Quick facts What it is: The Corona Australis Molecular Cloud Where it is: 430 light-years away, in the constellation Corona Australis When it was shared: July 16, 2026 In a scene reminiscent of Vincent van Gogh’s “The Starry Night,” scientists have captured swirling nebulae, dark dust lanes and sparkling star clusters in remarkable detail. This […]
Do other animals call each other by name? Read More »
Every person you know has a name, and you’ve likely given one to your pets, too. But are names a uniquely human feature, or do other animals also call each other by name? Research suggests that some mammals and birds use vocal labels for other individuals, but not all scientists agree on how to interpret
Archaeologists in Russia have unearthed a rare wooden tomb containing the remains of an elite man who was buried with a horse and a dog. The remarkably preserved burial, which dates to the 10th century, suggests that medieval Russian and Northern European nobility shared funeral customs a millennium ago. The horseman’s burial was discovered unexpectedly
In the early hours of July 16, 1945, in a remote part of the New Mexico desert, a group of scientists, engineers and military personnel attended an event that would define the course of history and change a war that had ravaged much of the world for years. Moments after a giant fireball rose high
Thousands Lost SNAP in Shelby County; Advocates Call Statewide Trend a “Crisis” Read More »
Shelby County had 17,905 fewer food-assistance participants in July 2026 than July 2025, an 11.7 percent decline in a statewide trend anti-hunger advocates call a “crisis in Tennessee.” Even with the sharp decline, Shelby County now has — and has historically had — the most participants of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), what was
Scientists have finally gotten to the bottom of why astronauts struggle to poop in space, thanks to a new blood test. The findings also reveal an unexpected side effect of this cosmic constipation that may need to be addressed before humans take long-haul trips to Mars and beyond, the study authors say. As soon as
‘Huge Breakthrough’ in the Math of Imbalance Read More »
One does not need a doctorate in mathematics to split 12 eager trivia buffs into two competitive teams. But consider that each person arrives with unique strengths and liabilities: One may be a geography obsessive with no ear for music, another could be a naturalist who doesn’t own a television, and another could be a
Have your say: Would you trust a humanoid robot with your household chores? Read More »
The dream of coming home to a spotless kitchen you didn’t have to clean yourself is edging closer to reality. We’re used to seeing robotic vacuums cleaning our floors — but what about all our other chores? Humanoid robots are being engineered to take care of more complex tasks around the house, from folding laundry
NASA’s Swift Observatory is set to come crashing down to Earth later this year after a private mission failed to save the tumbling telescope. A rescue spacecraft named LINK, which was designed by private company Katalyst Space, launched on July 3 with the aim of raising the falling observatory to a higher orbit. However, in
Are We Thinking Correctly About AI Intelligence? Read More »
When an LLM answers a question, is it reasoning like humans, or just producing text that looks like reasoning? The distinction isn’t just philosophical, this determines what we can trust AI to do, how closely we need to supervise it, and ultimately what its real-world impact will turn out to be. Melanie Mitchell at the
Cats can identify each other based on the scent of their pee, and researchers have just decoded the secret “messages” that make that possible. A group of chemicals called branched-chain fatty acids (BFAs) help give cats their unique scent marks, a new study found. Unusual fat droplets in the cats’ kidneys likely help them maintain
IBM has revealed a new modular, ultracold system designed to link hundreds of quantum computer chips together to solve one of the field’s biggest infrastructure bottlenecks. The company says its new “quantum fridges” will let it deliver the world’s first fault-tolerant quantum computer in 2029. These stable systems use quantum error correction techniques to fix
