Good news, everyone!

This week in the scientific process: researchers reported the first-ever shark sighted in Antarctic waters. Penguins beware! Biologists report that honey bees navigate more precisely than previously thought. And not all humans scare wildlife, it turns out.

Central goals of the circular economy include closing material cycles, reducing waste, and permanently keeping raw materials in the economic system. Achieving this requires innovative technologies that open up new avenues for recycling. Gas fermentation is a promising technology; however, some aspects are still in the research phase. The biotechnological process uses exhaust gases such as carbon dioxide as feedstocks to produce valuable products and enable a new approach to industrial emissions.

When you scratch an itch, something tells your brain when to stop. That moment of relief, when scratching feels "enough," is not accidental. Scientists have now identified a key molecular and neural mechanism behind this built-in braking system, shedding new light on how the body regulates itch and why this control fails in chronic conditions.

Scientists have developed a new imaging technique that uses a novel contrast mechanism in bioimaging to merge the strengths of two powerful microscopy methods, allowing researchers to see both the intricate architecture of cells and the specific locations of proteins—all in vivid color and at nanometer resolution.

When you step outside on a winter morning or pop a mint into your mouth, a tiny molecular sensor in your body springs into action, alerting your brain to the sensation of cold. Scientists have now captured the first detailed images of this sensor at work, revealing exactly how it detects both actual cold and the perceived cool of menthol, a compound derived from mint plants.

The tiny fatty capsules that deliver COVID-19 mRNA vaccines into billions of arms may work better when they're a little disorganized. That's the surprising finding from researchers who developed a new way to examine these drug-delivery vehicles one particle at a time—revealing that cramming in more medicine doesn't always mean better results.

As space agencies prepare for human missions to the moon and Mars, scientists need to understand how the absence of gravity affects living cells. Now, a team of researchers has built a rugged, affordable microscope that can image cells in real time during the chaotic conditions of zero-gravity flight—and they're making the design available to the broader scientific community.

Scientists have uncovered an elegant biophysical trick that tuberculosis-causing bacteria use to survive inside human cells, a discovery that could lead to new strategies for fighting one of the world's deadliest infectious diseases.

Proteins long known to be essential for hearing have been hiding a talent: they also act as gatekeepers that shuffle fatty molecules across cell membranes. When this newly discovered function goes haywire—due to genetic mutations, noise-induced damage, or certain medications—it may be what kills the delicate sensory cells in our ears, causing permanent hearing loss.

Travel and dating apps like Grindr are reshaping how some queer men in relationships negotiate sex and intimacy—often through careful discussion and agreed boundaries rather than secrecy, challenging assumptions that such encounters are reckless, according to new research from the University of Surrey.

Researchers at Örebro University have identified blood markers that can indicate who is at risk of developing ulcerative colitis—a chronic inflammatory bowel disease—later in life. These markers can be present for many years before the first symptoms appear. In their study published in the Journal of Crohn's and Colitis, the researchers analyzed blood samples from large population studies to identify a specific antibody called anti-integrin αvβ6.

Passing on fundamental life lessons from parent to offspring is not unique to humans and animals. Ferns do it too. Not with words, but through pressure. By applying force at precisely the right locations, a fern tells its embryo what is up and what is down, and therefore where roots and leaves should develop. This phenomenon was discovered by Ph.D. candidate Sjoerd Woudenberg in his research on the fern Ceratopteris richardii. He defended his doctoral thesis at Wageningen University & Research.

When Paul Reillo learned the endangered mountain bongo antelopes that he had cared for since birth were stranded in a cargo plane on an airport tarmac ahead of their journey to a new home in Kenya, he took matters into his own hands.

This is the first celebration of Heart Month (it comes every February) since the release of the updated dietary guidelines for Americans. The new recommendations are meant to represent the most current scientific evidence on how to eat to avoid chronic diseases, including heart disease.

In an era of rising grocery costs, eggs remain one of the most accessible and complete protein sources for families. New research from the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa's College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resilience (CTAHR) is investigating how chickens age to help keep that high-quality protein on dinner tables.

Inspired by the simple mechanism of a seesaw—when one side goes up, the other side goes down—researchers asked an intriguing question: Could a single molecule switch between two different roles like a seesaw? This idea led to the creation of a new type of artificial protein called the "seesaw protein."

Antarctica plays a crucial role in Earth's climate system by reflecting solar radiation back into space. The large white ice surfaces and clouds play a decisive role in this process. However, how clouds actually form in Antarctica, how they interact with the atmosphere and what role aerosols play in this process has not been sufficiently researched to date. Engaging in the SANAT flight campaign, the Alfred Wegener Institute, the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research and the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry aim to help close this knowledge gap. The flight-based aerosol measurements conducted in Antarctica are the first of their kind in 20 years and also the first to extend deep into the interior.

