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Articles by Science News Today

Size comparison of the holotype specimen of Bolg amondol and a modern Gila monster (Heloderma suspectum, right). Gold: preserved skeletal elements. Light gray: reconstructed elements based on preserved material. Dark gray: missing skeletal elements, based off publicly available rendered CT scans of Heloderma horridum available on morphosource.org. Credit: Natural History Museum of Utah/Bureau of Land Management

Goblin Lizard Fossil Found in Utah Reveals Secrets of Prehistoric Predators

A rendering of the newly discovered salamander. Credit: Matthew Inabinett/ETSU

Ancient Giant Salamander Fossil Discovered in Tennessee Reveals Evolutionary Secrets

Composite image of wheat field with bright blue sky.

Scientists Turn Wheat and Oat Leftovers into Sustainable Clothing

Any reversible Carnot engine operating at 𝑇=0 must consist of a round trip from a given equilibrium state E1 to E0 at 𝑇=0. Following the vanishing of 𝑐𝑥, the entropy at 𝑇=0 is placed at a finite value of S. Credit: The European Physical Journal Plus (2025). DOI: 10.1140/epjp/s13360-025-06503-w

Physicist Solves a 120-Year-Old Mystery About the Coldest Temperatures in the Universe

The ultranarrow bandwidth mode-locked laser can be tuned for pulse duration. It uses a new filter configuration and single-walled carbon nanotube as saturable absorbers. The laser has a nearly 1-nanosecond tuning range for pulse-width, the largest reported to date. Credit: Advanced Photonics Nexus (2025). DOI: 10.1117/1.APN.4.3.036016

Scientists Unveil Laser That Can Flex Its Light Pulse Like a Musical Instrument

Bethe–Slater-type exchange interaction. Credit: Nature Physics (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41567-025-02893-x

Scientists Confirm 90-Year-Old Magnetic Theory in Quantum Materials

Why Summer Weather Is Getting Stuck and More Dangerous Than Ever

Model fingerprints of atmospheric temperature change in response to combined anthropogenic and natural external forcing. Credit: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2025). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2500829122

Humans Began Changing the Upper Atmosphere in the 1800s

Dargan Shelter, Blue Mountains. Credit: Dr Amy Way

Ancient Cave Discovery Proves Humans Lived in Australia’s Frozen Highlands

On the River Yelogui, a tributary of the Yenisei in Siberia. A few speakers of a Yenisei language, Ket, still live in the region. The language of the European Huns belonged to the same language family. Credit: Edward Vajda

The Lost Language of the Huns Speaks Again Through New Linguistic Discovery

The sperm whale tooth is the first of its kind found in Copper Age Iberia. Credit: PLOS One (2025). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0323773

This Ancient Whale Tooth Was Buried for 5000 Years and Its Story Is Astonishing

Asteroid 2024 YR 4 could strike the moon in 2032. The resulting cloud of impact debris could pose a threat to satellites while also causing a dramatic meteor shower. Credit: NASA

A Moonstrike in 2032? How a Small Asteroid Could Create Big Trouble for Satellites and a Celestial Light Show for Earth

Broad-band spectra from the XMM–Newton pn camera for orbits 2659 (black), 2661 (red), 2663 (green), and 2664 (blue) plotted as a ratio to that of orbit 2652, illustrating strong soft X-ray absorption during the transient line-of-sight inflow on day 16, and then falling while the X-ray emission increases – as additional matter is accreted – to a new peak in orbit 2664. Credit: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (2025). DOI: 10.1093/mnras/staf637

Black Hole Overeats, Then Blasts Cosmic Wind at Nearly a Third the Speed of Light

A clay-rich mesa in the Hellas basin of Mars. The blue color near the rim is aluminum bearing clays. The red-orange color below that is iron and magnesium bearing clays. The image captures an area that’s 1 kilometer across. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UArizona.

