanted brain-computer interface has allowed Casey Harrell, an ALS patient who cannot speak, to synthesize sentences from brain activity with 99% accuracy in controlled tests and about 92%...
SpaceX has agreed to acquire Cursor for $60 billion in stock, adding the popular AI coding assistant to Elon Musk's newly public aerospace-and-AI conglomerate. CNBC reports: Cursor built a popular AI coding tool that...
Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is best known as a disease affecting wildlife such as deer and elk. However, a new study from researchers at the University of Calgary and their international collaborators examined whether...
Birds can see a large portion of the world around them, but when they fly in flocks, they pay attention only to birds beside them or ahead of them. They do not align their movements with birds behind them. That behavior...
PFAS, widely known as "forever chemicals," are among the most stubborn pollutants scientists face today. Because these compounds are extraordinarily stable, they can remain in water supplies, ecosystems, and even the...
A new study from the SETI Institute suggests that the search for extraterrestrial intelligence may be facing an unexpected challenge. The same stellar activity that shapes conditions around distant planets could also...
New simulations suggest Venus' extremely slow backward rotation may have been triggered by a high-angle collision with a fast-moving object roughly one-tenth its mass. The impact could have dramatically altered Venus'...
A Chinese Zhuque-2E rocket's upper stage broke apart shortly after last week's June 9 launch, likely creating 100 to 150 pieces of debris in a busy region of low-Earth orbit crossed by the ISS and lower-altitude...
A tightly compressed bundle of office staples can behave in a surprising way. Even though it is made of many separate pieces, the tangled mass can be difficult to pull apart and can act almost like a single solid...
Jeff Bezos is backing Flourish, a new "neuro AI" startup with $500 million in funding and a reported $2.5 billion valuation, that aims to reinvent AI by studying the brain's architecture and building systems that learn...
Researchers say mysterious, seconds-long GPS interference bursts detected across Europe appear to come from Russian EKS early-warning satellites, making this "a rare example of human-made GPS interference coming from...
NASA has named Randy Bresnik, Luca Parmitano, Frank Rubio, and Andre Douglas as the crew for Artemis III, which has been reworked from a moon-landing mission into a roughly two-week Earth-orbit test of lunar landers...
Commonwealth Fusion has published five peer-reviewed papers laying out the physics case for ARC, its planned 400 MW fusion power plant, which would follow the company's smaller SPARC tokamak now under construction. The...
fjo3 shares a report from The Guardian: Tests reveal that when people are ambling about, they have a natural tendency to turn to the left and walk in an anticlockwise direction. "If you simply ask someone to start...
Two recent studies argue that smartphones may have contributed to falling birthrates by reducing in-person social interaction, sexual frequency, and other conditions tied to unintended pregnancies. "One of the studies...
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: While traditional hotspots in the region such as Thailand, South Korea and Malaysia focus on services such as cosmetic surgery, IVF or physicals, China is trying to...