Science News Today

Science News Today produces evidence-based reporting on discoveries and developments in biology, physics, chemistry, astronomy, health and medicine, Earth sciences, archaeology, and technology. Our reporting draws on peer-reviewed research, original scientific studies, and other reliable scientific sources. Articles published under this byline reflect a collaborative editorial process that may include research, source verification, fact-checking, writing, and editing, rather than the work of a single author. Science News Today takes editorial responsibility for content published under this byline. For more information about our standards and practices, please see our Editorial Policy.

Articles by Science News Today

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Psychiatric Medications Linked to Higher ALS Risk and Faster Decline

A section of the mouse hippocampus illustrates where cells were genetically engineered to fluoresce when active using GCaMP, a genetically encoded calcium indicator commonly used to image brain activity. Credit: Giocomo Lab

Your Brain Remembers Joy by Mapping Where It Happened

Credit: Langmuir (2025). DOI: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.5c00679

New Hydrogel Cleans Polluted Water and Recycles Phosphorus on the Cheap

Seafloor imprint on water-column Nd concentration in the Pacific. Credit: Nature (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-09038-3

The Deep Ocean Is Recycling Metals That Were Thought Lost Forever

Credit: Trustees of the Natural History Museum, London

Scientists Discover Why Earth’s Rarest Lithium Mineral Exists in Just One Place

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Prehistoric Reptiles Crossed a Scorched Earth to Conquer the World

Artist's impression of a quantum clock. Credit: Alexander Rommel & TU Wien

Physicists Discover a New Way to Measure Time That Breaks the Old Rules

An artistic representation of a liquidlike fireball of "quark-gluon plasma" (QGP) created in a collision of two gold ions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). This collision has also produced a correlated spray of particles (a "jet") back-to-back with a photon (wavy purple line). Scientists from RHIC's STAR Collaboration showed that interactions of the jet particles cause the QGP to splash sideways, like the wake behind a power boat, enabling them to measure properties of the plasma. Credit: Valerie A. Lentz/Brookhaven National Laboratory

Scientists Witness Sideways Splash from the Primordial Universe

Schematic diagram of a lunar lava fountaining volcanic eruption. Two glass bead trajectories through the volcanic gas cloud are illustrated with the arrowed lines (one lofted, one shallow). Three stages of bead evolution are depicted: 1) outgassing, 2) ingassing, 3) desublimation/condensation. Credit: Icarus (2025). DOI: 10.1016/j.icarus.2025.116607

Moon Beads Reveal a Fiery Volcanic Past Hidden for Billions of Years

The Sun continuously radiates material in the form of the solar wind. The Sun’s magnetic field shapes this material, sometimes creating flowing, ray-like formations called coronal streamers. In this view from NASA’s CODEX instrument, large dark spots block much of the bright light from the Sun. Blocking this light allows the instrument's sensitive equipment to capture the faint light of the Sun’s outer atmosphere. Credit: NASA/KASI/INAF/CODEX

The Sun’s Outer Atmosphere Is Wilder Than We Thought

Stationary and moving emissions in the spectrum of SS433. Sequence of SS433 spectra obtained in summer-autumn 2023 at the Caucasus Mountrain Observatory of SAI MSU. On the ordinate axis—time in modified Julian days. Credit: Physics-Uspekhi (2025). DOI: 10.3367/UFNe.2025.05.039904

Astronomers Uncover New Secrets of SS 433, the First Microquasar Ever Discovered

The Vela supernova remnant, the remains of a supernova explosion 800 light-years from Earth in the southern constellation Vela, as seen from the Dark Energy Camera on the Víctor M. Blanco Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory. Credit: CTIO/NOIRLab/DOE/NSF/AURA

Supernova Explosions May Have Triggered Ancient Climate Shifts

14 Herculis c (NIRCam). Credit: Webb Space Telescope

Webb Telescope Captures Chilling Portrait of a Rogue Planet in a Chaotic Star System

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The Link Between Inflammation and Joint Pain

Ankylosing Spondylitis

Ankylosing Spondylitis: When Your Spine Stiffens

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Tendonitis and Bursitis: Common Overuse Injuries

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How Exercise Affects Musculoskeletal Health

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What Is Scoliosis? How the Spine Curves Over Time

Internal structure of the human body bones and muscles

Understanding Bone and Joint Infections

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The Science of Fibromyalgia Pain Without Injury

Toe joint swollen and red with a gout attack on foot

What Causes Gout and How to Manage It

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Arthritis: Symptoms, Causes, and Treatment Options

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What Is Osteoporosis? How Bones Become Fragile

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Scientists Discover Just 500 Neurons May Control Binge Drinking

This image shows how human iPSCs in which the microglia-specifying six-TF cocktail is switched on (lower row), in contrast to iPSCs in which they remain switched off (upper row), abandon their pluripotency stage (marked by the protein OCT4) and adopt the fate of microglia cells (marked by the proteins CD11b, P2RY12, and CX3CR1). Credit: Wyss Institute at Harvard University

Scientists Grow Human Microglia in Just Four Days to Transform Brain Disease Research

Uniform, circular and shallow pitting on teeth may be a previously undetected clue about evolutionary relationships. Credit: Towle et al, Journal of Human Evolution (2025). DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2025.103703

Scientists Discover Ancient Tooth Trait That Could Link Human Ancestors

Examples of pig molar teeth specimens analyzed for the study. Credit: Jiajing Wang.

New Study Reveals Pigs Were First Domesticated in South China 8,000 Years Ago

Hoard area in the port section of the stern, showing the obverse and reverse faces of coins, as they were observed on the seabed. Credit: ARC-DIMAR, 2022; image by authors

Coins Found in Deep Sea Shipwreck Reveal Secrets of the Lost San José Galleon

Fujia archaeological site and ancient and present-day populations associated with Fujia. Credit: Nature (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-09103-x

DNA Reveals 4,500-Year-Old Matrilineal Society in Neolithic China

The location of BG1 in Workshop B of the Chega Sofla cemetery and its rectangular structure (A and B). A view of the multiple-burial grave BG1 and the individuals buried within it (C). Western part of BG1 and location of BG1.12 (D); the burial of BG1.12 (E) (archive of Zohreh Prehistoric Project). Credit: International Journal of Osteoarchaeology (2025). DOI: 10.1002/oa.3415

Skull of a Young Girl Tells a Haunting Story from 6,200 Years Ago