The new observations with the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope suggest that TOI-561b is surrounded by a thick blanket of gases above a global magma ocean. This artist’s concept shows what TOI-561b and its star could look like. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / Ralf Crawford, STScI. TOI-561 is a bright star located 280.5 light-years away in the constellation of Sextans. The star is approximately...

The composition of Uranus and Neptune might be less icy than previously thought, according to a new study by University of Zürich scientists. Uranus could be an ice giant (left) or a rock giant (right) depending on the model assumptions. Image credit: Keck Institute for Space Studies / Chuck Carter. “The ice giant classification is oversimplified as Uranus and Neptune are still poorly understood,”...

Archaeologists have unearthed 400,000-year-old heated sediments and fire-cracked flint handaxes alongside two fragments of pyrite — a mineral used in later periods to strike sparks with flint — at Barnham, Suffolk, the United Kingdom. The discovery shows humans were making fire around 350,000 years earlier than previously known. An artist’s impression of fire at Barnham around 400,000...

Paleontologists have performed a comprehensive anatomical reassessment of the fossilized remains of two coelurosaurian theropod dinosaurs from the Early Cretaceous of South America: Santanaraptor placidus and Mirischia asymmetrica. Hypothetical reconstruction of Mirischia asymmetrica (left) and Santanaraptor placidus (right) disputing a lizard in what is now northeastern Brazil approximately 112...

Although dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) and wolves (Canis lupus) can interbreed and produce fertile offspring, hybridization between the two is far more rare than domestic and wild populations of other species. In new research, scientists from the American Museum of Natural History, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and the University of California Davis combined highly sensitive...

Physicists with the MicroBooNE (Micro Booster Neutrino) Collaboration have ruled out the existence of a single sterile neutrino with 95% certainty. Using data from the MicroBooNE detector, physicists report one of the first searches for a sterile neutrino using two accelerator neutrino beams. Image credit: Gemini AI. Neutrinos are tiny subatomic particles that barely interact with matter. They can...

Skin vitamin C levels are closely tied to levels of the vitamin in the blood (plasma) and can be boosted by increasing fruit intake, according to a new study. Carried out on two dozen healthy adults in both New Zealand and Germany, the study shows that boosting plasma levels by consuming two vitamin C-rich kiwifruit per day increases the amount of the vitamin in the skin, improving skin thickness...

Scientists have successfully extracted and sequenced ancient RNA from permafrost-preserved tissues of 10 woolly mammoths. One of these, dated to be 39,000 years old, represents the oldest ancient RNA sequences recorded to date. Mármol-Sánchez et al. found ancient RNA molecules in Late Pleistocene woolly mammoth tissues. Image credit: Mármol-Sánchez et al., doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2025.10.025. Sequencing...

For decades, scientists have been baffled by two enormous structures buried deep inside Earth. These anomalies may retain geochemical signatures distinct from the surrounding mantle. Yet, their origin remains enigmatic. Rutgers University geodynamicist Yoshinori Miyazaki and colleagues offer a striking explanation for these anomalies and their role in shaping Earth’s ability to support life. The...

Archaeologists have unearthed 400,000-year-old heated sediments and fire-cracked flint handaxes alongside two fragments of pyrite — a mineral used in later periods to strike sparks with flint — at Barnham, Suffolk, the United Kingdom. The discovery shows humans were making fire around 350,000 years earlier than previously known. An artist’s impression of fire at Barnham around 400,000...