Turtles show remarkably low cancer rates, defying expectations for large, long-lived animals

Species that are both large and long-lived are expected to face higher cancer risk, since more cells mean more opportunities for something to go wrong.

New analysis of the Skhul I skull: One of the oldest human burials in the world

In 1931, the Skhul I fossil was uncovered at Mugharat es-Skhul, Israel. It forms part of the oldest intentional human burials ever discovered.

New ‘bone-digesting’ cell type discovered in pythons

Most carnivores eat only the flesh of their prey and avoid eating the bones or pass them undigested, but many snakes and reptiles often consume their prey whole, including the bones.

Cops’ favorite AI tool automatically deletes evidence of when AI was used

AI police tool is designed to avoid accountability, watchdog says.

The Webb Telescope captures a mesmerizing view of the Cat’s Paw nebula

To mark its third year of highly productive science, astronomers used the James Webb Space Telescope to scratch beyond the surface of the Cat’s Paw Nebula (NGC 6334), a massive, local star-forming region.

== paywall?
Millions of Tonnes of Nanoplastics Are Polluting the Ocean

These plastic particles smaller than a human hair can pass through cell walls and enter the food web.

== maybe time for a new toy, though the name leaves a bit to be desired
Hugging Face Launches $299 Robot That Could Disrupt Entire Robotics Industry

Hugging Face, the AI platform that has become the GitHub of machine learning (ML), announced Tuesday the launch of Reachy Mini.

== paywall?
Animal Diseases Leapt To Humans When We Started Keeping Livestock

When hunter-gatherers began living close to animals, the pathogens that cause the plague and leprosy got closer too.

When stem cells feel the squeeze, they start building bone

The study suggests that the physical act of moving through tight, confining spaces, like those between tissues, can influence how stem cells develop.

== yjc
Purplish creature found in volcanic fjord is new species named after Darth Vader

In the waters of Papua New Guinea’s Tufi region, known for its dramatic volcanic fjords, an unusual fish sat perched on a massive rocky coral outcrop.

Nanobody neutralizes deadly Nipah and Hendra viruses in lab tests

A team has identified the first ever nanobody to work against Nipah and Hendra, henipaviruses which have jumped from animals to people in Asia and Australia.

Melting glaciers could trigger more explosive eruptions globally

The link between retreating glaciers and increased volcanic activity has been known in Iceland since the 1970s.

Massive boulders ejected during DART mission may complicate future asteroid deflection efforts

Research shows that while the direct impact of the DART spacecraft caused this change, the boulders ejected gave an additional kick that was almost as big.

Is Earth inside a huge void? ‘Sound of the Big Bang’ hints at possible solution to Hubble tension

If we are located in a region with below-average density, then matter would flow away from us due to stronger gravity from the surrounding denser regions

== yjc
9 Best Foods to Help You Stay Hydrated

Water is great, but so are these hydrating fruits and veggies.

Counter-terrorism agencies are scrambling to maintain an advantage and thwart attacks as access to digital tools eases

Side-by-side views bring new insight into these intriguing clusters.

How terrorist groups are leveraging AI to recruit and finance their operations

Counter-terrorism agencies are scrambling to maintain an advantage and thwart attacks as access to digital tools eases.

Record-Setting Dark Matter Detector Comes Up Empty – and That’s Good News

LUX-ZEPLIN’s latest result sets the most stringent limit on WIMPs’ interaction strength to date.

Chinese Satellites Complete First High-Altitude Rendezvous For Possible Groundbreaking Refueling

Although impressive, it raises concerns about potential docking with and disabling other countries’ orbital military assets.

== damn something new to investigate/learn, haven’t even gotten around to checking out MCP yet
Linux Foundation adopts A2A protocol to help solve one of AI’s most pressing challenges

Let the best agent-to-agent protocol win.

Dark dwarfs lurking at the center of our galaxy might hint at the nature of dark matter

The small mass of brown dwarfs is not sufficient to trigger fusion reactions.

Voracious honey bees threaten the food supply of native pollinators

The majority of Earth’s plant species, including our crop plants, rely on the services of animal pollinators in order to reproduce.

Circadian disruption by night light linked to multiple cardiovascular outcomes

Circadian rhythms govern fluctuations in blood pressure, heart rate, platelet activation, hormone secretion, and glucose metabolism.

Chickadees recall places by simply looking from afar

Many animals rely on vision to trigger recall for where food is hidden or to chart a course toward distant goals.

== as a youngster the place fascinated me
Radiocarbon dating reveals Rapa Nui not as isolated as previously thought

Archaeologists have analyzed ritual spaces and monumental structures across Polynesia, questioning the idea that Rapa Nui developed in isolation following its initial settlement.

