Science

A US nuclear fusion company has secured a license to use four advanced fueling technologies developed by researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) to advance commercial fusion reactors. The…

Concrete jungles create their own rain, and make it go away, all without relying on a single nursery rhyme. A recent study of 40,000 storms producing heavy rainfall in four…

Rockets, rovers and landers have dominated the attention of the commercial space industry as the United States focuses on sending humans back to the moon, but a handful of companies…

There are many biological processes that naturally slow down or falter as we age, and a growing number of studies are looking at ways to interrupt that decline – to…

Nightmares can be one of the most distressing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a condition that may develop after a person experiences a disaster, serious accident, violence, combat, or…

The ORNL development team includes Steve Meitner and Dean McGinnis, and former ORNL staff Larry Baylor and Jeff Ulreich. Together, these technologies form a key part of the lab’s longstanding…

It’s no secret that modern humans and Neanderthals interbred: most of the world’s population today has around 1 or 2 percent of Neanderthal DNA. We know a little about how…

Eating meat is consistently shown to be one of the worst things we can do for the environment as consumers, due to the outsized negative impacts animal agriculture has on…

What allows people to keep working toward a goal when the challenge becomes more demanding? Researchers at Nagoya University in Japan have identified a brain mechanism that may help explain…

On Wednesday the U.S. Senate confirmed Erica Schwartz to head the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Her confirmation gives the nation’s top public health body a leader after…

WASHINGTON — Blue Origin has traced the explosion of its New Glenn rocket during a static-fire test in May to a valve in the rocket’s BE-4 engine, an issue that…

A solar eclipse, the Perseid meteor shower, brilliant Venus, and a deep partial lunar eclipse will make August an unusually eventful month for skywatchers. August Skywatching Highlights Aug. 5: Last…

Those calculations are extraordinarily difficult because plasmas involve massive numbers of atomic interactions occurring simultaneously across time and space. Existing simulation codes can model the physics with high accuracy, but…

How famous would Star Wars be without lightsabers? The franchise’s iconic weapon fueled the most famous images from the movies, sold countless replicas in toy stores, and even sparked an…

Elon Musk laid out a sweeping plan for SpaceX to reach profitability during an investor call on Tuesday—including robotic satellite factories on the moon. Musk, who is known for making…

Despite building out one of the most enduring franchises in history, George Lucas has felt pretty distant from Star Wars lately. Lucas directed his last Star Wars film more than…

A person’s posture may subtly affect both emotional state and decision-making, according to new research from McGill University. In a laboratory study, participants who sat upright reported more positive feelings…

Scientists have developed a new technique to clean the inner walls of nuclear fusion reactors without opening them to the air. The method uses a combination of neon plasma and…

Researchers led by scientists at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, or FRIB, have identified the source of a puzzling abundance of low-energy gamma rays released by the zinc-70 nucleus….

It was 2022, and Christina was running out of options. The Londoner, then age 34, was desperate to fix her anorexia nervosa, even as the disease consumed her. After six…

The mood was celebratory at the ribbon-cutting for Muon Space’s San Jose, California, manufacturing facility in June. State, local, United States Space Force and Pentagon representatives lauded the startup and,…

Each year, tons of soil, silt and rocks flow into reservoirs in the U.S. and get stuck there, creating a “ticking time bomb” that threatens lives and livelihoods. According to…

Astronomers led by the University of Warwick have uncovered what they describe as a kind of cosmic digestive system around a black hole. Their observations show that even when a…

A venture backed by Leonardo DiCaprio and Jeff Bezos is aiming to save 100 global species that are on the brink of extinction. The Phoenix Species Project, launched on Tuesday,…

US private fusion company Commonwealth Fusion Systems announced it raised USD1 billion of additional equity financing – the single largest funding round among fusion energy companies worldwide since CFS announced…

WASHINGTON — Voyager Technologies remains upbeat about the prospects for its Starlab commercial space station but is hoping for some tweaks to NASA’s plans to support the station’s development. During…

Does the brain create consciousness, or is consciousness a more basic feature of reality? Christof Koch, one of the world’s most prominent neuroscientists, explored this question during the 15th “Behind…

A small, yellow-flowered plant that grows in the mountainous forests of China may not look intimidating. But beneath its bright exterior, Saxifraga candelabrum is hiding a bloodthirsty secret. This plant…

SpaceX will make some history this month, if all goes according to plan. The company aims to launch the 14th test flight of its Starship megarocket before August is out,…