Science and research
Everything we have published on Science and research, newest first. Background, research and plain explanation — not only the headline of the day.
Two Glass Cylinders and a Missing Credit Line
Eunice Foote connected carbon dioxide with atmospheric warming in 1856, but restoring her place in science requires precision about what her experiment did—and did not—show.
Stretching Is Not One Question
Stretching can increase range of motion, but performance, flexibility and injury prevention are different goals—and the useful answer depends on dose and timing.
ABS Worked in the Lab. Why Did Early Crash Data Look So Disappointing?
Anti-lock brakes did what engineers expected at the wheel, yet early road statistics refused to tell a simple success story.
The Manuscript We Still Cannot Read—and What We Actually Know
The Voynich Manuscript attracts confident solutions because its pictures invite stories; a real decipherment would have to survive tests that pictures alone cannot pass.
Europe’s Scorching Summer
A series of heat waves in 2026 is breaking records and taking a toll in Europe.
Will Incognito Mode Really Find a Cheaper Flight?
Private browsing can reset a session, but the price jump travellers fear usually begins in a fare bucket—not in a cookie jar.
What Your VO₂ Max Number Really Means
A watch can estimate your aerobic fitness, but the useful signal is a careful trend, not a verdict from your wrist.
NASA Shares Views of August Solar Eclipse from Ground, Air, Space
On Aug. 12, a total solar eclipse darkened skies over Greenland, Iceland, and Spain. As the Moon covered the Sun, it briefly revealed the Sun’s wispy outer atmosphere — the corona — to those in the pa
How changing diets are creating new markets for Africa’s Indigenous crops
"A growing number of consumers with celiac disease are unable to consume gluten-containing foods such as bread and therefore rely on alternative gluten-free products..."
Cold Plunges After Training: Recovery Today, Adaptation Tomorrow
Cold water may ease tomorrow's soreness while working against some of the adaptation you trained for. The right question is not whether it works, but which result matters.
Human-Related Microbes May Survive Moon’s South Pole, NASA Finds
Lee esta historia en español aquí. Some of Earth’s microbes likely to hitch a ride to space with human explorers could survive in the shaded nooks and crannies of the Moon’s South Pole region, NASA sc
Volunteer Develops Machine-Learning Tool to Identify Rare Clouds
Certain kinds of clouds are misbehaving – appearing more often and lower in the sky than they used to. To help identify the factors influencing these changes, scientists have asked people around the w
Nearly 5,000 Schools Locked the Phones Away. Year One Looked Like a Mistake.
The largest study yet of lockable phone pouches found test scores flat, suspensions up and pupils feeling worse in the first year — and pupils feeling clearly better by the second.
Chasing Fire Clouds in Utah
NASA aircraft are sampling smoke lofted high into the atmosphere by one of the most formidable cloud types in the sky—towering, smoke-infused pyrocumulonimbus.
Why AI Still Makes Things Up — And the One Habit That Catches It
Chatbots don't lie the way people lie. They predict plausible text, and a confident, fabricated case citation is just as 'plausible' to the model as a real one.
Do Trees Really Talk? What the ‘Wood-Wide Web’ Can — and Cannot — Do
Fungal threads can connect plants and carry materials between them, but the evidence does not support a forest-wide social network run by generous mother trees.
Why We Procrastinate Even When We Know Better
Procrastination research has moved away from treating it as a time-management failure and toward something more specific: a short-term trade, made to feel better right now at a cost paid later.
Why the Night Sky Still Makes Us Feel Small — On Purpose
The same feeling that made this week's Perseid meteors worth stepping outside for has a name in psychology, a measurable effect on behavior, and a much older name in scripture.
The Split Verdict on Near-Death Experiences: What the Evidence Actually Shows
Roughly one in five people revived from cardiac arrest report a vivid experience from the time their heart had stopped. Researchers agree that much. What it means is where they split.
The People Who Actually Change Your Life Are Usually Not Your Close Friends
A 1973 sociology paper found that people were more likely to hear about a new job from someone they barely knew than from a close friend. Fifty years on, the idea still explains something odd about how opportunity actually travels.
AI and Your Job: The Five Levels That Actually Matter
AI is already doing real slices of skilled work, from hospital paperwork to heart-attack screening. How much control it is given over a task, not the technology itself, decides what changes for you.
Why Your AI Assistant Agrees With You — Even When You Are Wrong
AI assistants are trained to be helpful, but the same pressure that makes a reply feel pleasant can also make it follow your assumptions instead of the evidence.
Quality Assessment Report Evaluates Polar Geospatial Center EarthDEM Elevation Products
CSDA’s assessment reports help inform the user community about the quality of commercial Digital Elevation Models (DEMs).
The Four-Day Week After the Hype: Shorter Hours Work Only When Work Changes
The strongest trials did not merely squeeze Friday into Thursday; organisations redesigned meetings, priorities and handoffs before reducing time.
The 5:1 Relationship Ratio Is Not a Scorecard
The famous rule contains a useful insight about conflict, but science does not support turning every conversation into five compliments for each complaint.
Wildfires can generate tornadoes, lightning and other extreme weather, sometimes miles from the flames
Wildfire smoke can even affect the weather downwind.
