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Consider the marvelous physics of the human knee. The largest hinge joint in the body, it has two rounded bones held together by ligaments that not only swing like a door, but also roll and glide over each other, allowing the knee to flex, extend, and balance.

By changing the physical structure of gold at the nanoscale, researchers can drastically change how the material interacts with light—and, as a result, its electronic and optical properties. This is shown by a study from Umeå University published in Nature Communications.

Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center have developed a novel liquid biopsy approach to identify early-stage cancers by measuring the random variation in DNA methylation patterns, rather than the absolute level of those patterns as in other liquid biopsies. The method, which utilizes a new metric called the Epigenetic Instability Index (EII), successfully distinguished—with high accuracy—patients with early-stage lung and breast cancers from healthy individuals.

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory have developed a novel artificial intelligence (AI)-based method to dramatically tame the flood of data generated by particle detectors at modern accelerators. The new custom-built algorithm uses a neural network to intelligently compress collision data, adapting automatically to the density or "sparsity" of the signals it receives.

A University of Missouri researcher is pioneering an innovative solution to remove tiny bits of plastic pollution from our water. Mizzou's Susie Dai recently applied a revolutionary strain of algae toward capturing and removing harmful microplastics from polluted water. Driven by a mission to improve the world for both wildlife and humans, Dai also aims to repurpose the collected microplastics into safe, bioplastic products such as composite plastic films.

Before tissue-engineered blood vessels reach the clinic, they must withstand the mechanical stresses of the vascular system—an assessment that is essential, but often expensive. One University of Pittsburgh research team is now dramatically lowering that cost, reducing the price of a key cardiovascular research tool from $40,000 to just $750 and opening the door for broader adoption across laboratories.

Interoceptive, visceral pain from within the body is perceived more unpleasant than exteroceptive pain from outside the body. A new study shows that the type of pain also influences how we empathize with others.

For people who are at high risk of developing breast cancer, frequent screenings with ultrasound can help detect tumors early. MIT researchers have now developed a miniaturized ultrasound system that could make it easier for breast ultrasounds to be performed more often, either at home or at a doctor's office. The new system consists of a small ultrasound probe attached to an acquisition and processing module that is a little larger than a smartphone. This system can be used on the go when connected to a laptop computer to reconstruct and view wide-angle 3D images in real time.

NASA fueled its new moon rocket in one final make-or-break test Monday, with hopes of sending astronauts on a lunar fly-around as soon as this coming weekend.

Recently, scientists from institutions including the University of Science and Technology of China made a fundamental breakthrough in nuclear-spin quantum precision measurement. They developed the first intercity nuclear-spin-based quantum sensor network, which experimentally constrains the axion topological-defect dark matter and surpasses the astrophysical limits. The study is published in the journal Nature.

An analysis of an unusual enzyme could result in a new generation of antimicrobial medicines to counter antibiotic resistance. Key details in the enzyme-driven biosynthesis of a natural molecule with potent antibiotic activity have been revealed by chemists at RIKEN. This discovery has the potential to enable a swathe of new antibiotics to be developed, which are urgently needed to counter the increasing emergence of drug-resistant bacterial superbugs.

Water powers our lives. It feeds our crops, keeps factories running, generates electricity, and fills our taps. But until now, no one had a clear, national picture of how much water we're using—and for what.

Whether for drug screening or toxicity testing, stem cell-based 3D tissue models are key to biomedical research. However, producing cell aggregates in bioreactors is highly complex and cost-intensive. Until now, quality has only been checked at the end of the process. This entails a high risk of lost time and material.

Cambridge researchers have become the first to combine multiple image types—RGB (that mimics human vision), depth and infra-red—in a 3D camera set up to monitor premature babies in neonatal intensive care. The aim is to provide a second set of eyes for nurses through continuous visual monitoring of the babies' behavior.

Stroke survivors often face substantial and long-lasting problems with their arms. Both arms often decline together: When one arm is more severely affected by the stroke, the other becomes more difficult to use as well. Compared with a healthy person's dominant hand, a stroke survivor may take up to three times longer to complete everyday tasks using their less-impaired arm.

New evidence has emerged that sheds light on the possible first people to populate the Americas. Dating of stone and ivory tools found at an archaeological site in Alaska suggests that these early pioneers traveled through the region on their way to the continent about 14,000 years ago.

