Science and Technolgy blog
Scientists have grown an ancient seed from a cave in the Judean Desert into a tree — and it could belong to a locally-extinct species with medicinal properties mentioned several times in the Bible.
Many studies have suggested that psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, might be useful in treating a variety of mental health conditions. But we don’t really know what’s going on at the level of “functional brain networks” – the…
Enlarge / The Nebula-1 rocket just before attempting to land on Sunday. (credit: Deep Blue Aerospace) A Chinese space startup conducted what it called a “high-altitude” test flight of its Nebula-1 rocket on Sunday, launching the vehicle to an altitude…
Freek van Ede seeks to understand how the brain selects information to plan for the future. He’s finding clues in the tiny movements people make with their eyes.
Exposing the hidden movements of mercury through the environment can help reduce human exposure.
Lithium is an essential ingredient for batteries in electric vehicles but getting enough will become a problem.
Physicist and engineer Bhavin Shastri is working to create the first photonic computer modeled after the human brain.
Like a steampunk fantasy-world, which pairs high-tech with an old-timey setting, Nicole Yunger Halpern melds old and new science.
Andrea Gomez, a Berkeley molecular and cell biologist, applies her wide-ranging curiosity to brains’ mysteries ranging from synapses to psychedelics.
The Stanford biophysicist thinks that understanding the mechanics of cell movement could allow scientists to manipulate immune cells.
The world is awash in information. Communications researcher Yotam Ophir digs into news articles and survey results to show how beliefs form and spread.
The neuroscientist considers themself an outsider, which allows them to embrace people who have been marginalized, including people who have HIV.
For the ninth year, Science News honors researchers in its SN 10: Scientists to Watch list.
This series of paintings, found inside a cave in the Sahara, shows a pair of swimmers.
A recent study published in Comprehensive Psychoneuroendocrinology provides insight into the biological mechanisms that may underlie post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Researchers found that individuals diagnosed with PTSD showed reduced levels of the hormone oxytocin and elevated levels of vasopressin, a…
Enlarge / Like a Tandem bicycle, Tandem OLED doubles certain components for exciting momentum. (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images) Tandem OLED has been around for years, but Apple made the technology feel new and shiny when it announced that…
Centuries ago, astronomers observed a dark oval — nicknamed the Permanent Spot — on Jupiter. It was located at the same latitude, or distance from Jupiter’s equator, where the giant windstorm known as the Great Red Spot swirls today. Researchers…
THC (noun, “T-H-C”) THC is a chemical found in the plant cannabis, or marijuana. THC is short for delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol. It is the compound mainly responsible for cannabis’s psychoactive effects. That is, effects that change how a person thinks, feels or…
The martial artifacts found at the temple complex were likely offerings that an ancient kingdom made to their chief god.
The James Webb Space Telescope has taken things to the extreme, studying the outer edge of our own galaxy, the Milky Way and producing a stunning new image.
A recent study published in The Journal of Neuroscience sheds new light on how serotonin, a neurotransmitter often linked to mood regulation, influences reward anticipation and value encoding in the brain. Researchers found that serotonin is released not only when…
The human body has a number of mechanisms that prevent you from holding your breath until you suffocate.
A recent study published in the Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review explored the effectiveness of Twitter’s “disputed” tags in combating misinformation about election fraud during the 2020 U.S. presidential election. The researchers found that these tags, which were designed to…
A new study published in Hormones and Behavior has shed light on how women respond to baby faces. The research suggests that infants with more pronounced “baby schema” features—such as chubby cheeks—are perceived as cuter and tend to elicit stronger…
The proverbial “sugar high” that follows the ingestion of a sweet treat is a familiar example of the potentially positive effects of food on mood. On the flip side, feeling “hangry” – the phenomenon where hunger manifests in the form…
A new study published in Psychiatry Research explores the relationship between fatigue in Long COVID and specific patterns of brain connectivity. Researchers observed that fatigue, one of the most common and debilitating symptoms in Long COVID patients, is associated with…
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Juj Winn) A pleasant female voice greets me over the phone. “Hi, I’m an assistant named Jasmine for Bodega,” the voice says. “How can I help?” “Do you have patio seating,” I ask. Jasmine sounds…
Being a Roman gladiator was a bloody business, but did all gladiators really fight to the death?