Sargassum, the smelly nemesis of beach vacations, has become a self-sustaining disaster that will keep coming back
Communities and entrepreneurs are experimenting with ways to turn this nuisance into a valuable resource.
Mindfulness is often presented as a path to calm, but its Buddhist roots explain why it can also bring difficulties
Mindfulness can improve health and well-being, but it may not work for everyone. Buddhist teachings suggest that how it is practiced – and who guides it – matters.
Foldable synthetic molecules could infiltrate and bust apart the toxic protein clumps causing Parkinson’s
Researchers are finding ways to target the toxic proteins involved in neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s that were once considered ‘undruggable.’
Cyclospora spreads through human waste – so how did it get on food?
US sewage treatment plants likely don’t get rid of all the disease-causing protozoa, and monitoring discharged wastewater for it is difficult.
Can we remove or decrease spaces between atoms or molecules?
Turns out, changing the way atoms and molecules are arranged in a substance can give it new and fascinating properties.
White House plan for a ‘golden age’ of science ignores the structures that made the US a scientific superpower
A new White House science strategy, laid out in a report titled Science: A New Golden Age, challenges an 80-year-old model that made the US the global scientific leader.
What the panic over Gen Z’s reading habits gets wrong
Despite dire warnings of a ‘postliterate’ generation, data suggests Gen Z is still reading – just in ways many traditional studies fail to capture.
The signal we cannot ignore: What the LONDA 2025 report reveals about Africa’s digital rights
The digital landscape is becoming increasingly dangerous for vulnerable groups. Technology-facilitated gender-based violence is a growing epidemic that most legal frameworks fail to address adequately
Taxi drivers rarely die of Alzheimer’s – how complex mental maps and spatial reasoning protect your brain
Working with and living in spatially complex environments may help delay cognitive decline, though more research is needed.
Spaceflight could change how astronauts swallow, eat and drink in subtle ways
A speech-language pathologist on how complex swallowing is – and how small changes from gravity can complicate the process.
Sensing the Poles’ Hidden Heat
New animations from NASA’s PREFIRE mission reveal two years of seasonal temperature swings at the Arctic and Antarctic.
Producing spider silk is a biological feat – scientists are using it to develop materials for drug delivery and wound care
If Spider-Man were real, he could help scientists revolutionize healthcare. Since he’s not, researchers develop creative ways to produce spider silk to study.
Play is essential for young children, including when it comes to their learning
Play-based early childhood programs can help young kids develop emotional regulation and problem-solving skills, traits that can serve them well throughout childhood.
Philadelphia’s failing air quality hits hardest in neighborhoods near industry and highways, where asthma rates soar
Greater Philadelphia earned failing air quality grades. A new study finds higher asthma rates near industry and major roads, especially where green space is scarce.
Parents putting screens in front of their kids is more about their own stress than other factors
Most research on kids’ screen time has focused on a child’s behavior. Far less attention has gone to parents and their role in their children’s media use.
How to do your own online health research like a scientist – a biostatistician’s step-by-step guide
Here’s how to sift through complicated studies without getting overwhelmed.
How a community-led campaign is helping save Nigeria’s Kam language
The current number of Kam speakers is approximately 8,000 – 11,000. Like many other languages in northeastern Nigeria, Kam received no attention from researchers before 2016.
First mRNA flu shot approved by FDA bodes well for improving drugs of the future – though a few hurdles remain before mRNA can move beyond vaccines
From COVID-19 vaccines to Moderna’s mRNA flu vaccine, using mRNA as medicine has shown promise. But before mRNA drugs can go beyond vaccines, researchers need to identify the right diseases to treat.
Employers everywhere are using AI – but business schools aren’t preparing students for the shift
Amid the rise of AI, researchers found that employers still value skills like communication, professionalism and teamwork among prospective and new employees.
DIY peptide injections are risky, and people may make serious mistakes when administering them
On top of the risks of injecting untested and potentially contaminated products, user error may make this runaway wellness fad even more dangerous.
Better call mom: Schools still see mothers as the default parent to contact
When both parents appeared equally available, schools were 40% more likely to call students’ moms, rather than their dads.
AbCellera After a 32% Jump: Why Menopause Data Isn't a Finished Drug — QMA Brain Analysis
QMA Brain Analysis: For biotech news after a sharp stock jump, it's critical not to confuse encouraging clinical data with a finished commercial drug; without the study phase, patient count, controls, effect size, follow-up length and safety, the verdict stays preliminary.
A lot of casual friends, or only a few you’re really close with? New research questions that trade-off
Friendships are integral to human health and well being, yet researchers know very little about how people make friends. A new study investigated what people prioritize for new friendships.
Editas: beating estimates is not enough. What the revenue, its quality and the cash burn really show
With biotech results, do not dwell on the beat alone. What matters is whether the revenue is repeatable, how fast the cash is disappearing and whether the runway genuinely reduces the risk of future shareholder dilution.
What California's Law Changes for Cold Cases: Why Demand for Genomic Services Is Emerging — QMA Brain Analysis
QMA Brain analysis: For reports like this, watching the technology isn't enough; the key is verifying whether there is a specific law, budget, responsible agency, sample volume and a demonstrable link to companies.