Science

OpenAI said an unreleased model running roughly 10,000 parallel agents produced a solution to a long-standing problem tied to the Navier-Stokes equations after 88 hours of work. Mathematicians are reviewing the claim and several have urged caution about how the result is being described. The announcement has intensified debate over how AI systems should be credited in research.

Mountain communities in France and Italy are watching Nepal's flood disaster as glaciers on Western Europe's highest peak continue to retreat. Researchers warn that similar glacial lake hazards are developing in the Alps. Local officials are reassessing evacuation plans.

University of Reading research finds that even today's leading weather computers, including AI-driven models, would have had difficulty producing an accurate forecast for the D-Day landings. The study used reconstructed 1944 observations. Researchers say it illustrates limits when data coverage is sparse.

The 2026 Ig Nobel Prizes, an unaffiliated spoof of the Nobels, went to research on splash-proof urinal design, buried underwear as a soil test and candy-taking behavior in children. Organizers say the awards highlight work that sounds silly but makes people think. Winners collected their prizes at the annual ceremony.

The National Institutes of Health will direct part of its budget toward research for the Department of Defense. The money would fund work NIH leadership had said it no longer wanted to support. Researchers warn the shift narrows the agency's biomedical mission.

Researchers observed critically endangered pygmy raccoons on Cozumel passing a learned behavior among themselves, shaping discarded material into ball-like toys. The observations offer rare evidence of social learning in the species. They also underline how much human waste reaches the island.

An instrument built in South Dakota to detect theoretical dark matter particles recorded a particle interaction that is difficult to explain with known phenomena. Researchers caution that background sources have not been fully ruled out. Confirmation would require independent detection elsewhere.

Google released the AlphaGenome Atlas, a high-resolution map of the human genome generated with its AlphaGenome model. Researchers can query how variants affect gene regulation across cell types. The company says the atlas is available to academic users.

Researchers spent six days on a small fishing boat in the English Channel working with recreational anglers to tag thresher sharks. The collaboration uses anglers' local knowledge to locate animals scientists rarely encounter. Tag data will inform protections for declining shark populations in English waters.

Divers recovered hundreds of ancient relics from the seabed near a shipwreck that had gone untouched for roughly 2,100 years. The finds include everyday goods carried as cargo. Researchers say the site was preserved by sediment cover.

Scientists are examining whether changing what farm animals eat could improve the nutritional profile of meat, milk and eggs. Obesity, cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and some cancers have been linked to calorie-dense, processed diets. The work asks whether feed composition can shift those outcomes upstream.

The San Diego Natural History Museum lets residents borrow from a collection of about 1,400 specimens, from bobcats and beetles to snakes preserved in jars. Borrowers include teachers, artists and curious neighbors. Staff say the program is one of a kind in the United States.

A new study finds that two early-universe objects long thought to be faint quasars are in fact extraordinarily luminous galaxies powered by bursts of star formation. James Webb Space Telescope observations separated the two explanations. The result changes estimates of how many quasars existed in the early cosmos.

A Danish resident doing ordinary yard work turned up roughly 700 pieces of tenth-century silver, the largest hoard of its kind ever found in the country. The trove includes coins, jewelry, silver bars and a small artifact shaped like Thor's hammer. Archaeologists believe the collection was deliberately buried during the Viking age.

Five chicks from a critically endangered penguin species have hatched at a South Carolina aquarium, joining two that hatched in May. Together they make up a record nesting season for the facility. Keepers say the births matter for a species in steep decline in the wild.

After Upton Sinclair's The Jungle drove stricter food safety rules in the early twentieth century, NASA pushed the standards further to guarantee that astronaut food carried no pathogens. The agency's hazard-analysis approach was later adopted across the commercial food industry. It remains the backbone of US inspection practice.

Energy investment firm Panamint is putting up $1.7 billion to buy a Texas coal plant, largely for the value of its existing grid interconnection. The site would be redeveloped for a large solar project. Interconnection queues have become the main bottleneck for new renewable capacity.

Vera Wang, a senior at an East Honolulu high school, discovered a fungus living in coconut husks that can pull plastics and sunscreen compounds out of ocean water. Her project won multiple awards at the Hawaii State Science and Engineering Fair. She is now working to test the method at larger scale.

A new optical imaging approach lets researchers observe activity inside peripheral blood mononuclear cells, the immune cells drawn in a routine blood sample. The technique reveals states that standard assays miss. Researchers say it could sharpen the study of infections and immune disorders.

Researchers at Deakin University have spent years mapping bird movements in anticipation of a highly virulent avian influenza strain reaching Australia, where it has only recently been detected. The models predict which routes and wetlands carry the greatest risk. Officials are using the work to target surveillance.

Space scientists have assembled a photo gallery of 16 distant galaxies to illustrate the range of sizes, shapes and high-energy features found across the universe. Astronomers generally sort galaxies into spirals, ellipticals and irregulars. The images show how imperfectly those categories fit.

Scientists cannot drill 1,800 miles to the boundary between Earth's core and deep mantle, so they trained deep learning models on seismic waves recorded during earthquakes to map it. The analysis identified six unusual structures at the boundary. The findings may help explain how heat escapes the core.

Miracinonyx trumani, long nicknamed the American cheetah for its slender body and long front legs, was not a close relative of the African big cat, according to a new study in Current Biology. Its build appears to be a case of convergent evolution. The animal was more closely tied to cougars.

The German launch company Isar Aerospace reached orbit and deployed payloads on the second flight of its Spectrum rocket. It is the first European firm to complete a fully commercial orbital launch. Company leaders said they achieved in a few years what the European space industry had taken decades to do.

