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Latest story• Feb 19, 2026

Are you constipated? It could be because of these two bacteria

Researchers discovered that two bacteria species, Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron and Akkermansia muciniphila, work together to cause constipation by breaking down the protective mucin coating in the colon that keeps waste moving smoothly. When scientists modified one bacterium to prevent mucin breakdown in mice, the animals remained regular, suggesting these bacteria must collaborate to cause the problem and...

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Machine learning streamlines the complexities of making better proteins

Scientists developed MULTI-evolve, a machine learning framework that predicts how proteins will perform when multiple amino acids are changed simultaneously, eliminating the need for countless rounds of trial-and-error testing....

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Saturn's largest moon may actually be 2 moons in 1 — and helped birth the planet's iconic rings

Scientists now believe Saturn's moon Titan formed 400 million years ago when two massive moons collided, rather than billions of years ago through gradual accumulation of space debris. This dramatic collision may have also...

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The Kuiper Belt is packed with weird peanut-shaped objects. Astronomers think they know why

Astronomers have solved the mystery of why many objects in the Kuiper Belt have strange peanut-shaped forms with two lobes instead of spherical shapes. New computer simulations show these "contact binaries" formed directly from...

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NASA fired three rockets into the northern lights and the results are stunning

Two rockets launched just 30 seconds apart into the Alaskan night sky, creating the world's first CT scan of the northern lights. NASA's GNEISS mission fired twin sounding rockets through the same aurora near Fairbanks, each...

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China targets the real bottleneck in AR displays

Chinese laser display manufacturer Appotronics has developed a breakthrough solution for AR glasses by switching from power-hungry MicroLED displays to LCoS (liquid crystal on silicon) technology, creating light engines as small...

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Scientists may have just solved one of the strangest mysteries of Greenland’s ice sheet

Scientists found that mysterious plumes beneath Greenland's ice sheet result from thermal convection, like boiling pasta. This reveals the ice is softer than expected, offering insights into climate-driven melting.

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We tested the 'first wooden, sustainable air purifier' and it's a thing of beauty

IQAir's Atem Earth air purifier offers excellent performance and sustainability with beech wood construction and a 25-year guarantee, but limited smart features don't justify its $1,000 price.

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Scientists test giant fire tornado to clean oil spills faster and with less smoke

Scientists from Texas A&M and UC Berkeley conducted the first large-scale test of fire whirls to clean offshore oil spills, creating spinning tornado-like flames that burn nearly twice as fast as traditional methods. Using a...

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Space Age Technology Reveals Secrets of Bronze Age Sword

Archaeologists found a 3,400-year-old Bronze Age sword in Bavaria with an ornate octagonal hilt. Advanced scans revealed copper wire inlays and construction details.

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The Retiree Who Inspired the Wright Brothers to Take Flight

Engineer Octave Chanute secretly pursued aviation while working on railroads, then after retiring created the most successful glider of his era in 1896 using bridge-building techniques. His innovations, including a crucial...

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Supercomputers simulated the orbits of 1 million satellites between Earth and the moon — and less than 10% survived

Supercomputers simulated one million satellite orbits between Earth and the moon, revealing that only 9.7% would remain stable for six years due to complex gravitational forces from Earth, moon, and sun, plus solar radiation...

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Are Elon Musk’s Mars plans finally coming back down to Earth?

Elon Musk has shifted SpaceX's focus from Mars colonization to building a lunar city, abandoning his previous stance that the Moon was "a distraction" from reaching Mars. Space experts view this change with skepticism due to...

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City-size, cold-volcano comet transforms into a glowing 'snail shell' after major explosive outburst

A massive cryovolcanic comet called 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann experienced a major eruption on February 10, shining 100 times brighter than normal as frozen gas and ice exploded from its surface. The blast created a spiral-shaped...

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Have we entered a new age of AI-enabled scientific discovery?

AI systems are increasingly contributing to scientific breakthroughs, with 2024 Nobel prizes recognizing AI pioneers and researchers using tools like ChatGPT for discoveries in physics, mathematics, and drug development. While...

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Microsoft can now store data for 10,000 years on everyday glass thanks to laser breakthrough

Microsoft scientists enabled ordinary kitchen glass to store terabytes of data for over 10,000 years using advanced lasers. This breakthrough replaces expensive specialized materials, making long-term data storage more...

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Etching the world's smallest QR code in ceramic pushes data storage to the nanoscale

TU Wien researchers created the world's smallest QR code on ceramic film, covering 1.98 square micrometers with 49-nanometer pixels. This breakthrough could enable indestructible ceramic storage preserving data for millennia.

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Brain-like computers could be built out of perovskites

Perovskites, promising materials for solar cells and displays, have failed commercially despite significant hype. Researchers now believe these materials may finally succeed in brain-like computing applications.

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Physicists recreated the first millisecond after the Big Bang — and found it was surprisingly soupy

Large Hadron Collider experiments recreated conditions from microseconds after the Big Bang by smashing heavy atomic nuclei to form quark-gluon plasma, revealing the universe's primordial matter behaved more like liquid than gas....

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The Biophysical World Inside a Jam-Packed Cell

Traditional biology textbook illustrations show cells with spacious interiors and floating organelles, but new research reveals cells are actually jam-packed environments where up to 40% of space is occupied by proteins, DNA, and...

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A spinning gyroscope could finally unlock ocean wave energy

Researchers at The University of Osaka developed a gyroscopic wave energy converter that uses a spinning flywheel inside a floating platform to generate electricity from ocean waves through gyroscopic precession. Unlike...

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US scientists unveil ‘cloud in a box’ chamber that could explain storms and rain

Scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory watched in stunned silence as a green laser cut through their "cloud in a box" and revealed something extraordinary: the birth of a cloud unfolding before their eyes. "There was a lot...

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Explained: How this US firm is building a meltdown-proof nuclear reactor

Maryland-based X-energy has developed the Xe-100, a meltdown-proof nuclear reactor that uses thousands of graphite spheres filled with specially-coated uranium particles instead of traditional fuel rods. The reactor uses helium...

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Microscopic QR code sets world record with massive 2TB per page storage density

Researchers at TU Wien and Cerabyte created the world's smallest QR code at just 1.98 square micrometers, using ceramic films that can store over 2 terabytes per A4 page while remaining stable for centuries. Unlike traditional...

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