News
Life may have learned to use oxygen long before it filled Earth’s air
2+ hour, 47+ min ago (1001+ words) Oxygen feels like the most ordinary thing in the world now. We breathe it, plants make it, and most animals depend on it." But for most of Earth's history, oxygen wasn't a stable part of the atmosphere at all. Scientists…...
Silver coating makes lithium batteries much harder to crack
1+ week, 2+ day ago (807+ words) Small flaws hidden inside batteries are quietly limiting how fast they can charge and how safely they can operate. As rapid charging becomes the norm for phones, laptops, and electric vehicles, those tiny defects are turning into a big problem....
Scientists create an engine made of liquid metal
1+ week, 3+ day ago (789+ words) Motion at small scales is getting harder to engineer just as medicine, electronics, and robotics demand devices that can bend without breaking." Researchers have now shown that rotation can come from a soft, flowing material rather than rigid parts, changing…...
Scientists develop AI that designs molecules ten times faster
1+ week, 5+ day ago (809+ words) Instead of waiting years for lucky breaks, researchers are turning to machines to sketch out entirely new potential chemical molecules on demand." That change matters now because faster, more directed discovery can cut waste, lower costs, and move useful medicines…...
Bacteria swim through spaces that stop most microbes
1+ week, 5+ day ago (833+ words) For bacteria, squeezing through tight spaces can be a dead end. Narrow passages usually trap cells, halt their movement, and effectively filter out which microbes can go any farther. But new research from the University of Electro-Communications shows that at…...
Toxic gas found to have wiped out almost half of all ocean life 530 million years ago
3+ week, 1+ day ago (828+ words) About 530 million years ago, during the early rise of complex animal life, a massive marine die-off erased roughly 45% of ocean species. Sediment cores from the Yangtze Platform in South China point to hydrogen sulfide, a toxic gas produced in oxygen-poor…...
Recipe for finding clean natural hydrogen may change the energy game
3+ week, 1+ day ago (824+ words) For a fuel seen as critical to cleaner industry and energy, clean hydrogen supply has always been the hard part.New research suggests that Earth itself has already made far more hydrogen than society uses today, and that where it…...
Scientists taught bacteria to make a low-calorie sugar
3+ week, 4+ day ago (796+ words) Experts have found a way to make tagatose " a sugar with about 60 percent fewer calories than table sugar " from glucose. By using engineered bacteria, a team at Tufts University says the method could lower costs and widen food options. The…...
Orange feathers may protect birds from dietary stress
4+ week, 1+ hour ago (828+ words) Orange feathers and red hair have long been viewed as risky evolutionary traits, linked to pigments that can raise cellular stress and, in humans, increase cancer risk. New research suggests that under certain conditions, that same orange pigment may instead…...
US and Japan join forces to study the most mysterious particles in the universe
4+ week, 1+ day ago (773+ words) The joint NOvA-T2K analysis combined years of data to measure a neutrino mass difference with less than 2% uncertainty. Teams in Japan and the United States merged results from the NOvA and T2K experiments, bringing two neutrino beams into one fit. The…...