Science

Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story: Scientists have discovered which animal was the first to branch off from our collective common ancestor. For years, debate had raged over whether the first to diverge was the sea sponge or the comb jelly. Thanks to new chromosomal analysis techniques, we finally have an answer. All animals on Earth share …

In the icy, lightless depths of the Pacific Ocean, a fish lurks that seems straight out of a science-fiction movie. The barreleye fish (Macropinna microstoma) is equipped with tubular green eyes encased inside a transparent, fluid-filled dome that makes up its entire head. This creature was first described in 1939, but it remained poorly understood for decades due to its …

The annual clock of the seasons – winter, spring, summer, autumn – is often taken as a given. But our new study in Nature, using a new approach for observing seasonal growth cycles from satellites, shows that this notion is far too simple. We present an unprecedented and intimate portrait of the seasonal cycles of Earth’s land-based ecosystems. This reveals …

Scientists decoded the true identity of the mezcal worm, long shrouded in myth. Credit: Stock A genetic study has finally solved the mystery of the worm inside mezcal bottles. While speculation ranged from butterflies to weevils, DNA analysis revealed that all sampled larvae came from a single moth species, Comadia redtenbacheri. This insect is a traditional delicacy in Mexico, believed …

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Our bodies are colonized by a teeming, ever-changing mass of microbes that help power countless biological processes. Now, a new study has identified how these microorganisms get to work shaping the brain before birth. Researchers at Georgia State University studied newborn mice specifically bred in a germ-free environment to prevent any microbe colonization. Some of these mice were immediately placed …

Voyager 2 is equipped with 11 scientific instruments to study planets, moons, and the interstellar environment. Its imaging system captured detailed photographs of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, while the infrared and ultraviolet spectrometers analysed atmospheric compositions. Particle detectors and cosmic ray sensors measured charged particles and radiation, and magnetometers traced magnetic fields. Each instrument was meticulously designed to operate …

About 1,000 of a set of 15,000 open access scientific journals appear to exist mainly to extract fees from naive academics. A trio of computer scientists from the University of Colorado Boulder, Syracuse University, and China’s Eastern Institute of Technology (EIT) arrived at this figure after building a machine learning classifier to help identify “questionable” journals and then conducting a …

An international team of researchers has discovered a new configuration of nuclear particles that decays by kicking out individual protons. With 85 protons and just 103 neutrons, the atomic nucleus is both the heaviest known to break down this way and the lightest known isotope of the element astatine (At). Astatine itself only occurs on Earth as a decay product …

Summary: A new AI system developed by computer scientists automatically screens open-access journals to identify potentially predatory publications. These journals often charge high fees to publish without proper peer review, undermining scientific credibility. The AI analyzed over 15,000 journals and flagged more than 1,000 as questionable, offering researchers a scalable way to spot risks. While the system isn’t perfect, it …