Science

As Homer tells us, Odysseus made an epic journey, against the odds, from Troy to his home in Ithaca. He visited many lands, but mostly dwelt with the nymph Calypso…

SAN FRANCISCO – The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will continue to evaluate data from Spire Global’s Hyperspectral Microwave Sounder (HyMS) under a $3 million contract extension announced Aug. 4….

This article is from Proof Positive, our friendly math newsletter that’s delivered to your inbox every Tuesday afternoon. Sign up today and read it first. Last week I explained how…

SAN FRANCISCO – Rubicon Space Systems completed hot-fire testing of its Velox 5-newton ASCENT monopropellant thruster, paving the way for on-orbit operations in 2027. “The program demonstrated performance beyond our…

Alzheimer’s disease is the leading cause of dementia and currently affects more than seven million people in the United States. Some available treatments can slow the disease, but most primarily…

Fusion energy startup American Fusion Inc. has completed the initial phase of laboratory testing for its Texatron Fusion Engine, marking the transition of the company’s technology from years of engineering…

Off the coast of what is now Peterborough, England, an ichthyosaur—a prehistoric marine reptile that resembled an oversize dolphin—was presumably going about its business, looking for fish and ammonites to…

WASHINGTON — While SpaceX says there is a “significant” amount of life left in its fleet of Crew Dragon spacecraft, the company has hedged on how long it will continue…

An international research team has experimentally produced the first all-optical photonic time crystal (PTC), a material designed to change its optical behavior rapidly and repeatedly over time. The researchers came…

The cracks in parched soils are only a superficial, if harrowing, sign of drought. To fully understand the impact of long-lasting droughts made worse by climate change, scientists need to…

Poway’s General Atomics (GA) recently got a big financial boost from the state to bring fusion energy a step closer to reality. The company was awarded a $20 million tax…

Spokane, Wash., saw the worst wildfires in the state’s history this weekend, bringing Washington State’s total wildfire destruction to about 450,000 acres this summer. Though large fires have historically been…

For decades, we’ve been told that weight loss is a matter of willpower: eat less, move more. But modern science has proven this isn’t actually the case. More on that…

SAN FRANCISCO – Spanish startup Kreios Space announced plans Aug. 4 to conduct the first very low Earth orbit (VLEO) demonstration of its air-breathing electric propulsion (ABEP) in a Kongsberg…

The Sun continuously sends a fast stream of charged particles through space, a phenomenon known as the solar wind. Earth is largely protected from this flow by its global magnetic…

The U.S. military is hungry for a domestic supply of tungsten, a critical mineral used to make weapons—but a NASA facility effectively blocks mining of a vast deposit of the…

Derided as Marvel’s Cinematic Universe might be now, we’ve all fallen prey to the franchise’s most manipulative tactic: the surprise reveal designed to make us scream for joy. In professional…

California-based Fuse, a fusion energy company, has signed a five-year Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with Mission Support and Test Services (MSTS) at the Nevada National Security Sites (NNSS)…

Since their inception in the ‘60s, the X-Men have differentiated themselves from other superhero groups by also being political figures. Unlike The Avengers or the Fantastic Four, characters that mostly…

Aging is the strongest known risk factor for neurodegenerative diseases, yet researchers still do not fully understand which molecular changes associated with getting older cause these conditions to develop. Scientists…

The Arctic is cooking. Across northern Russia—a region that is famously bitter cold—temperatures this week have routinely surpassed 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32.2 degrees Celsius), adding to the mountain of broken…

WASHINGTON — Xona Space Systems has received federal approval to broadcast commercial navigation signals from a planned constellation of more than 250 satellites, clearing a major regulatory obstacle as the…

ROCHESTER, NEW YORK, Aug. 03, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Syntec Optics Holdings, Inc. (Nasdaq: OPTX), a leading provider of deep tech for the defense, space, AI data center, and other…

Water buried beneath the moon may be detectable by listening to how vibrations move through the lunar ground. Researchers from the University of Maryland, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the…

You probably haven’t thought much about the sex lives of arachnids—if at all—but it turns out some daddy longlegs have surprisingly complex, lurid and even violent mating habits. Research has…

WASHINGTON — Airbus Defence and Space and Thales Alenia Space will build a replacement military communications satellite for Spain as those two companies, along with Leonardo, continue efforts on a…

A consistent daily routine may offer meaningful benefits for both physical and mental health, according to new research from the University of Missouri. The study found that older adults who…

Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia, which affects approximately 57 million people globally – a number that’s projected to rise to more than 150 million by 2050….

Our planet’s inhabitants speak more than 7,000 languages, each a unique repository of knowledge, culture and history. But today’s linguistic diversity may be only the shadow of a time when…