Researchers embedded electrodes in live cockroaches and outfitted them with cameras and injection devices that can deliver medication by remote control. The insects can reach spaces rescue robots cannot. Ethical questions about the approach remain unsettled.

New research suggests farmed salmon has become less nutritious as feed formulas shifted away from marine ingredients. The change carries downstream effects for the environment and climate as well as for diners. Producers say feed choices reflect supply constraints on wild fish stocks.

Scientists successfully applied probiotic and post-biotic treatments to heat-stressed coral in open seas for the first time, reviving colonies that had begun to die. Earlier work had shown the approach only in tanks. Researchers caution it is a stopgap, not a substitute for cooling the water.

President Trump signed an order stripping endangered species protections from grey wolves, saying the change will help ranchers. Conservationists argue it could reverse decades of recovery work. Legal challenges are expected.

The joint European and Japanese BepiColombo mission is on final approach to Mercury after eight years in transit, and its two orbiters will soon separate to begin science operations. Mercury remains the least explored of the inner planets. Scientists hope the mission will explain how the planet formed and why it is so dense.

Physicists report observing effects of Einstein's general relativity acting on quantum systems. The experiment probes a regime where gravitational and quantum descriptions have been difficult to test together. Results of this kind are a long-sought step toward reconciling the two theories.

Parchment made from animal skin has preserved genetic traces of a deadly sheeppox virus, turning medieval manuscripts into records of past outbreaks. Researchers say other archives and libraries likely hold similar traces. The work opens a new source for studying historical epidemics.

Older female mice equivalent in age to 60-year-old women lived about 12 percent longer when given daily injections of the active ingredient in Ozempic, a new study reports. Researchers caution that mouse longevity results often fail to translate. Human trials on aging endpoints have not been run.

Because the magnetic North Pole has shifted over millennia, the minerals in fired clay record the field as it stood when the piece was made, giving researchers a way to detect forged antiquities. The team says the method complements existing dating techniques. Museums have shown early interest.

A study found that offering smoothies in school cafeterias substantially raised fruit consumption among middle school students. Researchers compared intake before and after the change. The finding suggests presentation matters as much as availability.

With no new landers or rovers in NASA's Mars pipeline, helicopters have become the agency's main path to new surface exploration. NASA's cost estimate for the SR-1 Freedom sample return effort is $2.1 billion, a figure that does not include the helicopters themselves. The shift leaves the program dependent on a technology first demonstrated by Ingenuity.

Research by the nonprofit Public Citizen says U.S. Forest Service chief Tom Schultz previously represented timber companies that stand to benefit from rescinding the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule. The rule limits development across roughly 45 million acres of national forest. The administration announced plans this month to roll it back.

New research suggests GLP-1 medications may achieve part of their effect through a biological pathway researchers had not expected. The finding could help explain why the drugs work differently across patients. Scientists caution the work is early and needs replication.

A private group has proposed what it calls the cheapest possible mission to Alpha Centauri, the nearest star system to the Sun. The concept trades capability for cost in an effort to make an interstellar attempt plausible. Independent experts remain divided on whether the approach is workable.

Researchers are working to document the deep reefs that sit below the depths divers usually reach. The habitats are poorly mapped and may shelter species found nowhere else. Scientists hope the work will clarify whether these reefs can buffer losses in shallower coral systems.

Communities in Japan’s mountains have developed approaches to living alongside bears that differ from standard wildlife management. Researchers describe practices built around local knowledge and coexistence rather than removal. The work comes as bear encounters have risen in parts of the country.

Researchers have developed kitchen-scale techniques that give peas, beans and lentils a texture closer to meat. The methods rely on processing rather than added ingredients. The work is aimed at making plant protein more appealing to ordinary cooks.

Astronomers have long attributed the universe’s declining rate of star formation to galaxies running out of gas. New measurements suggest that explanation is incomplete. The results point to other processes slowing the conversion of gas into stars.

New monitoring shows coral cover on Australia's reefs declining in line with a broader global trend. Scientists attribute the losses to repeated bleaching events and storm damage. Recovery windows between disturbances are growing shorter.

Data sleuths have published evidence of fraud in a widely cited study about procrastination. Their analysis points to irregularities in the underlying data that are difficult to explain by chance. The report adds to a growing list of behavioral science papers under scrutiny.

Nepal has put the cost of last week’s floods at about $5 billion and attributed the disaster to climate change. The death toll has passed 1,000 and parts of the country remain unreachable. Scientists are still working to explain exactly what triggered the flooding along the Nepal–Tibet border and whether similar events are likely.

Researchers have digitally reconstructed the face of a man who lived through one of the most consequential upheavals in English history. The reconstruction was built from skeletal remains recovered at an excavation. Such models let historians put a human face on periods known mostly from documents.

A new study finds that raindrops striking a surface produce tiny electrical discharges that behave like miniature lightning bolts. Researchers say the effect helps explain corrosion patterns observed on vehicles. The finding could inform how protective coatings are designed.

A critically endangered Kemp's ridley sea turtle found near death on a Welsh beach was flown to Texas for rehabilitation before being returned to its Gulf home. The journey included a helicopter ride to London and a transatlantic flight to Houston. The effort took two years from rescue to release.

Researchers at Tokyo Metropolitan University built a platform to test magnetohydrodynamic aerobraking, which uses intense magnetic fields to slow a spacecraft during reentry. The rig fires a shock wave at more than seven kilometers per second against a miniature vessel inside a powerful electromagnet. The technique could make reentry gentler and vehicles more reusable.

A new study finds that patterns in how long people write online reviews can be used to infer their social connections. Researchers say that signal could let scammers identify a target's friends and craft more convincing approaches. The finding suggests review platforms leak more than the text itself.