Science

The World Was Supposed to Eliminate This Greenhouse Gas—But Emissions Hit a New High Instead

The world’s quest to reduce an extremely potent greenhouse gas isn’t going as well as we thought it was, according to a new study. HFC-23, known as fluoroform, is a greenhouse gas that has 12,000 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide does. Findings, published in Nature Communications on Tuesday, show that emissions from…

Climate Change Yessenia Funes

Why the Latest FDA Sunscreen-in-the-Blood Study Shouldn’t Scare You

Another U.S. government-led study looking at whether certain sunscreen filters can possibly affect the body is making the rounds. But while its conclusions are worth caring about, you shouldn’t panic, and you definitely shouldn’t stop using sunscreen. The study, conducted by researchers from the Food and Drug Administration and published Tuesday in JAMA, recruited 48…

Health Ed Cara

America’s Second-Largest Doctors Group Backs Medicare for All

America’s doctors are starting to warm up to the idea of a single-payer health care system, aka Medicare for All. This week, the American College of Physicians announced its support for universal health care coverage, either through single payer or a public option in combination with private insurance. The American College of Physicians, the second-largest…

Health Ed Cara

World’s Oldest Known Impact Crater Confirmed in Australia

A 70-kilometer-wide (43-mile) impact structure in the Australian Outback has been dated to 2.2 billion years old, making it the oldest known asteroid crater on Earth. Fascinatingly, this asteroid likely plunged into a massive ice sheet, triggering a global-scale warming period. New research published today in Nature Communications confirms the Yarrabubba crater in western Australia…

Earth Science George Dvorsky

New Virus Kills Sixth Person After Human-to-Human Transmission Confirmed

Health officials in China have confirmed that a mysterious new virus which originated in the city of Wuhan can be transmitted from human-to-human, not just from animals to humans. The news comes after a sixth person has died from the virus and at least 15 health care workers have been infected. The World Health Organization…

Health Matt Novak

Blame Your Old Air Conditioner for Melting the Arctic

The ozone hole was caused by chemicals formerly used in air conditioners and refrigerators. But new research shows that the same stuff is also behind half of the warming the Arctic experienced between 1955 and 2005. The study, published in Nature Climate Change on Monday, uses a number of climate models to figure out how…

Climate Change Yessenia Funes

Using a DNA-Based ‘Computer,’ Scientists Get the Square Root of 900

Using a computer-like system made from engineered DNA, scientists have computed the square root of 900. Biologists have proposed using genetic material for performing computations since as early as 1994. Since then, they’ve found ways to store bits of information in DNA and manipulate those bits via the same rules of logic that computers use.…

Gadgets Ryan F. Mandelbaum

436-Million-Year-Old Scorpion Was Among the Planet’s First Air Breathers

A newly described scorpion dating back to the early Silurian period is answering important questions about the first arachnids and the adaptations that enabled some of the earliest animals on Earth to migrate from aquatic to terrestrial habitats. New research published in Scientific Reports describes Parioscorpio venator—now the oldest scorpion in the fossil record. Its…

Biology George Dvorsky

The Most and Least Physically Active U.S. States

New government research paints a dire picture of Americans and their exercise habits. Across all 50 states, at least 15 percent of adults reported being physically inactive, while in some areas of the country, nearly 50 percent of adults said they got no form of exercise. The research is based on four years of survey…

Health Ed Cara

‘Remarkable’ Mathematical Proof Describes How to Solve Seemingly Impossible Computing Problem

You enter a cave. At the end of a dark corridor, you encounter a pair of sealed chambers. Inside each chamber is an all-knowing wizard. The prophecy says that with these oracles’ help, you can learn the answers to unanswerable problems. But there’s a catch: The oracles don’t always tell the truth. And though they…

Gadgets Ryan F. Mandelbaum

Scientists Are Generating Oxygen from Simulated Moon Dust

European researchers are working on a system that can churn out breathable oxygen from simulated samples of moon dust. “Being able to acquire oxygen from resources found on the Moon would obviously be hugely useful for future lunar settlers, both for breathing and in the local production of rocket fuel,” explained Beth Lomax, a chemist…

Space & Spaceflight George Dvorsky

Texas Judges Are Increasingly Denying Teens’ Requests for Abortion Care

In many places across America, it’s become harder for women to obtain an abortion. But a study out Thursday highlights an added challenge for teenage girls living in Texas and elsewhere: Judges who refuse to let them get an abortion without the involvement of their parents. Legally, the Supreme Court has ruled since 1979 that…

Health Ed Cara

New Research Casts Doubt on Theory That Volcanoes Caused Dinosaur Extinction

Scientists have new evidence in their quest to settle the longstanding debate about whether it was a gigantic meteorite or massive volcanic eruptions that triggered the mass extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs. A curious thing about the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) mass extinction is that two apocalyptic-scale events happened at roughly the same time. Some 66…

Earth Science George Dvorsky

Scientists Built a Robot From 40 Pigeon Feathers and It Flies Beautifully

Scientists seeking to understand the mechanics of bird flight have constructed PigeonBot, a robot made from 40 pigeon feathers (and a few other components). While airplanes maneuver by altering their wing elements, birds can morph the shape of their entire wings to dive, bank, and coast through the air, increasing both their efficiency and agility.…

