NASA has officially lost a decade-old Mars orbiter that performed vital scientific and communications work at the Red Planet. The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission, which launched in November 2013, was the first successful spacecraft dedicated to studying the atmosphere of the Red Planet and became a key node in the communications network…
By Susanne P. Schwenzer, Professor of Planetary Mineralogy at The Open University, UK Earth planning date: Friday, May 29, 2026 Drilling always keeps the rover in place for a little while, and our 47th successful drill, “Campo Marte,” was no exception. The team used the time wisely and on top of the drilling, we also…
A large, slow-moving storm system tracked north-northwest across the Philippine Sea toward southern Japan from late May into early June 2026. As Typhoon Jangmi advanced, its sprawling rainbands delivered intense rainfall across a broad area, prompting concerns about flooding in several locations. A nighttime image captured by the VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite) instrument…
The White House on Wednesday moved to strip civil service protections from about 8,000 federal workers, including many working at public health agencies. The executive order effectively transforms these positions—which include “epidemiologist”, “health scientist” and “toxicologist” jobs—into “at-will” positions—meaning they can be readily fired without cause. The job category, initially called Schedule F and now…
A quantum computer made from extremely cold atoms can correct its own errors during long computations, an important prerequisite for becoming truly useful
For anyone who has watched ocean waves or fast moving water, turbulence can seem like pure chaos. Powerful currents twist and churn, creating swirling eddies that split into smaller and smaller vortices until their energy eventually fades away. For decades, scientists have believed this process follows a predictable pattern. In three dimensional environments such as…
The landmark success of a drug against an ‘undruggable’ cancer is spurring fresh optimism in the quest to treat seemingly untouchable tumour targets. The experimental drug, daraxonrasib, disarms all three members of the RAS family of proteins, which are linked to some of the deadliest cancers. Designing drugs that target the RAS proteins has been…
Waves supercharged by El Niño hit the California coast in 2016 Eliason/Zuma Wire/Shutterstock A “Godzilla El Niño” is coming, according to some newspaper headlines. The actual story is that there is an 80 per cent chance of an El Niño developing by September. Most models forecast a moderate event – but some suggest it could…
Scientists have identified a specific brain circuit that appears to play a major role in anxiety, depression-like behaviors, and social withdrawal. Even more striking, they found that restoring balance within this circuit was enough to reverse several of these behaviors in mice. The research was led by Juan Lerma and his team at the Synaptic…
A new study shows that computer malware powered by easily accessible artificial intelligence models is here—the research is a “wake-up call” to take cybersecurity risks from AI more seriously, one expert says. In the study, researchers created an AI-powered computer “worm” designed to attack and spread between devices—revealing a threat that they say the world…