== paywall?, and we’ve seen something on this before
Rapid bursts of ageing are causing a total rethink of how we grow old

Suddenly feeling old? Evidence now suggests that rather than a long, steady decline, we dramatically age around three specific times in our lives.

== wonder how much of that ends up on fruit and veggies imported to Canada
Weedkiller Ingredient Widely Used In US Can Damage Organs and Gut Bacteria, Research Shows

Diquat is banned in the UK, EU, China and other countries. The US has resisted calls to regulate it.

Arizona Brings a Huge Grid Battery Online Ahead of Peak Demand

Recurrent Energy, a subsidiary of Canadian Solar, just brought its 1,200 MWh Papago Storage facility in Maricopa County into commercial operation.

== https://anubis.techaro.lol/
The Open-Source Software Saving the Internet From AI Bot Scrapers

For someone who says she is fighting AI bot scrapers just in her free time, Xe Iaso seems to be putting up an impressive fight.

== yjc
10-metre member of ‘mysterious’ shark species spotted off P.E.I.’s North Shore

Group out on deep-sea fishing trip encountered a basking shark.

Jack Dorsey just released a Bluetooth messaging app that doesn’t need the internet

The Twitter founder is making a modest play against WhatsApp.

200 million year-old flying reptile species found

The jawbone of the ancient reptile was unearthed in Arizona back in 2011, but modern scanning techniques have now revealed details showing that it belongs to a species new to science.

== paywall?
The latest threat from the rise of Chinese manufacturing

MIT economist David Autor first documented the loss of millions of jobs to Chinese imports a decade ago. Now he sees an even more serious danger if the US loses the race for advanced manufacturing.

NASA Citizen Scientists Find New Eclipsing Binary Stars

Of the 10,001 objects they listed in their paper, 7,936 are new eclipsing binaries they discovered. The rest were already known, but the team made new measurements of the timing of their eclipses.

Google DeepMind’s Spinoff Company ‘Very Close’ to Human Trials for Its AI-Designed Drugs

Born from DeepMind’s AlphaFold breakthrough, the company is pairing cutting-edge AI with pharma veterans to design medicines faster, cheaper, and more accurately.

== yjc, I get quite angry with people shooting off fireworks in our neighbourhood
Drones Used by California Cities to Patrol for Illegal Fireworks and Issue Fines

California residents who lit illegal fireworks over the July 4 holiday may be in for a nasty surprise in the mail thanks to covert fire department operations.

China Is Quickly Eroding America’s Lead in the Global AI Race

Chinese artificial-intelligence companies are loosening the U.S.’s global stranglehold on AI, challenging American superiority and setting the stage for a global arms race in the technology.

== yjc
The coder ‘village’ at the heart of China’s AI frenzy

It looked like Silicon Valley, but it was Liangzhu, a quiet suburb of the southern Chinese city of Hangzhou, which is a hot spot for entrepreneurs and tech talent lured by low rents and proximity to tech companies like Alibaba and DeepSeek.

Interstellar Navigation Demonstrated for the First Time With NASA’s ‘New Horizons’

By looking at the shifting of stars in photos from the New Horizons probe, astronomers have calculated its position in the galaxy – a technique that could be useful for interstellar missions.

== yjc
Apple just released a weirdly interesting coding language model

Instead of writing code like traditional LLMs generate text (left to right, top to bottom), it can also write out of order, and improve multiple chunks at once.

== yjc, may need to try vibe coding?
‘Vibe Coder’ Who Doesn’t Know How to Code Keeps Winning Hackathons in San Francisco

Rene Turcios has attended more than 200 in two years, perfecting the art of “vibe-coding” before it was even a thing.

Archaeologists unveil 3,500-year-old city in Peru

Located some 200km north of Lima, the site lies about 600 metres (1,970 feet) above sea level and is thought to have been founded between 1,800 and 1,500 BC.

UK Scientists Achieve First Commercial Tritium Production

This achievement addresses a significant hurdle in the development of fusion energy.

A Common Assumption About Aging May Be Wrong, Study Suggests

Inflammation, long considered a hallmark of aging, may not be a universal human experience.

Energy Department Announces First Microreactor Experiments in DOME Test Bed

Westinghouse and Radiant were the initial companies selected to test their microreactor designs in DOME, the world’s first microreactor test bed at Idaho National Laboratory.

== yjc
AI Coding Agents Are Already Commoditized

The AI agent space is so accessible - commodified on the inference front, and open-sourced on the scaffolding front - that you can get an “AI developer” in your repository by pasting ~50 lines of code into your workflows folder.

There Is No Safe Amount of Processed Meat To Eat, According to New Research

So much so that even small daily portions are being linked to increased disease risk.

Tiny creatures gorge, get fat, and help fight global warming

A tiny, obscure animal often sold as aquarium food has been quietly protecting our planet from global warming by undertaking an epic migration.