Mars Was Once a Watery World—And Its Clays Could Hold Secrets of Ancient Life

Burning asteroid moving through the Earth. Digital illustration.

Planetary Defense and the Space Gold Rush: Who Will Save Earth from the Next Killer Asteroid?

An artist rendition of comet C/2014 UN271, the largest known comet in the Oort Cloud. Credit: NSF/AUI/NSF NRAO/M.Weiss

A Giant Comet Awakens in the Coldest Reaches of the Solar System

Composite X-ray optical image of NGC 7793 consisting of: Hα + [N II] (red), soft X-ray (0.5 - 1.2 keV; green), and medium + hard X-ray (1.2 - 7.0 keV; blue) of the OBSID 3954. All circles indicate the X-ray detected sources. The orange circles show the X-ray sources that coincide with optical SNRs. Credit: arXiv (2025). DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2506.09120

Ancient Star Explosions Discovered in a Galaxy 12 Million Light-Years Away

The R136 star cluster is the home of some of the most massive stars in the galaxy. Credit: NASA, ESA, and P. Crowther (University of Sheffield)

New Models Unravel the Mysteries of the Universe’s Most Massive Stars

Study Reveals Brain Cells Learn in Surprisingly Complex Ways

Study Finds That Sleep Regularity Can Shield Teens from Mental Health Struggles

An uncharacterized chromatin factor ZNF280A is recruited to sites of DNA damage. Credit: Nature Cell Biology (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41556-025-01674-1

Scientists Discover New DNA Repair Protein Linked to Childhood Syndrome

A beetle of the species Pygopleurus chrysonotus on an Anemone pavonina flower in Greece. The beetle can do what other insects cannot: see the color red. Credit: Johannes Spaethe / University of Würzburg

Scientists Discover Beetles With Vision That Defies Insect Norms

Overview of genomic risk loci in different brain structures. Credit: Science Advances (2025). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adr1644

New Study Finds Brain Shape May Hold Secrets to Mental Health

Scientists Capture the Invisible Moment When Molecules Transform

In-situ RHEED patterns for t = 1.9 nm film along [110] direction during the growth of heterostructures. The top panels show the structure schematic, whereas the bottom panels show the corresponding RHEED patterns during the heterostructure growth. The right panel shows the timedependent RHEED intensities with oscillations recorded by the rectangular region in the left panels. Credit: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2025). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2500831122

Scientists Unlock Magnetism in Ultra-Thin Metal Once Thought Nonmagnetic

This handout artist's illustration made available by University of Calgary on June 6, 2025, shows the newly discovered dinosaur species Khankhuuluu mongoliensis, an ancestor of Tyrannosaurus Rex. Misidentified bones that languished in the drawers of at the Institute of Paleontology of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences in capital Ulaanbaatar, in Mongolia for 50 years actually belong to a new species of tyrannosaur which rewrites the family history of the mighty T-Rex, scientists said on June 4, 2025.

Meet the Dragon Prince Who Came Before T-Rex

Two ice age pups found near Tumat, Siberia. Credit: University of York

Frozen for 14,000 Years These Ancient Pups Were Wolves Not Dogs

Experimental overview of mpXsn, with uniform manifold approximation and projection (UMAP) of single-nucleus transcriptomes. Credit: Nature (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-09090-z

Scientists Unlock Hidden Genes to Make Chemotherapy Drug More Sustainable

An ochre-banded goatfish (Upeneus sundaicus). Credit: John Sparks and David Gruber

Ancient Glowing Fish Reveal a 112 Million Year Evolutionary Light Show

$ALAN and UHI effects on vegetation phenology. Increasing impervious fractions results in a concave quadratic increase of air temperature (Ta) and exponential increase of ALAN from rural to urban areas. The longer exposure to ALAN and higher Ta collectively contributes to a longer growing season, represented by the advancement of the SOS and delay of EOS in urban areas compared with rural areas. Credit: Nature Cities (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s44284-025-00258-2$