Science

The James Webb Space Telescope has measured the temperature of a rocky exoplanet for the first time, finding that a "cousin" of Earth most likely lacks an atmosphere, researchers said Monday.

When the Trappist-1 system was discovered in 2017, astronomers were excited at the prospect that some of its seven rocky planets -- which are roughly similar to Earth in size and mass -- could be habitable.

Scientists have long known that wild seabirds ingest bits of plastic pollution as they feed, but a study Monday shows the tiny particles don't just clog or transit the stomach but can subvert its complex mix of good and bad bacteria too.

Plastic-infested digestive tracks from two species of Atlantic seabirds, northern fulmars and Cory's shearwaters, showed a decrease of mostly beneficial "indigenous" bacteria and more potentially harmful pathogens.

Scientists said Monday they have discovered water inside tiny beads of glass scattered across the Moon, suggesting that one day it could be extracted and used by the "explorers of tomorrow".

The Moon was long believed to be dry, but over the last few decades several missions have shown there is water both on the surface and trapped inside minerals.

Our new study published in Nature Geoscience on an ancient chain of Australian volcanoes is helping to change our understanding of “hotspot” volcanism.

You may be surprised to learn eastern Australia hosts the longest chain of continental hotspot volcanoes on Earth. These volcanoes erupted during the last 35 million years (for 1 to 7 million years each), as the Australian continent moved over an area of heat (a hotspot) inside the planet, also known as a fixed heat anomaly or mantle plume.

Since it was founded in 2016, Elon Musk’s brain-computer interface (BCI) company Neuralink has had its moments in biotech news.

Whether it was the time Musk promised his “link” would let people communicate telepathically, or when the whole company was under investigation for potentially violating the Animal Welfare Act, the hype around Neuralink means it’s often the first mental reference people have for BCI technology.

Imagine what life would be like if you couldn’t recognize your own family and friends unless they told you who they were. Now imagine no one will believe you and that even your doctor dismisses you, saying everyone forgets names sometimes.

Two recent studies show this is a common experience for people with a brain disorder called “developmental prosopagnosia” – or as it is more informally known, faceblindness. This type of prosopagnosia is lifelong, in contrast to “acquired prosopagnosia” which can develop after a brain injury. Sufferers struggle to recognize people who they know well and, in extreme cases, close family members and even photographs of themselves.

The modern world runs on electricity, and wires are what carry that electricity to every light, television, heating system, cellphone and computer on the planet. Unfortunately, on average, about 5% of the power generated at a coal or solar power plant is lost as the electricity is transmitted from the plant to its final destination. This amounts to a US$6 billion loss annually in the U.S. alone.

For decades, scientists have been developing materials called superconductors that transmit electricity with nearly 100% efficiency. I am a physicist who investigates how superconductors work at the atomic level, how current flows at very low temperatures, and how applications such as levitation can be realized. Recently, researchers have made significant progress toward developing superconductors that can function at relatively normal temperatures and pressures.

Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land on the next tree. Many groups of mammals seem to have taken this evolutionary advice to heart. According to our newly published paper in Science Advances, unrelated animals may even have used the same blueprints for building their “wings”.

While birds are the undisputed champions of the sky, having mastered flight during the Jurassic, mammals have actually evolved flight more often than birds. In fact, as many as seven different groups of mammals living today have taken to the air independently of each other.

A large wildfire raging in Spain's eastern Valencia region forced more than 1,500 people to flee their homes on Friday, providing further evidence of life-threatening consequences of the fossil fuel-driven climate crisis and bolstering the case for meaningful mitigation efforts.

Since it broke out in the municipality of Villanueva de Viver on Thursday, Spain's first major wildfire of the year has destroyed more than 7,400 acres of forest, prompting evacuation orders in eight communities across the Castellón province.

A large asteroid will safely zoom between Earth and the Moon on Saturday, a once-in-a-decade event that will be used as a training exercise for planetary defense efforts, according to the European Space Agency.

The asteroid, named 2023 DZ2, is estimated to be 40 to 70 meters (130 to 230 feet) wide, roughly the size of the Parthenon, and big enough to wipe out a large city if it hit our planet.

In the world's highest mountain range, global warming threatens thousands of glaciers, resulting in increasingly frequent natural disasters: landslides, avalanches and glacier collapses. Our reporters Alban Alvarez and Navodita Kumari travelled to the small northern Indian state of Uttarakhand, where these disasters are compounded by a rush to develop infrastructure such as hydroelectric dams.

Up in the foothills of the Himalayas, the region of Uttarakhand is getting the Indian government’s attention. The state of 10 million inhabitants, bordering both China and Nepal, has become a vast open-air building site. The government of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi fully intends to take advantage of the region’s geographical position to make it a hub for renewable energy.