1 million people's genes reveal the heritability of the Big Five personality traits - and it's complicated - A huge analysis probes the genetics of personality, finding that the trait is much less straightforward than physical attributes like eye color. genetics

16 hours ago

Mercury is shrinking more than we thought - and it's hiding the evidence from us -- Mercury may be shrinking much faster than we thought - and that could reveal new clues about its violent origins. -- Elizabeth Howell

16 hours ago

Powerful new AI model will map the moon's surface in more detail than ever, NASA and IBM scientists say -- IBM and NASA have partnered to create the Lunar Foundation Model, a new AI capable of processing decades of lunar data so we can more accurately map the moon's surface. -- Alan Bradley

18 hours ago

A Harvest Moon with 5 planets on the side: Why September is the best month all year for stargazing -- Generally mild weather and increasing hours of darkness make September a great month for observing, and this year, there's a particularly busy sky. -- Jamie Carter

19 hours ago

'America's Nobel' prizes go to sleep and hemophilia researchers, and to Michael J. Fox for Parkinson's advocacy -- The Lasker Foundation has announced the winners of its 2026 awards for basic medical research, clinical science and public service. -- Nicoletta Lanese

21 hours ago

Watch the first-ever footage of a rare deep-sea squid in the northeastern Pacific -- A rare sighting of a bigfin squid near an underwater mountain off California is the first confirmed live observation of the bizarre animal in the northeastern Pacific, researchers say. -- Patrick Pester

1 day ago

Did OpenAI really crack one of math's hardest unsolved problems -‬ and did it play fair to get there? -- Explainer -- A breakthrough on the Navier-Stokes equations could be worth a $1 million prize, but a mathematician has serious questions about how OpenAI got there so fast. -- Larissa G. Capella

1 day ago

Record-breaking rain in California was caused by abnormally high temperatures on the other side of the world, study finds -- Scientists have identified a "climate teleconnection" between the Rocky Mountains and the Tibetan Plateau, where warm spots left a kink in the jet stream that intensifed weather in the western U.S. -- Sascha Pare

1 day ago

World's oldest evidence of habitual drug use traced back 25,000 years to Indonesia -- Hunter-gatherers from the last ice age sucked on betel nuts to soothe their toothaches, a new study reveals. -- Tom Metcalfe

1 day ago

Watch: Scientists reveal the most detailed video of a black hole jet ever made -- Researchers combined 100-plus images of a single black hole into an AI-powered video to chart the activity of a mighty blazar's jet. -- Elizabeth Howell

1 day ago

Enigmatic Denisovans lived by cave in what is now China for 100,000 years, rare fossils and handcrafted tools reveal -- Anthropologists have discovered the first-ever Denisovan arm bone in a cave in southwest China, which also held thousands of prehistoric animal bones and stone tools. -- Kristina Killgrove

1 day ago

The moon may have formed in just 5 hours, new simulations suggest -- Novel simulations that reassessed the ancient collision between Earth and the protoplanet Theia suggest that the moon could have emerged from the aftermath of this impact much more quickly than scientists previously thought. -- Harry Baker

19 hours ago

Google scientists removed a critical 'consciousness safeguard' from AI in new study. What happened next? -- Analysis -- A new study shows that measures to stop AI's claims of consciousness have unintended consequences for non-human entities. -- Adam Shepherd

1 day ago

Where on Earth is safest from global catastrophe? -- Researchers have worked out the safest, most resilient country to be in during an apocalyptic event. -- Sarah Wild

2 days ago

Arctic warming fuels 2 distinct climate regimes in Siberia that could wake up a methane 'sleeping giant' -- New research finds that western Siberia is becoming wetter as the world warms, while eastern Siberia seems to be getting drier. And both these conditions are fueling a rise in methane emissions, spelling trouble for the climate. -- Sascha Pare

2 days ago

Eerily humanlike AI-powered robot enters mass production in China - its makers say it could soon be helping you out at home -- Xpeng's engineers have designed a humanoid robot that they say is the first in the world that will walk itself off the production line. -- Keumars Afifi-Sabet

2 days ago

Are there nuclear weapons hidden in space? Why a 60-year ban on space nukes has been impossible to enforce -- Analysis -- Nuclear weapons have been banned from space for nearly 60 years. A new detection method could help verify whether nations are keeping that promise. -- Sharmila Kuthunur

1 day ago

AI's water use is a problem, but shifting from electricity to solar or wind power could help -- Though water consumption by data centers pales in comparison to that of some other industries, it's a problem in water-stressed regions. Water-saving cooling technologies could help. -- Katarina Zimmer

3 days ago

Ancient Egyptian tomb holding the king's 'keeper of secrets' unearthed at Saqqara -- The tomb of a pyramid-age official has been found at Saqqara in Egypt. -- Owen Jarus

4 days ago

Stunning Roman-era mosaic discovered in Turkey features 'Emerald' the cat and 'Ocean' the dog -- A cat named Emerald and a dog named Ocean were memorialized in a Roman mosaic over 1,800 years ago. -- Kristina Killgrove

4 days ago