A new image from the James Webb Space Telescope shows Arp 107, home to two merging galaxies, with two bright cores and a “bridge” of dust and gas forming a cosmic smiley face.
A recent study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition suggests that people do not perceive the infinity symbol (∞) as representing an endless and boundless concept. Instead, individuals often misconstrue it as a concrete number…
The idea that aliens may have visited the Earth is becoming increasingly popular. Around a fifth of UK citizens believe Earth has been visited by extraterrestrials, and an estimated 7% believe that they have seen a UFO. The figures are…
A new study finds that women who wear plus-size exercise clothing experience a contingent relationship between their apparel and physical activity motivation, with dissatisfaction leading to avoidance of exercise. This research was published in Sex Roles. Previous research has shown…
Two experiments in China examined the effects of female voice pitch on male risk-taking behavior. One experiment indicated that high-pitched female voices made men more likely to take risks. The second experiment showed this effect occurred only when men believed…
Cave art created by the San, the indigenous hunter-gatherers of South Africa’s Karoo region, may have been inspired by fossils of long-extinct reptiles.
Enlarge (credit: Derek Berwin) Our planet is choking on plastics. Some of the worst offenders, which can take decades to degrade in landfills, are polypropylene—which is used for things such as food packaging and bumpers—and polyethylene, found in plastic bags,…
All species in the antechinus genus have the same frenzied mating system, where males have sex until they die from organ failure, then the females gobble up their corpses.
A recent study published in The Journal of Neuroscience sheds light on how obesity can disrupt reproductive health in males by altering brain circuitry. The research used mice fed a high-fat diet to mimic human obesity and found that it…
Enlarge If the past five years of EU tech rules could take human form, they would embody Thierry Breton. The bombastic commissioner, with his swoop of white hair, became the public face of Brussels’ irritation with American tech giants, touring…
New research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology offers some reassuring insights for anyone who has ever hesitated to decline an invitation to a social event. The study found that people tend to overestimate the negative consequences…
In this extract from “The Lives of Spiders: A Natural History of the World’s Spiders,” author Ximena Nelson examines three species of spider with unusual diets — plants, blood and pillbugs.
No one knows for sure when steel was invented, but some of the earliest examples crop up in the first millennium B.C. in Central and South Asia.
Sept. 21, 2024: Our weekly roundup of the latest science in the news, as well as a few fascinating articles to keep you entertained over the weekend.
Enlarge / This photo of the International Space Station was captured by a crew member on a Soyuz spacecraft. (credit: NASA/Roscosmos) A little more than two years ago, Dmitry Rogozin, the bellicose former head of Russia’s space agency, nearly brought…
Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson) As the US Department of Justice aims to break up Google’s alleged ad tech monopoly, experts say that remedies sought in the antitrust trial could potentially benefit not just advertisers and publishers but also everyone targeted…
Enlarge / Young raccoon looking out from a tree. (credit: Getty | Camerique) If you were looking for a reason to keep a flamethrower around the house, you may have just found one. This week, the Los Angeles County health…
Enlarge (credit: Petal) As power utilities and industrial companies seek to use more renewable energy, the market for grid-scale batteries is expanding rapidly. Alternatives to lithium-ion technology may provide environmental, labor, and safety benefits. And these new chemistries can work…
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) Certificate authorities and browser makers are planning to end the use of WHOIS data verifying domain ownership following a report that demonstrated how threat actors could abuse the process to obtain fraudulently issued TLS certificates. TLS…
Enlarge (credit: ChromaDev) On Saturday, a YouTube creator called “ChromaLock” published a video detailing how he modified a Texas Instruments TI-84 graphing calculator to connect to the Internet and access OpenAI’s ChatGPT, potentially enabling students to cheat on tests. The…
The person dubbed “the prophet of the Anthropocene” talks to Live Science about how they got this title, what the Anthropocene means, and why we need to stop trying to define when it started and accept that we’ve been in…
Enlarge / Control Center has a whole new customization interface. (credit: Samuel Axon) iOS 18 launched this week, and while its flagship feature (Apple Intelligence) is still forthcoming, the new OS included two significant new buckets of customization: the home…
