Science
Device detects 'Devil's Breath' in beverages in just 10 minutes
Assault facilitated by drugs such as scopolamine (popularly known as Devil's Breath) is a serious public health and forensic concern. This drug is especially hazardous due to its …
Letting light wander through milk—a surprising approach to better imaging
Light scattered in tissue usually ceases to be a useful source of information. But what if, instead of forcing it to travel along a single path, we allowed it to wander a little d…
Is Trump to blame for Americans getting explosive diarrhea? | Arwa Mahdawi
As the midterms approach, Americans’ digestive health has become a bizarre talking pointDonald Trump seems to spend an unusual amount of time thinking about toilets.Back in 2019, …
All Hail Electrification. But Let’s Talk About the Hard Part.
If one form of energy becomes the cheapest, most secure and cleanest, you’d probably adjust your economy to use more of it, right? That’s one of the ideas underpinning a report th…
New parallel gate entangles diamond qubits 10 times faster at room temperature
Quantum technologies rely on qubits, units of information that can exist in combinations of the states 0 and 1 instead of being limited to one or the other like conventional bits.…
Why do pickles glow? Researcher investigates explosive answer
If you mount a pickle on two metal forks and plug it into a socket, one end will light up in a brilliant orange glow. It's a classic K–12 science demonstration, but the exact phys…
Trump the environmentalist? How his Iran war exposed the fragility of dirty energy
Gavin Newsom says Trump is a ‘gift’ to the climate cause for dispelling notions of fossil fuel energy securityOf all the epithets hurled at Donald Trump since he became US preside…
I went to America’s largest gathering of astrologers. It was a battle over how to read the stars
Now a $15bn industry, astrology is more mainstream in the US than ever. But its practitioners are still debating: who gets to have authority on the celestial bodies?“The dwarf pla…
‘Mega-Industrial’ Trawlers Threaten Europe’s Ocean Health
For Europe’s fishing industry, it turns out size does matter. Of 60,000 European-flagged fishing boats, just 638 are responsible for most of the harm, according to a new report by…
Regulators Release a Plan to Help Repair the Contaminated Roanoke River
PLYMOUTH, N.C.—Fall had just arrived when a nor’easter began stewing in the Atlantic Ocean, its gale-force winds carrying the pungent smell of chlorine westward, away from downtow…
Rice work: Dutch test new crop to save sinking peatlands
In a soggy field between Amsterdam and The Hague, farmer Sander Roeleveld plows a small white combine harvester into his crops, gathering a grain never before harvested in the Net…
Thursday briefing: The long, long wait for a male contraceptive pill may soon be over
In today’s newsletter: Reversible male hormonal contraception could reach the market within five to 10 years. But why has this development been so slow?Good morning. Since the fir…
Think more rain means more river water? Not necessarily
Some rivers are receiving more rain than before but have lower water flow, according to a studyMore rain and snow equals more water in rivers, right? Not necessarily. A new study …
90-plus-day spaceflights linked to higher rates of hip fractures in astronauts
New research has found that the rate of hip fractures among astronauts after spaceflights lasting more than 90 days was higher than after shorter spaceflights or among people who …
APOD: 2026 October 1 – Harvest Moon with Erupting Mount Etna
APOD Science APOD APOD: 2026 October 1 –… Today’s APOD Archive Submissions Index Search Calendar RSS Education About Discuss APOD Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmo…
The incredible science of memory manipulation – podcast
Madeleine Finlay hears from Steve Ramirez, an associate professor of psychological and brain sciences at Boston University, whose book How to Change a Memory was shortlisted for t…
‘Explosion of melt rates’: 20% of Swiss glaciers lost in five years
Alpine regions in Europe experiencing extreme glacier collapse due to heat-trapping effects of fossil fuel pollutionSwitzerland has lost almost one-fifth of its ice in just five y…
Even high-altitude forests in Switzerland are now weakened by frequent droughts, making natural hazards more dangerous
Due to global warming, Swiss forests are now at a tipping point where summer droughts are overwhelming trees' tolerance and resilience, scientists have shown. That bodes ill for p…
An Agricultural “Island” in the Saskatchewan River Delta
Surrounded by wetlands, Manitoba’s northernmost farmland near The Pas turns from green to brown over the 2026 growing season.
‘The toll is huge’: El Niño-driven wildfires overwhelm Indonesia’s orangutan population
The global climate phenomenon has triggered devastating infernos in the ape’s Indonesian heartlands, with long-term effects on the animals still unknownThe mother’s hands were pee…
The green light for the largest coalmine in NSW history is shocking proof that our governance systems are betraying Australians | Georgina Woods
There is no greater treachery than this failure to face up to the climate crisis. How can we now fend off despair?The Independent Planning Commission’s published reasons for appro…
Wildlife tracking to fill gaps in monarch migration research
Every fall, monarch butterflies fuel up on nectar from Iowa's fall-blooming wildflowers before embarking on an extraordinary migration from North America to Mexico. But the pathwa…
Fine-tuning cobalt for cleaner chemical transformations
Finding alternatives to precious metals in chemical manufacturing may be less like sourcing a substitute and more like tuning an instrument already in hand.
Curiosity Blog, Sols 5016–5021: Fantastic Minerals and How To Detect Them
Written by Lucy Lim, Planetary Scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Earth planning date: Friday, Sept. 18, 2026 Curiosity surprised us at the beginning of the week with a…