Swedish freshwater bacteria reveal lost genes and unexpected photosynthesis abilities

Bacteria are among the most diverse and ancient forms of life on Earth. Yet, much of what is known about them comes from a small group of species.

Switching immune cells to ’night mode’ could limit damage after a heart attack

Neutrophils have an internal clock that makes them more active and prone to cause tissue damage during the daytime. This could help explain the long-standing observation that heart attacks in the early morning have more severe consequences than heart attacks at night, because excessive neutrophil activity contributes significantly to the size of myocardial infarcts and long-term reductions in cardiac function.

Beyond mimicry: Fiber-type artificial muscles outperform biological muscles

Biological muscles act as flexible actuators, generating force naturally and with an impressive range of motion. Unsurprisingly, scientists and engineers have been striving to build artificial muscles that mimic these abilities.

Cadmium Zinc Telluride: The Wonder Material Powering a Medical ‘Revolution’

Lying on your back in a big hospital scanner, as still as you can, with your arms above your head – for 45 minutes. It doesn’t sound much fun.

== database: https://github.com/zhu-xlab/GlobalBuildingAtlas
== web site: https://tubvsig-so2sat-vm1.srv.mwn.de/
== I could find our place, even see the garage in the back yard,
== and height of house is pretty close—though a little on the low side,
== defintely exaggerating height of the garage
97% of Buildings On Earth 3D-Mapped

A database of 2.75 billion buildings could help scientists to monitor urban planning, climate change, disaster risks and even corruption.

Canary Islands may be ‘missing link’ in global sea urchin killer pandemic

Sea urchins are ecosystem engineers, the marine equivalent of mega-herbivores on land. By grazing and shredding seaweed and seagrass, they control algal growth and promote the survival of slow-growing organisms like corals and some calcifying algae. They are likewise prey for a plethora of marine mammals, fish, crustaceans, and sea stars.

Rare image of Tatooine-like planet is closest to its twin stars yet

In a discovery that’s fit for a movie, astronomers have directly imaged a Tatooine-like exoplanet, orbiting two suns. While obtaining an image of a planet beyond our solar system is already rare, finding one that circles two suns is even rarer.

Which gut microbes matter most? Large study ranks bacteria by health and diet links

The gut microbiome has been a rising star in the world of health science over the last several years, garnering interest from both researchers and the general public. However, the science surrounding the fascinating world of gut microbes is still developing and there is much to learn.

Huge undersea wall dating from 5000 BC found in France

French marine archaeologists have discovered a massive undersea wall off the coast of Brittany, dating from around 5,000 BC. They think it could be from a stone age society whose disappearance under rising seas was the origin of a local sunken city myth.

== yjc
A new species of tiny orange frog discovered in Brazil’s cloud forests

Despite the vast numbers of animal species already identified, the natural world is still capable of springing a few surprises. Deep in the cloud forests of the Serra do Quiriri mountain range in the southern Brazilian Atlantic Forest, an international team of scientists has discovered an entirely new species of tiny frog, named Brachycephalus lulai.

Orcas and dolphins caught on video collaborating to hunt salmon

Orcas listen to dolphin echolocation, dolphins feed on salmon scraps: new study.

== yjc
How monogamous are humans?

In the animal world, pairing up has its perks, which may be why it has evolved independently in multiple species, including us.

== yjc
How Pokemon Cards Became a Stock Market For Millennials

The latest set, Phantasmal Flames, had a rare special illustration Charizard that was being valued at more than £600 before anyone had even found one. When a pack of cards retails at about £4, there’s a huge potential profit to be had.

The Webb telescope spots a supernova from 13 billion years ago

While a gamma-ray burst typically lasts for seconds to minutes, a supernova rapidly brightens over several weeks before it slowly dims. In contrast, this supernova brightened over months. Since it exploded so early in the history of the Universe, its light was stretched as the cosmos expanded over billions of years.

== appropriately?
Why Is Ice Slippery? A New Hypothesis Slides Into the Chat.

A newly proposed explanation for the slipperiness of ice has revived a centuries-long debate.

== yjc
The Coldest Places People Actually Call Home

While most of us dodge a brisk breeze, others thrive in temperatures that would shut down entire cities.

== yjc
Historic N.S. garden gets a smelly surprise from tree

Staff recently learned 40-year-old ginkgo was suddenly producing pungent seeds.

Ultrasensitive liquid biopsy method detects low-frequency cancer mutationsv

Liquid biopsy is increasingly recognized as a promising tool for cancer detection and treatment monitoring, yet its effectiveness is often limited by the extremely low levels of tumor-derived DNA circulating in the blood.

‘Monster Stars’ from the cosmic dawn

For two decades, astronomers have puzzled over how supermassive black holes—some of the brightest objects in the universe—could exist less than a billion years after the Big Bang. Normal stars simply couldn’t create such massive black holes quickly enough.

The surprising culprit limiting the abundance of Earth’s largest land animals

A new study found the density and distribution of Earth’s largest land animals, including elephants, giraffes and rhinos, appear to be limited by a kitchen essential.

Adult female bark spiders produce superior and tougher silk than males do

Dragline silk or major ampullate (MA) silk, the part of a spider’s web that forms the main frame and spokes, is one of the toughest materials known to science. That is, it can absorb massive amounts of energy from a sudden impact without breaking, outperforming most other natural materials and synthetic materials we’ve created, such as steel and Kevlar.

