LIVE SCIENCE - Astronomers have reconstructed the "skeleton" of the cosmos in unprecedented detail, thanks to the largest-ever survey conducted by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The resulting map reveals how galaxies have evolved since the universe's infancy around 13 billion years ago and how they fall together in a vast structure called the...
EARTH.COM - The majority of California’s water comes from the Pacific Ocean. Atmospheric rivers build over the sea, ride the jet stream east, and slam into the Sierra. When forecasters track wet winters, they watch ocean temperatures off the coast to predict weather conditions. However, they may need to look beyond what is proximate. A...
THE DEBRIEF - New data collected by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is helping researchers map the cosmic web in the greatest detail ever achieved, providing new insights into the network of galaxies as improved resolution reveals hidden features. An international team of researchers led by the University of California, Riverside, revealed their newest...
EARTH.COM - For years, maps of how matter is arranged across the universe came with a built-in compromise. Individual galaxies showed up fine. The filaments and clusters they formed – the bigger architecture – remained smeared at the edges. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is changing that. Its largest survey has produced the most...
ZME SCIENCE - For humans, a fruit fly weighs almost nothing. Yet when scientists made that tiny body feel four, seven, ten, and even thirteen times heavier than normal, it survived every time. At 13G, humans can only survive for a few minutes. In a new study, researchers at the University of California, Riverside, spun...
EARTH.COM - Space agencies have spent decades designing life-detection instruments around a single idea: biology leaves specific molecules behind. Send the right probe, find the right chemicals, and the question of whether life existed answers itself. The idea has a flaw. Those same molecules form without life in cold meteorite chemistry and deep-sea vents. A...
EARTH.COM - Termites chew through the wooden framing of houses and cost property owners billions of dollars every year. Fixing this severe property damage usually requires pest control workers to pump homes full of highly toxic gases. Families have to pack up and evacuate their houses for several days during these extreme chemical treatments. We...
SFGATE - On a Saturday morning in mid-April, driving into Joshua Tree National Park’s Ryan Campground, the scenery was striking: Giant, rounded boulders. Scurrying lizards. Spiky cholla cactus, shrubby creosote and, of course, the park’s namesake Joshua trees. But on the short walk from car to campsite, a more concerning life form came into view...
ENGADGET - We love when astronomers share the images they capture with the James Webb Space Telescope because they are so dang beautiful and cool. But of course, science is about more than just pretty pictures. A research team has used the telescope to map out the cosmic web, a collection of dark matter, gas...
INTERESTING ENGINEERING - Astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have created the most detailed map yet of the universe’s vast cosmic web, revealing how galaxies connected and evolved across 13.7 billion years of history. The new map gives scientists an unprecedented look at the large-scale structure of the universe during its earliest stages. Researchers...
SPACE.COM - A new type of self-interacting dark matter could provide solutions to three very different cosmic puzzles, new research suggests. The first mystery that could be solved involves an ultradense clump of matter detected in the system JVAS B1938+666, which is gravitationally lensed, or visibly distorted, thanks to a quirk of general relativity. The...
THE WASHINGTON POST - Few things ruin an evening outdoors faster than the realization that you’re being eaten alive by mosquitos. These biting insects, which can transmit diseases like dengue, malaria and West Nile virus, “remain the most dangerous animal on Earth,” said Adrian Vasquez, an assistant professor in the biology department at Mercer University...
INTERESTING ENGINEERING - Humans can tolerate only brief bursts of extreme gravitational force. Fighter pilots train to endure high G-loads, but even they struggle beyond 9G. At higher levels, blood drains from the brain, causing blackout within seconds. Sustained exposure remains dangerous and poorly understood, especially during spaceflight and reentry. Now, new research from the...
GIZMODO - Pests are, well, pesky because they simply won’t go away. And in a terrifying turn of events, scientists found that the fruit fly—a super common kitchen pest—adapts and survives under crushing hypergravity. According to a study on the findings, published recently in the Journal of Experimental Biology, fruit flies initially show some bolstered...
UNIVERSE TODAY - One of the most intriguing puzzles in cosmology is the existence of supermassive black holes that seem to appear very early in the history of the Universe. Astronomers keep finding them at times when, by all that they understand about the infant Universe, they shouldn't be there. The standard theory of black...
POPULAR SCIENCE - Birds in Hawaii are stealing from each other, and this bird-on-bird crime even extends to members of the same species. It’s an example of kleptoparasitism, or when an animal steals things from another. Specifically, these colorful, winged kleptoparasites are pilferring nest-material, sometimes causing the demise of the depleted nest. Researchers documented this...
SCIENCE ALERT - The origins of Alzheimer's remain contentious, but a new study suggests the disease may emerge as two key proteins compete inside brain cells. Alzheimer's disease, the most common form of dementia, has long been associated with the build-up of two proteins in the brain: amyloid-beta and tau. This new study ties those...
UNIVERSITY OF HAWAIʻI - An analysis of more than 2,300 seawater samples from more than 20 field studies around the globe indicates that human-made chemicals—from plastic additives and industrial lubricants to pharmaceuticals and pesticides—are widespread in the marine environment, particularly in coastal and estuarine waters. The study, co-authored by University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa oceanographers...
EARTH.COM - Scientists have identified a single molecule that surges inside stressed plant cells and rapidly chokes off a growth pathway they cannot live without. The study recasts stunted growth as an active survival response, and it points to a hidden control system that could shape tougher crops. Inside leaf cells, the slowdown took hold...
EARTH.COM - Plants can’t run from danger. When sunlight suddenly becomes too intense, temperatures spike, or conditions turn hostile, they have to survive exactly where they are. To cope, they rely on rapid internal changes. One of the most important is the ability to slow growth almost instantly – not over hours or days, but...