Paleontologists at the Canadian Museum of Nature have recently been studying the skeletal remains of a rhinoceros. This might not sound remarkable at first, but what makes these remains fascinating is that they were found Devon Island in the Canadian Arctic.

Dalhousie researchers have revealed how Arctic aquifers—permeable layers of the ground that store and transmit water to rivers, lakes and terrestrial ecosystems—behave today and how these vital resources will change with warming temperatures and sea-level rise.

NASA on Monday was conducting critical final tests ahead of setting a launch date for its first crewed flyby mission to the moon in more than half a century.

The loss of social connectedness as people age increases the odds of cognitive-related disorders and can worsen health outcomes in older populations. But is there a direct relationship between social behavior and cognition? Subhadeep Dutta Gupta, Peter Rapp, and colleagues, from the National Institute on Aging, developed a rat model to probe social cognition in the aging brain.

Europe's ESO star-gazing organization on Monday welcomed plans to call off building a massive green energy project in the Chilean desert which threatened to spoil its telescopes' view of the darkest skies on Earth.

The familiar labels "night owl" and "early bird," long used in sleep research, don't fully capture the diversity of human internal clocks, a new study has found. The McGill University-led study published in Nature Communications found the two sleep-wake patterns, called chronotypes, contain a total of five distinct biological subtypes, each associated with different patterns of behavior and health.

When water and ions move together through channels only a nanometer wide, they behave in unusual ways. In these tight spaces, water molecules line up in single file. This forces ions to shed some of the water molecules that normally surround them, leading to the unique physics of ion transport. Biological channels are especially adept at this behavior, often choreographing channel openings and closings to achieve complex behaviors such as signals in the nervous system.

Researchers from The Ohio State University and the Indian Institute of Technology Madras have developed an artificial intelligence framework to rapidly generate drug-like molecules that are easier to synthesize in real-world laboratory settings. The new system, called PURE (Policy-guided Unbiased REpresentations for Structure-Constrained Molecular Generation), promises to significantly cut down the early-stage timelines of drug development—currently a billion-dollar, decade-long process—and could play a crucial role in addressing drug resistance in cancer and infectious diseases. It stands apart from existing molecule-generation AI tools that rely on rigid scoring mechanisms or statistical optimization.

What would you do if you were in a self-driving taxi and another passenger fell seriously ill? What if a fire broke out, or the vehicle stopped in the wrong place? What would you need to manage the situation with no driver to help?

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features an uncommon galaxy with a striking appearance. NGC 7722 is a lenticular galaxy located about 187 million light-years away in the constellation Pegasus.

Investigators based at Monash Children's Hospital and Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne report that a once-daily intranasal saline spray resolved obstructive sleep-disordered breathing symptoms in nearly one-third of children over six weeks. No added benefit was observed from adding an intranasal steroid for children whose symptoms persisted.

Nature-based therapy may help people to find hope, meaning and a deeper sense of connection, according to new research from The University of Manchester.

NASA's Perseverance Mars rover has completed the first drives on another world that were planned by artificial intelligence. Executed on Dec. 8 and 10, and led by the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, the demonstration used generative AI to create waypoints for Perseverance, a complex decision-making task typically performed manually by the mission's human rover planners.

Imagine shining a flashlight into a material and watching the light bend backward—or in an entirely unexpected direction—as if defying the law of physics. This phenomenon, known as negative refraction, could transform imaging, telecommunications, and countless other technologies. Now, a team of scientists has managed to use a natural magnetic material called CrSBr to achieve negative refraction—without the need for complicated artificial structures. The study, published in Nature Nanotechnology, opens the door to ultra-compact lenses, super-high-resolution microscopes, and reconfigurable optical devices that can be controlled with magnets.

Most near-Earth asteroids are thought to drift in from the main asteroid belt. But a small subset may have a much closer origin: the moon. One intriguing example is 469219 Kamoʻoalewa (2016 HO3), an Earth quasi-satellite whose reported spectrum resembles lunar material and which is a target of China's Tianwen-2 sample-return mission.

Technology created at the University of Queensland could improve the odds of surviving brain cancer and change how we treat a range of neurological conditions. Dr. Richard Lobb and Dr. Zhen Zhang from UQ's Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology have opened a "window to the brain" with a new diagnostic device that can tell how deadly brain tumors respond to treatment from a simple blood test.