Advances in supercomputing have made solving a long‐standing astronomical conundrum possible: How can we explain the changes in the chemical composition at the surface of red giant stars as they evolve?

Whether plain with little more than a splash of milk or stirred through with any and all of yogurt, honey, berries and seeds, a bowl of porridge or oatmeal has been lauded as a source of warming goodness and body fuel long before would-be health influencers latched on to it in pursuit of clicks and likes.

Ribosomes, the cell's protein-making factories, consume large amounts of energy as they build the proteins that keep cells alive and functioning. When cells experience stress—such as lack of nutrients or sudden drops in temperature—they quickly switch into survival mode. New research from the Schuman Lab at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt now reveals an unexpected way cells manage this transition: by pairing up inactive ribosomes using a ribosomal RNA link. This RNA-based mechanism reveals a previously unknown role for ribosomal RNA in the cellular stress response. The new study is published in Science.

Almost half a century ago, a remarkable molecule called metallocene took center stage in chemistry, earning Geoffrey Wilkinson and Ernst Otto Fischer the Nobel Prize. These organic compounds, made of a transition metal "sandwiched" between two flat, ring-shaped organic layers, have since become an integral part of new-age polymers, materials, and pharmaceuticals.

Researchers at the University of Seville have analyzed alterations in the cerebral cortex in people suffering from psychosis. Their findings show that psychosis does not follow a single trajectory, but rather its evolution depends on a complex interaction between brain development, symptoms, cognition and treatment. The authors therefore emphasize the need to adopt more personalized approaches that take individual differences into account in order to better understand the disease and optimize long-term therapeutic strategies.

I don't think I've ever laughed harder than during a church service, when something faintly ridiculous caught my eye. My friend saw it too, and once she started laughing, it became impossible to stop. Years later I've tried to explain what was so hilarious, but it seems you had to be there. What was it about the combination of the situation—sometimes referred to as "church giggles"—and shared laughter that made it so funny?

A stream of charged particles known as the solar wind flows from the sun toward Earth. Here, it meets Earth's magnetic fields, which shield our planet like a giant umbrella. The Space Umbrella project needs your help investigating this dynamic region, where NASA's Magnetosphere Multiscale (MMS) mission has been collecting data since 2015. The MMS mission investigates how the sun and Earth's magnetic fields connect and disconnect, explosively transferring energy from one to the other in a process that is important to the sun, other planets, and everywhere in the universe.

Approximately 9,000 years ago, human communities in Southwest Asia underwent a dramatic transformation, known as the Neolithic revolution. This period was marked by pronounced changes in how they lived and sourced food, with a shift from living on the move, hunting and gathering to permanently residing in one place, farming and herding of animals.

Johns Hopkins scientists say they have used 3D imaging, special microscopes and artificial intelligence (AI) programs to construct new maps of mouse brains showing a precise location of more than 10 million cells called oligodendrocytes. These cells form myelin, a protective sleeve around nerve cell axons, which speeds transmission of electrical signals and support brain health.

Should we do couples counseling? Are we happy? Are we both pulling in the same direction? How can we get our spark back?

Just like each person has unique fingerprints, every CMOS chip has a distinctive "fingerprint" caused by tiny, random manufacturing variations. Engineers can leverage this unforgeable ID for authentication, to safeguard a device from attackers trying to steal private data.

Picture a star-shaped cell in the brain, stretching its spindly arms out to cradle the neurons around it. That's an astrocyte, and for a long time, scientists thought its job was caretaking the brain, gluing together neurons, and maintaining neural circuits. But now, a new study reveals that these supposed support cells that are spread all over the brain are as important as neurons in fear memory.

Researchers at the Ribeirao Preto Blood Center and the Center for Cell-Based Therapy (CTC) conducted a study using the NK-92 cell line to test new models of chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) with specific costimulatory domains, such as 2B4 and DAP12. The tests showed that these components helped make the cells "ready to attack," thereby increasing their ability to destroy tumors. The results were published in the journal Frontiers in Immunology.

During their first six months of life, many infants get some or all of their calories from formula, but federal rules governing what goes into those bottles haven't been updated in decades.

Attending a historically Black college or university (HBCU) can be linked to better cognitive performance decades later among Black adults, according to a study coauthored by Min Hee Kim, an assistant professor at Rutgers School of Nursing. The findings, published in JAMA Network Open, examine how institutional and social conditions shape cognitive aging and Alzheimer's disease and related dementias. Researchers believe this is the first national cohort study with a large sample of Black adults to examine how attendance at HBCUs versus predominantly white institutions relates to cognition later in life. The study sample included 1,978 Black older adults, of whom 699 (35%) attended an HBCU.