Virtual Power Plants Are Finally Having Their Moment

After a decade, software and battery tech have caught up.

== paywall?
2025 is the second-hottest year since records began

Mean temperatures this year approached 1.5°C above the preindustrial average, making it the second hottest year after 2024.

Ancient boat unearthed off the coast of Egypt believed to be a ‘pleasure barge’ fit for a king

The vessel, preserved under the sediments near Alexandria, was the equivalent of a modern-day yacht.

== seen something on this before
Pioneering new treatment reverses incurable blood cancer in some patients

The treatment involves precisely editing the DNA in white blood cells to transform them into a cancer-fighting “living drug”.

Warm oceans seem to be turning even ‘weak’ cyclones into deadly rainmakers

The final week of November was devastating for several South Asian countries. Communities in Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Thailand were inundated as Cyclones Ditwah and Senyar unleashed days of relentless rain. forecasts were largely accurate; the authorities knew the storms were coming, yet the devastation was still immense. So, if the forecasts were good enough, why were the impacts still so severe?

Helping crops survive in saltwater: Mangroves reveal key cellular traits

Rising sea levels along coastlines not only threaten populations, but also pose a danger to agricultural crops, which may be damaged by surging amounts of saltwater. Researchers have, in response, sought to improve salt-tolerance in plants.

Rethinking long-term allergy treatments

Researchers have developed a vaccine that elicits anti-Immunoglobulin E antibodies in humanized mice, protects against Immunoglobulin E-mediated anaphylaxis, and shows no detectable adverse reaction over one year of observation.

New ‘remarkably tame’ tinamou species discovered in Amazon mountains may already be at risk of extinction

Discovered in the mountains of the Serra do Divisor National Park (SDNP) in Brazil, this ground-dwelling bird has been identified by a research team as a new species of Tinamus, a genus of birds in the Tinamou family Tinamidae.

How a cryptocurrency helps criminals launder money and evade sanctions

A report released in February from Chainalysis, a blockchain analysis firm, estimated that up to $25 billion in illicit transactions involved stablecoins last year.

Idaho Lab Produces World’s First Molten Salt Fuel for Nuclear Reactors

Unlike traditional reactors that use solid fuel rods and water as a coolant, most molten salt reactors rely on liquid fuel—a mixture of salts containing fissile material. This design allows for higher operating temperatures, better fuel efficiency, and enhanced safety.

Was the Airbus A320 Recall Caused By Cosmic Rays?

The Earth is subjected to a hail of subatomic particles from the Sun and beyond our solar system which could be the cause of glitches that afflict our phones and computers. And the risk is growing as microchip technology shrinks.

== yjc
All of Russia’s Porsches Were Bricked By a Mysterious Satellite Outage

Hundreds of Porsches across Russia went dark due to factory security systems going offline, leading to speculation whether the failure was intentional.

Can This Simple Invention Convert Waste Heat Into Electricity?

Nuclear engineer Lonnie Johnson worked on NASA’s Galileo mission, has more than 140 patents, and invented the Super Soaker water gun. But now he’s working on “a potential key to unlock a huge power source that’s rarely utilized today,”

== yjc
Stop using ChatGPT for everything

From GPT to Claude to Gemini, model names change fast, but use cases matter more. Here’s how I choose the best model for the task at hand.

New report warns of critical climate risks in Arab region

Foundations of daily life are being pushed to the brink by human-caused warming.

JWST discovers massive grand-design spiral galaxy from the universe’s infancy

A spiral galaxy, shaped much like our Milky Way, has been found in an era when astronomers believed such well-formed galaxies could not yet exist. Two astronomers have identified a remarkably mature galaxy just 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang—a discovery that challenges our understanding of how galaxies form and evolve.

Geodesic approach links quantum physics and gravitation

It is something like the “Holy Grail” of physics: unifying particle physics and gravitation. The world of tiny particles is described extremely well by quantum theory, while the world of gravitation is captured by Einstein’s general theory of relativity. But combining the two has not yet worked—the two leading theories of theoretical physics still do not quite fit together.

Natural language found more complex than it strictly needs to be—and for good reason

Human languages are complex phenomena. Around 7,000 languages are spoken worldwide. Despite their profound differences, they all share a common function: they convey information by combining individual words into phrases—groups of related words—which are then assembled into sentences. Each of these units has its own meaning, which in combination ultimately form a comprehensible whole.

How Ramanujan’s formulae for pi connect to modern high energy physics

In 1914, just before he sailed from Madras to Cambridge, the famous Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan published a paper listing 17 mathematical formulas to calculate pi. They were highly efficient and helped compute pi faster than other methods at the time.

Cats adjust their communication strategy by meowing more when greeting men

As many cat owners will testify, their pets are often mysterious creatures, independent, cunning and sometimes aloof. And now it appears that when it comes to communication, they might be playing favorites.

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Want to see a snowy owl? This could be your winter

Animal rescues say they’re seeing more young birds earlier than usual, suggesting an ‘irruption’.

A 1950s Material Just Set a Modern Record For Lightning-fast Chips (

Record-breaking germanium-on-silicon tech promises faster, cooler, next-gen electronics and quantum devices.

Chernobyl’s Protective Shield Can No Longer Confine Radiation, UN Nuclear Watchdog Says

The confinement facility “lost its primary safety functions” after a Russian drone strike in February, nuclear watchdog says.