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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The Psychology of Eating and Weight Loss

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How to Break Through a Weight Loss Plateau

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Why Crash Diets Don’t Work (And What to Do Instead)

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How to Lose Weight Safely and Sustainably

Young woman sitting on sofa using smartphone

Teens Who Scroll More Than Two Hours a Day Face Higher Anxiety Risks

The Arctic is one of the coldest places on Earth, but in recent decades, the region has been rapidly warming, at a rate three to four times faster than the global average. However, current climate models have been unable to account for this increased pace. Now, researchers from Kyushu University have reported in a study, published April 29 in Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Research, that clouds may be to blame. Credit: 2012 RUSALCA Expedition, RAS-NOAA | Kate Stafford

Why the Arctic Is Heating Up at Breakneck Speed

Blue electrolyte-to-golden metal transition in solutions of lithium in liquid ammonia. Computer simulations predict that at intermediate concentrations the system by itself rapidly flips back and forth between a low conductivity electrolyte (blue) and a high conductivity metal (gold). Credit: Vitek, M., Rončević, I., Marsalek, O. et al. Rapid flipping between electrolyte and metallic states in ammonia solutions of alkali metals. Nat Commun 16, 4302 (2025).

Scientists Discover a New Phase of Matter That Switches in Quadrillionths of a Second

The thornless gene can often be passed on in breeding with undesirable ones, showing the potential need for crosses with some thorny plants. Credit: U of A System Division of Agriculture

Scientists Crack the Genetic Code Behind Thornless Blackberries

Confocal laser scanning microscopy images of Tetragoniceps bermudensis. A) habitus, in dorsal view. B) habitus, in lateral view. C) habitus, in ventral view. Scale bars: 100 µm. Credit: ZooKeys (2025). DOI: 10.3897/zookeys.1239.144436

Tiny Crustacean Discovered in Bermuda Cave Reveals Ancient Evolutionary Secrets

Right cheek of the mummy and magnification (in the boxes) of the three-line tattoos: a) visible light; b) 950 nm w/b IR Reflectography; c) 500–950 nm IR False-Color. Credit: Journal of Cultural Heritage (2025). DOI: 10.1016/j.culher.2025.04.013

The Mysterious Facial Tattoos of an 800-Year-Old Andean Mummy

Optical and mid-infrared light curves of DR Tauri. The small black dots are the Kepler K2 data with 30 minute cadence, the large filled circles are multiband optical photometry from Konkoly Observatory, and the pink and purple circles represent the Spitzer observations. Credit: arXiv (2025). DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2505.07684

Young Star in Chaos: DR Tauri’s Wild Light Show Reveals the Drama of Stellar Birth

High-resolution image restored from 100 individual exposures captured by the new advanced camera system at the VTT. The image diameter corresponds to approximately 200,000 kilometers on the surface of the sun. Credit: R. Kamlah et al. 2025

Solar Telescope Captures the Hidden Complexity of the Active Sun

An illustration of Jupiter with magnetic field lines emitting from its poles. Credit: Credit: K. Batygin

Jupiter Was Twice Its Size at Birth and Changed the Solar System Forever

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features the remote galaxy HerS 020941.1+001557, which appears as a red arc that partially encircles a foreground elliptical galaxy. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, H. Nayyeri, L. Marchetti, J. Lowenthal

Hubble Captures a 19.5-Billion-Light-Year-Old Einstein Ring

Not every satellite in the crowded Low Earth Orbit is identifiable, and some are actively obscuring their identities. A new method shows how we might determine what types of satellites we're looking at, even when the owners want to keep it a secret. Credit: NASA image—NASA Orbital Debris Program Office, Public Domain

Starlight Silhouettes Reveal Hidden Satellite Shapes in Earth Orbit

Artist's conception of a "Hot Jupiter," like Puli. Credit—ESO/L. Calçada

The Mystery of Puli: Chasing Ghosts Among the Stars with Transit Timing Variations

Left: The ISS simulation environment, with an optimal trajectory plan shown in white, traversing multiple modules of the space station. Middle: A snapshot of Astrobee while tracking a trajectory. Right: A snapshot of Astrobee while preparing to transport a deformable cargo bag through a narrow corridor between two modules of the ISS. Credit: Morton et al

The NASA Robots That Could Run the Space Station One Day

Image showing the HAWC site with a superposition of the Milky Way's plane as we see it in gamma-rays. Credit: Jordan A. Goodman.

Cosmic Ghostly Glows: Scientists Discover Hidden Pulsars Through Mysterious TeV Halos

Map showing water percolation rates on Mars billions of years ago according to research from UT Jackson School of Geosciences. Surface water sinking through the Martian soil took between 50 years (warmer colors) and 200 years (cooler colors) to reach the water table, a mile down. Credit: Mohammad Afzal Shadab

What Happened to the Water on Mars? Two Graduate Students Just Solved a Major Piece of the Puzzle

Magnitude histogram for HD 72968 using 50 bins for 10,703 TESS data points, showing a bimodal relationship possibly caused by a pulsation affecting its brightness. Credit: arXiv (2025). DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2505.05719

Secrets in the Starlight: Astronomers Unveil the Mysteries of the Chemically Peculiar Star HD 72968

When the JWST found Little Red Dot galaxies, astronomers were puzzled. They appeared to be brighter, and more massive, than galaxies should be in the very early Universe. New research is deepening this mystery. Credit: Matthee et al. 2024, The Astrophysical Journal. CC BY 4.0

X-Ray Silence from Ancient Galaxies Deepens a Cosmic Mystery

A far-infrared Herschel image of our Galaxy’s Central Molecular Zone (CMZ) reveals a bright and dense ring of molecular gas and dust encircling our supermassive black hole, SgrA. Credit: *. This image reveals our view of the Galaxy’s Center as seen from Earth. Researchers in the 3-D CMZ project used these data, plus radio, infrared, and submilleter data to quantify the likelihood of each cloud being either in front of or behind SgrA*. Researchers then used these likelihoods to test current theories of the 3-D structure of our Galaxies center and to present a new model of the 3-D structure of the CMZ. This image shows Herschel data of the inner 7 degrees of the Galaxy, with red showing 350 micron emission, green 160 micron, and blue 70 micron emission. At the approximate distance of the Galactic Center, this image shows approximately the inner 1 kpc (or about 3,200 light years) while the CMZ itself is about the inner 550 pc (or about 1,800 light years). Credit: Astrophysical Journal

Scientists Unveil the Hidden Heart of the Milky Way in Stunning 3D Detail

NASA’s Webb delivers deepest infrared image of universe yet. Credit: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI

Astronomers Plan Moon-Based Telescope to Unveil the Universe’s Forgotten Era

A mother and baby whale swim at Kiama, New South Wales, Australia. Credit: Vanessa Risku - Instagram: droning_my_sorrows

Whales Give Birth in the Cold as Calving Expands Beyond the Tropics

Artist's interpretation of what Idiorophus patagonicus may have looked like. Credit: Jaime Bran, background added by author.

Scientists Reawaken a 20-Million-Year-Old Mystery in Whale Evolution

Correlation analysis of resting state activity of each individual mouse. Credit: Nature (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-09002-1

Scientists Discover Genetic Enhancer That Helped Shape the Human Mind

Woman in sportswear walks holding a phone in a city park.

Why Walking 10,000 Steps a Day Works

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Yoga for Beginners: Health Benefits and Simple Poses

Young woman working out at the gym

What Happens to Your Body When You Stop Exercising

two young asian adult women working out in gym using medicine balls.

How Exercise Boosts Your Mood and Brain Power