Science

We knew from prior analyses that a distant asteroid sampled in 2020 carried all but one of the molecules needed to kick-start life, and researchers have just found the missing ingredient: sugar

From the outside, it looks like any ordinary nappy – one of the tens of billions that end up in landfill each year. But the Hiro diaper comes with an unusual companion: a sachet of freeze-dried fungi to sprinkle over a baby’s gloopy excretions.

Today all that’s left of the ancient city of Semiyarka are a few low earthen mounds and some scattered artifacts, nearly hidden beneath the waving grasses of the Kazakh Steppe, a vast swath of grassland that stretches across northern Kazakhstan and into Russia. But recent surveys and excavations reveal that 3,500 years ago, this empty plain was a bustling city with a thriving metalworking industry, where nomadic herders and traders might have mingled with settled metalworkers and merchants.

Euclid peers through a dark cloud’s dusty veil

U.S. science always suffers during government shutdowns. Funding lapses send government scientists home without pay. Federal agencies suspend new grant opportunities, place expert review panels on hold, and stop collecting and analyzing critical public datasets that tell us about the economy, the environment and public health.

It's a plot device beloved by science fiction: our entire universe might be a simulation running on some advanced civilization's supercomputer. But new research from UBC Okanagan has mathematically proven this isn't just unlikely—it's impossible.

Terrible news for people in a polyurethanecule.

The concrete and cement sector has been trying to reduce its environmental impact for years through sustainable concrete mixtures or efficient designs.

Lead exposure sounds like a modern problem, at least if you define “modern” the way a paleoanthropologist might: a time that started a few thousand years ago with ancient Roman silver smelting and lead pipes. According to a recent study, however, lead is a much more ancient nemesis, one that predates not just the Romans but the existence of our genus Homo. Paleoanthropologist Renaud Joannes-Boyau of Australia’s Southern Cross University and his colleagues found evidence of exposure to dangerous amounts of lead in the teeth of fossil apes and hominins dating back almost 2 million years. And somewhat controversially, they suggest that the toxic element’s pervasiveness may have helped shape our evolutionary history.

What if I could scan your friend’s brain while they watched an advertisement, and use that data to predict with startling accuracy what you will buy?

In the global race to decarbonize, hydrogen stands out as one of the most promising clean fuels. But despite its potential to power industries and transportation without emitting carbon, producing hydrogen sustainably in a water electrolyzer has been limited by the high cost and scarcity of one critical ingredient: iridium.

The strongest predictor of whether someone believed in COVID-19-related misinformation and risks related to the vaccine was whether they viewed COVID-19 prevention efforts in terms of symbolic strength and weakness. In other words, this group focused on whether an action would make them appear to fend off or “give in” to untoward influence.

Discovery of almost 100 sauropod footprints over a distance of 220 metres provides new insight into how Jurassic dinosaurs moved through the landscape of what is now Britain

“We’ve been looking at the brain forever now, and every once in a while, a surprise comes along”

Invidious: https://inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=BEs-LRsJ9uY

Magic mushrooms have been used in traditional ceremonies and for recreational purposes for thousands of years. However, a new study has found that mushrooms evolved the ability to make the same psychoactive substance twice. The discovery has important implications for both our understanding of these mushrooms’ role in nature and their medical potential.

A cup of tea can recharge you after a long, tiring day. Tea might also be just what spent batteries need to rejuvenate. In a new study, researchers have used natural compounds that they extract from tea leaves to regenerate lithium-ion battery electrode materials.

BTW I get 3 different titles, depending on where I look the video up:

A study in Current Biology reports that some “gifted word learner” dogs can learn category words that refer to how toys are used (such as tugging versus fetching) and extend those labels to new objects that serve the same function. In tests, these dogs chose the correct toy by function even when it looked different, a pattern reminiscent of how human infants group objects by purpose during early language learning.

Once a century, a very special day comes along. That day is today — 9/16/25.

Scientists have, "found a scaling law that connects population size to transport networks and economic activity and CO2 emissions. The relationship between these variables follows the same curve for all cities, large and small, they found, and echoes Kleiber’s Law, a principle that emerges in biology when the sizes of animals are viewed in relation to their metabolic rates.