Quantum chaos describes chaotic classical dynamical systems in terms of quantum theory, but simulations of these systems are limited by computational resources. However, one team seems to have found a way by leveraging error mitigation and specialized circuits on a 91-qubit superconducting quantum processor. Their results are published in Nature Physics.

There may be a connection between how much a couple spends and saves and how happy they are in their relationship, according to a new study from the University of Georgia. The researchers found spouses who see their partners as "savers" tend to be more satisfied with both their marriages and their finances.

Less than a year ago, United States company Colossal Biosciences announced it had "resurrected" the dire wolf, a megafauna-hunting wolf species that had been extinct for 10,000 years.

Autistic children may be nonverbal or not have the words or other typical communication strategies to clearly explain their feelings. Researchers from Neuroscience Research Australia (NeuRA) and UNSW Sydney have found that hair cortisol levels may complement behavioral assessments for determining the impact of chronic stress. The research is published in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology.

Canadian parents face multiple barriers to providing their children with reliable and culturally appropriate sex education, according to research published in Sexual & Reproductive Healthcare from the University of Alberta. "My motivation is to deeply understand parents' experiences and what holds them back, and build a system to empower families rather than just leave them to navigate all these conversations by themselves," says principal investigator Neelam Punjani, who undertook the research as part of her postdoctoral fellowship and is now an assistant professor in the U of A's Faculty of Nursing.

Earth's ocean absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, helping to temper the impact of climate change but increasing ocean acidity. However, calcium carbonate minerals found in the seabed act as a natural antacid: Higher acidity causes calcium carbonate to dissolve and generate carbonate molecules that can neutralize the acid.

An Australian research collaboration has led to a major leap forward in the treatment of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Recently published clinical trial results have shown evidence that switching part of the standard chemotherapy protocol for a targeted immunotherapy, can significantly improve outcomes for young people living with the disease.

Babies as young as two months old are able to categorize distinct objects in their brains—much earlier than previously thought—according to new research from neuroscientists at Trinity College Dublin. The research, which combined brain imaging with artificial intelligence models, enriches our understanding of what babies are thinking and how they learn in the earliest months of life.

Traditional stroke rehabilitation therapy focuses on restoring strength and movement to the more impaired side of the body, but a new randomized clinical trial has revealed that targeted therapy for the less impaired arm significantly improved movement and control for stroke survivors. The trial, led by researchers from Penn State and the University of Southern California (USC), compared the new approach to the standard best-practice therapy currently in use. The team said the findings, published today (Feb. 2) in JAMA Neurology, demonstrate that motor skills in the less-affected arm can be improved even years after a stroke occurs and could meaningfully enhance quality of life.

Chlamydia pneumoniae—a common bacterium that causes pneumonia and sinus infections—can linger in the eye and brain for years and may aggravate Alzheimer's disease, according to a study from Cedars-Sinai. Published in Nature Communications, the discovery suggests this bacterium can amplify Alzheimer's disease and points to potential interventions including inflammation-limiting therapies and early antibiotic treatment.

A new study by cell biologists at the University of California, Santa Cruz, suggests that an early first pregnancy may protect against breast cancer decades later by preventing age-related changes in breast cells that are linked to tumor formation. Using a mouse model designed to mimic human aging and reproductive history, researchers found that pregnancy fundamentally alters how mammary tissue ages—reducing the buildup of abnormal cells that have the ability to change their identity in a way that could seed cancer in later life.

University of Texas at Dallas researchers and their collaborators have developed and patented a wood-based material that can store and discharge heat to help make building temperatures more comfortable without using electricity. "Our material acts as a thermal battery that charges as it absorbs heat," said Dr. Shuang (Cynthia) Cui, assistant professor of mechanical engineering in the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science.

Researchers at Monash University and the University of Melbourne have developed a quantum-inspired approach to optical wireless communication that promises to make 6G networks faster, more reliable and energy-efficient. As the world moves toward 6G, devices and networks will need to handle more data, faster, and in smaller spaces than ever before.

Snapchat has blocked 415,000 accounts under Australia's social media ban for under-16s, the company said Monday, but warned some youngsters may be bypassing age verification technology.

Talking to oneself is a trait which feels inherently human. Our inner monologs help us organize our thoughts, make decisions, and understand our emotions. But it's not just humans who can reap the benefits of such self-talk.

Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang has insisted the US tech giant will make a "huge" investment in OpenAI and dismissed as "nonsense" reports that he is unhappy with the generative AI star.