For the first time, researchers show that tirzepatide—the active ingredient in the diabetes and weight-loss drug Mounjaro—reduces alcohol intake as well as relapse-like behaviors in rats and mice. The findings are considered relevant in the search for new treatments for alcohol use disorder. Researchers at the University of Gothenburg have previously demonstrated that semaglutide, found in the diabetes and weight-loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy, reduces alcohol consumption in rats. In the current study, published in the journal eBioMedicine, the focus shifts to tirzepatide and Mounjaro.

Origami, the traditional Japanese art of paper folding, has received considerable attention in engineering. By applying paper-folding principles, researchers have created compact structures that are flexible, lightweight, and reconfigurable across aerospace, medicine, and robotics.

A team of EPFL researchers has developed an AI algorithm that can model complex dynamical processes while taking into account the laws of physics—using Newton's third law. Their research is published in the journal Nature Communications.

New kinds of aircraft taking to the skies could mean unfamiliar sounds overhead—and where you're hearing them might matter, according to new NASA research. NASA aeronautics has worked for years to enable new air transportation options for people and goods, and to find ways to make sure they can be safely and effectively integrated into U.S. communities. That's why the agency continues to study how people respond to aircraft noise.

When household batteries die, it's hard to know what to do with them. So they get shoved into a junk drawer or sheepishly thrown into the trash.

Researchers at the University of Maryland and Tilburg University in the Netherlands have produced an AI-driven innovation to reshape how marketers place digital ads. AdGazer, a predictive tool, evaluates both an advertisement and the media environment around it to forecast how much attention viewers will give. The result, they say, is smarter, more effective ad placement.

A University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa student-led team has developed a new algorithm to help scientists determine direction in complex two-dimensional (2D) data, with potential applications ranging from particle physics to machine learning. The research was published in AIP Advances.

While the statement, "Humanoid robots are coming," might cause anxiety for some, for one Georgia Tech research team, working with humanlike robots couldn't be more exciting. The researchers have developed a new "thinking" technology for two-legged robots, increasing their balance and agility.

One night in 2010, Mohit Gupta decided to try something before leaving the lab. Then a Ph.D. student at Carnegie Mellon University, Gupta was in the final days of an internship at a manufacturing company in Boston. He'd spent months developing a system that used cameras and light sources to create 3D images of small objects. "I wanted to stress test it, just for fun," said Gupta, who would begin his postdoctoral research at Columbia Engineering a few months later.

Nvidia is on the cusp of investing $30 billion in OpenAI, scaling back a plan to pump $100 billion into the ChatGPT maker, the Financial Times reported Thursday.

Fledgling Indian artificial intelligence companies showcased homegrown technologies this week at a major summit in New Delhi, underpinning big dreams of becoming a global AI power.

A UN panel on artificial intelligence will work towards "science-led governance," the global body's chief said on Friday as leaders at a New Delhi summit weighed their message on the future of the booming technology.

Stanford d.school's Jeremy Utley wants people to stop using AI. Instead, he wants them to work with it. "If you're 'using' AI, I know you're misusing it," said Utley, an adjunct professor at the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (aka the "d.school"). Utley argues that people fall into two categories when it comes to AI: underperformers who treat it like a tool and outperformers who treat it like a teammate.

Alphabet Inc.'s Google and Apple Inc. are adding music-focused generative artificial intelligence features to their core consumer apps, underscoring how advanced AI tools are moving into mainstream use.

RMIT University researchers have developed a flexible nylon-film device that generates electricity from compression and keeps working even after being run over by a car multiple times, opening the door to self-powered sensors on our roads and other electronic devices. The paper is published in the journal Nature Communications.

An international research team has demonstrated how conventional radiative cooling coatings can be optimized to further reduce building surface temperatures, cutting energy consumption, while also improving fire safety.

Flexible electronics are often sold on a simple promise: bendable screens, lightweight solar cells or wearable devices that can bend and flex without breaking. But what does that "flexibility" actually look like at the molecular scale, and how does it affect performance? Researchers led by the University of Cambridge say they have taken a first step towards answering this question. Using ultra-sensitive atomic force microscopy—which analyzes materials by "feeling" them—the researchers were able to measure how stiff flexible semiconductor molecules are when packed together, down to the scale of just a few molecules.

Researchers at Columbia Engineering have developed a new gel electrolyte that both improves the lifetime and safety of anode-free lithium batteries, an emerging battery architecture that could dramatically boost energy density while simplifying manufacturing. Although such a design promises higher energy density and lower cost, the approach has long been plagued by short battery life and safety concerns caused by unstable lithium plating and parasitic reactions at the electrode-electrolyte interface.