In a case of obligate cross-species cloning, female ants of Messor ibericus need to clone males of Messor structor to obtain sperm for producing the worker caste, resulting in queens giving birth to males of TWO DIFFERENT SPECIES!

Researchers conducting the world’s largest DNA study of myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) today revealed “genetic signals” that might help explain how the condition arises. The poorly understood illness, which is estimated to affect many millions of people worldwide, is associated with debilitating symptoms including extreme exhaustion and difficulty thinking clearly.

Excerpts:

In early June, shortly after the beginning of the Atlantic hurricane season, Google unveiled a new model designed specifically to forecast the tracks and intensity of tropical cyclones.

For many beer lovers, a nice thick head of foam is one of life's pure pleasures, and the longer that foam lasts, the better the beer-drinking experience. A team of Swiss researchers spent seven years studying why some beer foams last longer than others and found that the degree of fermentation—i.e., whether a given beer has been singly, doubly, or triply fermented—is crucial, according to a new paper published in the journal Physics of Fluids.

archive link

Globally, human excreta are a huge untapped source of nutrients. Now, a new perspective paper makes the case that biochar could help to unlock it.

Seems the answer is no.

https://archive.is/Bydus

When Bonnie hears the opening bars of the Verve’s Bitter Sweet Symphony, she is transported back to 1997. But it isn’t a joyful memory that comes to mind; it is the painful recollection of driving home from school and seeing the sheriff changing a lock on her house.

Archive link: https://ghostarchive.org/archive/A4sq8

YES! It's a click-bait title. Read the article to understand the breakthrough.

https://ghostarchive.org/archive/YfM1N

There’s a new record holder for the most accurate clock in the world. Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have improved their atomic clock based on a trapped aluminum ion. Part of the latest wave of optical atomic clocks, it can perform timekeeping with 19 decimal places of accuracy.

Ten years ago, medical marijuana was only legal in about half of U.S. states, and recreational use was outlawed in most of the country. Today, although marijuana remains illegal at the federal level, most states have legalized some use of the drug, setting off a green rush that, according to the data platform Statista, is predicted to bring in nearly $47 billion in revenue this year.

As the 2024 U.S. presidential election unfolded, many young Americans found themselves emotionally drained—not just by the outcome, but by the long months of anticipation and constant news coverage.

Humpback whales may be trying to communicate with us, using bubbles.

Link to the abstract: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2836060

Link to associated paper/study

Stephen Hawking, a British physicist and arguably the most famous man suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), communicated with the world using a sensor installed in his glasses. That sensor used tiny movements of a single muscle in his cheek to select characters on a screen. Once he typed a full sentence at a rate of roughly one word per minute, the text was synthesized into speech by a DECtalk TC01 synthesizer, which gave him his iconic, robotic voice.

The U.S. Department of Defense will no longer provide satellite weather data, leaving hurricane forecasters without crucial information about storms as peak hurricane season looms in the Atlantic.

First off, that hed is terrible. And this could have gone in either Food and Drink or Environment; for that reason, I'm splitting the baby and putting it here, as the "this" referenced is still in research phases.

Bacteria can be used to turn plastic waste into painkillers, researchers have found, opening up the possibility of a more sustainable process for producing the drugs.

The publication of AviList today means that, for the first time ever, there is a unified global checklist of all bird species found on planet Earth.

Newswise — Cambridge, MA— A new landmark study has pinpointed the location of the Universe's "missing" matter, and detected the most distant fast radio burst (FRB) on record. Using FRBs as a guide, astronomers at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA) and Caltech have shown that more than three-quarters of the Universe's ordinary matter has been hiding in the thin gas between galaxies, marking a major step forward in understanding how matter interacts and behaves in the Universe. They’ve used the new data to make the first detailed measurement of ordinary matter distribution across the cosmic web.

Direct link to the image in the browser: https://cosmos2025.iap.fr/fitsmap/?ra=150.1203188&dec=2.1880050&zoom=2

Extractive activity in international waters – including fishing, seabed mining, and oil and gas exploitation – should be banned forever, according to top scientists.

A cure for HIV could be a step closer after researchers found a new way to force the virus out of hiding inside human cells.

Medieval alchemists dreamed of transmuting lead into gold. Today, we know that lead and gold are different elements, and no amount of chemistry can turn one into the other.

TL;DR