About 50 residents of a community outside Chile's capital spent Saturday trying their best to power an entirely human-operated chatbot that could answer questions and make silly pictures on command, in a message to highlight the environmental toll of artificial intelligence data centers in the region.

A new study from the University at Albany shows that artificial intelligence systems may organize information in far more intricate ways than previously thought. The study, "Exploring the Stratified Space Structure of an RL Game with the Volume Growth Transform," has been published online through arXiv.

The modern world runs on chemicals and fuels that require a huge amount of energy to produce: Industrial chemical separation accounts for 10% to 15% of the world's total energy consumption. That's because most separations today rely on heat to boil off unwanted materials and isolate compounds.

Solar panels and wind turbines increasingly dot the landscape, but the future of clean energy may well depend on how smoothly we burn hydrogen. Yet as anyone who's lit a gas grill or fireplace knows, igniting a flame can be a bit tricky. Imagine how complex that process can be in commercial and industrial applications. Thanks to U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) ACCESS allocations, University of California San Diego researchers have taken a major step toward taming hydrogen flames with highly precise simulations that could reshape how we design tomorrow's zero-carbon gas turbines.

A Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) research team has developed a wastewater treatment technology that integrates a mesh bioreactor with an ultrasound-induced transient cavitation cleaning mechanism. The system can complete mesh cleaning within 3.8 seconds under anaerobic conditions and achieves 10–20 times higher flux than conventional membrane bioreactors (MBRs). The technology operates efficiently with substantially lower energy consumption, produces treated effluent surpassing international and local discharge standards, and reduces the cost of treating each cubic meter of wastewater to 50% of conventional MBRs, offering a sustainable solution for both municipal and industrial wastewater treatment.

Intelligent drones and unmanned aerial systems (UAS) are rapidly evolving from experimental prototypes into essential infrastructure across disaster response, health care delivery, agriculture, logistics, archaeology, environmental monitoring, and numerous other fields vital to human development, scientists say in new research.

Artificial intelligence helps doctors spot more cases of breast cancer when reading routine scans, a world-first trial found Friday.

Over the next decades, robots are expected to make their way into a growing number of households, public spaces, and professional environments. Many of the most advanced and promising robots designed to date are so-called legged robots, which consist of a central body structure with limbs attached to it.

As companies around the world work to commercialize fusion energy—clean power generated by combining two light atoms—not much is known about public acceptance of the emerging technology. In a first-of-its-kind participatory design, Southeastern Michigan community members and students worked together to plan hypothetical fusion energy facilities.

Robots are getting better at sniffing out smells thanks to improvements in electronic noses (e-noses). A comprehensive review of the state of robot olfaction, published in the journal npj Robotics, has surveyed recent advances in the technology. It highlights how these digital noses are becoming more sensitive and more adept at identifying the source of an odor. This is leading to improvements in a range of areas, from search and rescue missions to detecting hazardous gas leaks.

As green hydrogen emerges as a key next-generation clean energy source, securing technologies that enable its stable and cost-effective production has become a critical challenge. However, conventional water electrolysis technologies face limitations in large-scale deployment due to high system costs and operational burdens.

A research team, affiliated with UNIST, has unveiled a flexible photodetector, capable of converting light across a broad spectrum—from visible to near-infrared—into electrical signals. This innovation promises significant advancements in technologies that require simultaneous detection of object colors and internal structures or materials.

New technology from University of Houston researchers could improve the way devices manage heat, thanks to a technique that allows heat to flow in only one direction. The innovation is known as thermal rectification, and was developed by Bo Zhao, an award-winning and internationally recognized engineering professor at the Cullen College of Engineering, and his doctoral student Sina Jafari Ghalekohneh. The work is published in Physical Review Research.

From TVs and smartwatches to rapidly emerging VR and AR devices, micro-LEDs are a next-generation display technology in which each LED—smaller than the thickness of a human hair—emits light on its own. Among the three primary colors required for full-color displays—red, green, and blue—the realization of high-performance red micro-LEDs has long been considered the most difficult.

If you say a few words, generative AI will understand who you are—maybe even better than your close family and friends. A new University of Michigan study found that widely available generative AI models (e.g., ChatGPT, Claude, LLaMa) can predict personality, key behaviors and daily emotions as or even more accurately than those closest to you. The findings appear in the journal Nature Human Behavior.