Project RattleCam reveals baby snakes during birthing season in three US states for the first time
It's the season for babies in the snake world, and Project RattleCam is capturing magical moments.
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Brain's ability to hear a musical beat remains distinctly human, study suggests
The seemingly trivial ability to hear a regular pulse in music is a remarkable—and perhaps distinctively human—feature of the brain. In a wide-ranging critical review, Gábor Háden of the HUN-REN Research Centre for Natural Sciences and Henkjan Honing of the University of Amsterdam evaluate more than two decades of research into how this capacity develops and has evolved. Their paper was published this week in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.
Travel bots are making decisions for us—convenient, but should we trust them?
Imagine telling your phone that you want a quiet boutique hotel near a city center, below a certain price, with a decent breakfast and late checkout. A few seconds later, an AI assistant compares the options, explains why each one fits and helps complete the booking. This is no longer hypothetical.
Electrical pulses convert PFAS waste into valuable silver fluoride
Fluorinated waste, like that found in firefighting aqueous film-forming foam, can act as a significant environmental pollutant. Recently, James Tour's lab at Rice University developed a method to capture fluoride from these waste streams and recycle it into a useful reagent, silver fluoride, that could be used in other manufacturing processes. This process is published in Nature Chemical Engineering.
Why making friends at university feels harder than it really is
The summer before starting university can bring multiple worries for students: worrying about obtaining a place in a desired program, navigating the clearing process to confirm a place, securing housing, sorting out financial aid, preparing for academic study and even finding the right school supplies.
Libraries are a lifeline, new research finds
New research has highlighted the important role public libraries play in supporting communities, helping people build connections, access support and improve their well-being through everyday interactions.
First Antarctic-wide map of grounded icebergs reveals 'picket fence effect' holding sea ice in place
For the first time, important features of the Antarctic coastal zone have been mapped at high resolution around the continent by training an artificial intelligence tool to accurately recognize grounded icebergs in satellite radar images.
What's carving active gullies on Mars? It's not water
Scientists were shocked when they received the first images of Martian gullies. They were even more shocked as those gullies appeared to change over time. Their similarities to gullies seen on Earth were uncanny, but all of Earth's gullies are formed by water runoff, and Mars is too cold and has too sparse an atmosphere to have liquid water on its surface. Whatever has been causing those changing gullies couldn't have been water, so what was it? A new paper from Apolline Leclef of the Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale at Université Paris-Saclay and her colleagues, available on the arXiv preprint server, shows how they are likely caused by CO2 frost turning into a fluid.
Seasonal forecasts could give northern India months of warning before severe winter air pollution
Northern India experiences some of the world's worst winter air pollution, with dangerous episodes often prompting emergency control efforts. In major cities like Delhi, the Air Quality Index has reached levels above 999—over 30 times the World Health Organization's safety limit.
How diaspora groups in the US are responding to disasters in Nepal, Colombia, Venezuela and other homelands
A string of major disasters in 2026 have had devastating consequences. Earthquakes in Venezuela and Colombia and floods and mudslides in Nepal have killed tens of thousands of people and injured many more. Countless people remain missing, and hundreds of thousands of homes are damaged, with some entire neighborhoods destroyed.
AI-generated images may support conservation, but real-world data remain essential
New research finds there is no substitute for real-world observations, but that—under the right circumstances—AI-generated images can be used to improve the performance of computer models used for species identification and biodiversity monitoring.
Chihuahua dogs are part coyote—this might help explain their 'small but mighty' reputation
It turns out that one of the smallest dog breeds, the Chihuahua, is part wild coyote, according to recently published genetic research. The Chihuahua breed originated in Mexico but is now a popular canine companion worldwide.
Faster wood formation matters more than longer growing seasons in a warming climate
In non-tropical forests, cold winters hinder tree growth. There, climate warming prolongs the period during which trees absorb carbon through photosynthesis and store it in wood, known as the growing season. This could potentially mitigate further climate change as wood formation and carbon storage increases. But is this really the case?
Turkey-monitoring AI forecasts body weight three weeks ahead with 93% accuracy
Body weight monitoring is one of the most important tools for poultry farmers. It provides valuable information about growth, uniformity, feed conversion efficiency—how well birds turn feed into meat—and the occurrence of diseases in a flock. But obtaining frequent and accurate body weight measurements is a significant challenge in commercial poultry production, according to researchers at Penn State who may have developed a solution.
How soybeans took over the American diet—without anyone noticing
U.S. farmers will produce a record-breaking harvest of 4.52 billion bushels of soybeans in 2026, according to projections from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. At 60 pounds (27 kilograms) to the bushel, that is roughly 800 pounds (360 kilograms) of soybeans for every American.
Nepal floods: How measuring snow in the Himalayas could help avoid future disasters
The massive and deadly floods on the Nepal–Tibet border are a stark reminder of why the world needs to constantly update its understanding of the fragile ecosystem in the Himalayas.
Breaking down shoe foam by genetically tweaking a microbe found in compost
Your favorite pair of tennies, kicks or trainers may soon become a little more sustainable. In a study published Sept. 11 in the journal Chem Catalysis, researchers developed a new kind of enzyme based on a bacterium found in compost that can degrade the polyurethane material in shoe foams. The results could one day help recycle plastic waste from shoes, mattresses, kitchen sponges and more.
Release of open AI model trained on 17 years of lunar data maps ice, craters and volcanoes
NASA is bringing artificial intelligence to the study of the moon, helping researchers transform how they analyze its surface. In an ongoing collaboration with IBM Research and several academic institutions, NASA has launched the NASA-IBM Lunar Foundation Model, one of the first open-source AI models built specifically for lunar science. The model, trained primarily on data from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), is hosted publicly on Hugging Face for anyone to use, with the complete codebase available on GitHub for testing and experimentation.
Scientists discover a new way a disease-linked protein comes apart
Transthyretin amyloid disease (ATTR) is a progressive, life-threatening condition caused when the protein transthyretin (TTR) breaks apart and aggregates in the heart and other organs. One of the most common treatments, a drug called tafamidis, works by helping TTR stay intact—slowing how it normally unfolds and aggregates.
More than kinship, social isolation has a greater effect on toad tadpole behavior
Amphibian larvae—often known as tadpoles—exhibit a behavior known as "social aggregation," in which they gather together to avoid predators. These interactions are evidence of their "association preferences," or their tendency to recognize members of their own species. Some varieties of tadpoles have even shown a preference for their siblings.