Biology Ryan F. Mandelbaum

Image: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health

Cancer and Heart Disease Could Be Contagious Through Our Microbiomes, Scientists Argue

It’s a science lesson you probably learned in grade school: You can only catch certain illnesses, like the flu, from another person. But a new paper argues that many diseases seen as noncommunicable, like most cancers and heart disease, might be transmissible sometimes—thanks to the seemingly harmless microbes living in and on our bodies. Every…

Health Ed Cara

Surprising Experiment Suggests Wolf Puppies Can Play Fetch

Scientists in Sweden have shown that some wolf pups, like dogs, are capable of playing fetch with humans. It’s an unexpected result, one that suggests the ancestors of dogs were primed for domestication. A new study published in iScience presents evidence showing that some wolf pups, with a bit of encouragement, will retrieve a tossed…

Biology George Dvorsky

Newly Sequenced Giant Squid Genome Raises as Many Questions as It Answers

One the most intriguing and mysterious creatures on the planet—the giant squid—has finally had its genome fully sequenced. But while the genome is helping to explain many of its distinguishing features, including its large size and big brain, we still have much to learn about this near-mythical beast. “A genome is a first step for…

Biology George Dvorsky

Cat Parasite Makes Mice Less Fearful, but Not Just of Cats, Study Finds

The relationship between a notorious parasite spread by cats and the mice it infects might be more complex than we thought, according to new research out this week. It suggests that mice infected with Toxoplasma gondii aren’t just less afraid of cats—they’re more mellowed out in general. Toxoplasma gondii, more plainly known as toxo, has…

Biology Ed Cara

Free-Diving Neanderthals Gathered Tools From the Seafloor

New evidence suggests Neanderthals gathered clam shells and volcanic rock from the bottom of the Mediterranean, which they fashioned into tools. The work is yet more evidence that Neanderthals often ventured into the water, and it adds to the body of research showing that they were nothing like the unintelligent, uncoordinated clods they’ve long been…

Human History George Dvorsky

A Man’s Worm Infection Left Him with a ‘Stony Hard’ Testicle

There’s no good place for parasitic worms to wreak havoc in the human body, but doctors in India say their 80-year-old patient developed a particularly unfortunate case. The man’s worm infection left him with a massively swollen, calcified right testicle. According to the paper, published earlier this month in BMJ Reports, the man had visited…

Health Ed Cara

The World Was Supposed to Eliminate This Greenhouse Gas—But Emissions Hit a New High Instead

Why the Latest FDA Sunscreen-in-the-Blood Study Shouldn’t Scare You

America’s Second-Largest Doctors Group Backs Medicare for All

World’s Oldest Known Impact Crater Confirmed in Australia

New Virus Kills Sixth Person After Human-to-Human Transmission Confirmed

Blame Your Old Air Conditioner for Melting the Arctic

Using a DNA-Based ‘Computer,’ Scientists Get the Square Root of 900

436-Million-Year-Old Scorpion Was Among the Planet’s First Air Breathers

The Most and Least Physically Active U.S. States

‘Remarkable’ Mathematical Proof Describes How to Solve Seemingly Impossible Computing Problem

Scientists Are Generating Oxygen from Simulated Moon Dust

Texas Judges Are Increasingly Denying Teens’ Requests for Abortion Care

New Research Casts Doubt on Theory That Volcanoes Caused Dinosaur Extinction

Scientists Built a Robot From 40 Pigeon Feathers and It Flies Beautifully

Cancer and Heart Disease Could Be Contagious Through Our Microbiomes, Scientists Argue

Surprising Experiment Suggests Wolf Puppies Can Play Fetch

Newly Sequenced Giant Squid Genome Raises as Many Questions as It Answers

Cat Parasite Makes Mice Less Fearful, but Not Just of Cats, Study Finds

Free-Diving Neanderthals Gathered Tools From the Seafloor

A Man’s Worm Infection Left Him with a ‘Stony Hard’ Testicle

‘Invincible’ Season 4 Is Doing Right By Debbie

Artemis 2 Day 2: Follow the Mission With Our Live Updates 🔴

New Theory Says We’ve Been Overcomplicating the Big Bang

Marvel Might Have Finally Dealt With One of the Most Hated ‘Spider-Man’ Characters Around

China Is Trying to Grow New Forests in This Notorious Mega-Desert. It’s Working

RAM Prices Are Threatening the Viability of the Raspberry Pi and Single-Board Computing

Michael B. Jordan’s First Post-Oscars Film Looks Way Cuter Than ‘Sinners’

LLMs Will Protect Each Other if Threatened, Study Finds

The Best Gadgets of March 2026

AirPods Max 2 Review: Still Ridiculously Expensive and Ridiculously Nice

DJI Osmo 360 Review: The Best 360 Camera for the DJI-Pilled

Aqara Smart Lock U400 Review: Hands-free Unlocking at Its Best

MSI Prestige 14 Flip AI+ Review: A Solid 2-in-1 Laptop With Some Glaring Flaws

Sonos Play Review: Call It a Comeback

Sonos Era 100 SL Review: The Cheapest Way Into Wired Sonos Sound

Asus ROG’s Massive Swift OLED Gaming Monitor Epitomizes Excess in the Best Way

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