Science
Our earlier science and technology stories — artificial intelligence, biology, physics, computing and more — all in one place.
Is Rainfall Depositing Microplastics Into Forests Worldwide?
A new study finds forest soils hold up to 13,300 microplastic particles per kg — levels rivaling urban soils — carried there almost entirely by rainfall and falling leaves.
Mar 23 Biology & Life SciencesScientists Build a Tiny Robot That Can Change Medical Science Forever
Researchers at Peking University have built nanoscale machines from DNA strands that can move, sense, and deliver drugs inside the body — at 1/500th the width of a human hair.
Mar 22 Biology & Life SciencesHuman DNA Has a Hidden Layer That Controls Protein Levels
Your DNA can spell the same instruction dozens of ways. Scientists just proved the spelling choice quietly decides how much of a protein actually gets built — and nobody noticed for decades.
Mar 22 Medicine & HealthCancer Patients With a Healthier Thymus Live Longer — Here's Why
Two Nature studies found adults with better thymic health were half as likely to die over 12 years — and cancer patients on immunotherapy had a 44% lower risk of death.
Mar 22 Physics & MaterialsCan Crystal Vibrations Control Heat and Energy? This Study Says Yes
Physicists at Nanjing University used neutron scattering to catch chiral phonons producing magnetic signals inside a ferrimagnetic crystal — a first in magnetic materials.
Mar 22 Physics & MaterialsHarvard's New Chip Can Tell Left-Handed Light From Right — And Switch Between Them on the Fly
Harvard engineers stacked two photonic crystal layers and rotated them to create a chip that controls the handedness of light in real time — a first in photonics.
Mar 21 Artificial IntelligenceAI Just Ranked the Most Dangerous Chemicals in Your Body
A 2026 study trained AI on chemical and toxicology data to rank emerging contaminants by health risk — and its Random Forest model hit 83% accuracy, AUC 0.90.
Mar 21 Computing & QuantumWhy Variational Quantum Computing Works Before Its Time
A 2025 review reveals variational quantum computing can tackle quantum simulation on today's noisy hardware — but barren plateaus threaten to derail the entire approach.
Mar 20 Physics & MaterialsWhy Spacetime Itself May Be the Source of Mass and Spin
A 2026 model shows spin, mass, and time aren't fundamental — they emerge from elastic oscillations inside tetrahedral spacetime cells, unifying quantum and gravity.
Mar 20 Physics & MaterialsScientists Found an Enzyme Unchanged for 2 Billion Years
Resurrected nitrogenases spanning 2 billion years produce identical nitrogen isotope signatures — validating Earth's oldest biosignatures and a new tool in the hunt for alien life.
Mar 19 Physics & MaterialsDressed Interference in Giant Superatoms Cracks the Quantum Entanglement Routing Problem
Physicists engineered giant superatoms that route entangled quantum states across chips with zero information loss—unlocking a new architecture for quantum networks.
Mar 19 CybersecurityWhy Data Breaches Cost Companies Far More Than Money
A landmark review of 203 studies reveals what truly puts companies at risk of cyberattacks — and why the damage runs far deeper than stolen data.
Mar 18 Biology & Life SciencesWhat If Your Biological Age Was Set Before You Were Born?
Penn scientists found that telomere length is decided in the embryo's first cell divisions — not by genes alone, but by which parent had longer telomeres.
Mar 18 Medicine & HealthEating Avocado & Mango Daily Quietly Improves Heart Health in Prediabetes
A new AHA study found that eating one avocado and one cup of mango daily for 8 weeks significantly improved blood vessel function in adults with prediabetes.
Mar 18 Physics & MaterialsScientists Turned Peanut Shells Into Graphene Cheaply
Scientists at UNSW found a smarter way to turn peanut shells into graphene — cutting energy costs by 60x over furnace methods. Here's the surprising key.
Mar 17 Opinion & AnalysisWhy Yogurt May Cut Your Type 2 Diabetes Risk, But Milk Won't
Harvard researchers tracked 194,000 adults for 30 years and found yogurt — not total dairy — consistently lowers type 2 diabetes risk by up to 18%.
Mar 17 Physics & MaterialsIs the Wave Function Even Real? A Beginner's Guide
Physicists use the wave function to predict reality — but is it actually real? A new paper argues it may encode experience itself, not just particles.
Mar 17 Physics & MaterialsScientists Found an Ion That Makes Atomic Clocks 20× More Efficient
A wobbly nucleus inside the rare 173Yb⁺ ion slashes laser power needs by 20× — and that one trick could finally let scientists run 100 ions together in a single clock.
Mar 16 Opinion & AnalysisIndia's Big Energy Bet: Coal Now, Solar Next
India burns coal for three-quarters of its electricity yet leads the world in new solar. Here's how the world's most populous nation is trying to do both at once.
Mar 16 Biology & Life SciencesThe First Plant on Earth — How It All Began
500 million years ago, a tiny green organism crawled out of the ocean and rewrote Earth's future. Here's the fascinating story of how the very first plant began.
Mar 16 Health & WellnessEverything You Thought About Lifting Weights Is Probably Wrong
A landmark 2026 ACSM study of 137 reviews and 30,000 people reveals that most gym rules are wrong — and only a handful of variables truly build strength.
Mar 16 Biology & Life SciencesMetal-Ion Swap Multiplies Solar Catalyst Output by 4.5 Times
Scientists used quantum-level GW calculations to screen 55 metal cations and identify ion-exchanged PHI photocatalysts that produce H₂O₂ at 4.5× the baseline rate.
Mar 16 Biology & Life SciencesFrozen and Revived: The Mouse Brain That Came Back From −196 °C
Scientists froze a living mouse brain to −196°C and recovered full memory-forming function. This 2026 PNAS study is the closest science has come to viable brain cryopreservation.
Mar 15 Biology & Life SciencesThe Tiny Dinosaur That Broke the Evolutionary Rulebook
A 90-million-year-old Alnashetri fossil from Patagonia just dismantled everything paleontologists thought they knew about how small dinosaurs evolved — and why it matters now.