Researchers tested a sticky hydrogel by using it to glue a rubber duck to a rock in the ocean Hao Guo, Hongguang Liao and Hailong Fan A rubber duck that was stuck to a seaside rock for more than a year has proved the strength of a new sticky material. The adhesive could be used…
Stone tools unearthed on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi suggest that ancient human relatives arrived there between about 1 million and 1.5 million years ago — far earlier than previously known. The discovery, described August 6 in Nature, pushes back the timeline for hominid occupation of Sulawesi by hundreds of thousands of years. It also suggests that ancient…
Bird Flu on Dairy Farms May Be Airborne After All Infectious bird flu virus was found in milk, on equipment, within wastewater and aerosolized in the air on California dairy farms By Stephanie Pappas edited by Jeanna Bryner H5N1 bird flu is spreading across dairy farms in the U.S. Dusty Pixel Photography/Getty Images The H5N1…
A concept image of NASA’s Fission Surface Power Project NASA NASA is going to build a nuclear reactor on the moon by the mid-2030s. That’s the plan outlined in a new directive from the US space agency’s acting administrator, Sean Duffy. It isn’t a new idea – NASA awarded contracts in 2022 to three companies…
Mosses may appear simple, but they’re far from fragile. They thrive in some of the harshest places on Earth — Antarctica, arid deserts, high mountain peaks and more. “We’ve long wondered about the molecular mechanisms that allow moss to endure such extreme conditions,” says Tomomichi Fujita, a plant physiologist at Hokkaido University in Japan. Fujita…
Rachel Feltman: For Scientific American’s Science Quickly, I’m Rachel Feltman. The White House recently proposed slashing NASA’s science budget nearly in half and reducing the space agency’s overall funding to just three quarters of what it received last year. When adjusted for inflation the proposed fiscal year 2026 budget would be NASA’s lowest since the…
A snail may hold the key to restoring vision for people with some eye diseases. Golden apple snails (Pomacea canaliculata) are freshwater snails from South America. Alice Accorsi became familiar with the species as a graduate student in Italy. “You could literally buy them in a pet store as snails that clean the bottom of…
We’ve all been there: the urge to defecate is strong, but the ability to do so isn’t. Despite much huffing and puffing, nothing is forthcoming. You rise defeated, if not deflated. Constipation is one of the occupational hazards of being human. Perhaps because of how common it is, it has long been regarded as a…
A derelict coal power plant at the abandoned Indiana Army Ammunition Plant The American Explorer/Shutterstock Dozens of retired coal-fired power plants could find new life providing backup or emergency power for the electricity grid – except this time without the need for fossil fuels. They could instead rely on heat energy stored in dirt. The…
Most treatments for lower back pain give just temporary relief amenic181/Shutterstock A short-term course of a type of psychotherapy was three times more effective at relieving chronic lower back pain than standard treatments, even years later. Cognitive functional therapy (CFT) provides people with personalised programmes that teach them to understand and manage their pain through…
