Astronomers using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope have detected the most deuterium-rich methane ever measured in the Solar System, hinting that the interstellar visitor’s ices formed in a cold, distant, low-metallicity environment. Hubble captured this image of 3I/ATLAS on July 21, 2025, when the comet was 446 million km (277 million miles) from Earth. Image credit: NASA / ESA / David...

Hydrogen chloride (HCl) gas was seen during Mars’ cold aphelion season, when none was expected; the detection is best explained by ongoing igneous processes in the Martian interior. A stunning view of Mars from the north pole to the equator. Alba Mons is a vast shield volcano in the center of the image. Image credit: ESA / DLR / FU Berlin / CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO. Mars is widely considered to be volcanically...

Some of the oldest drawings known to humanity, made roughly 37,000 years ago in France’s Chauvet Cave, are covered by a thin, translucent film of calcite that cannot be seen with the naked eye. Scientists from Sorbonne Université and the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) have now found a way to detect it from a distance, without touching the walls. The Horses panel in Chauvet...

A new species of extinct megapode bird — a ground-dwelling relative of the chicken that was several times heavier than its living cousin — has been identified from a single fragment of leg bone found in a cave on the Indonesian island of Flores. Megapodius rokusi (left) next to Megapodius reinwardt (right). Image credit: Davin Arya Nirwasita. The newly described species belongs to the...

A new study led by the University of Cambridge challenges the long-standing idea that comets helped kick-start life on our home planet, suggesting that the icy bodies were largely unable to deliver the concentrated chemical ingredients needed for prebiotic chemistry. An artist’s impression of cometary impact. Image credit: Scarlett White. “Historically, scientists thought that comets were important...

Physicists with the LHCb Collaboration at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider announced today evidence for an extremely rare particle decay that scientists have chased for more than four decades, and their result agrees with the Standard Model of particle physics. The LHCb magnet. Image credit: CERN. “What we found in these latest results is an incredibly rare decay of one of these beauty particles,...

Scientists have identified a receptor on sensory nerves that appears to detect a fatty-acid byproduct found at high levels in psoriasis skin, and blocking it eased itch and skin thickening in mice. Wheeler et al. identify a metabolic- to-sensory axis in which EKODE, an endogenous dietary linoleic acid derivative, acts as a potent ligand for the G protein-coupled receptor 35 (Gpr35) to drive chronic...

Humans and chimpanzees share more than 96% of their protein-coding DNA, yet human brains are roughly three times larger and far more complex. New research led by Lund University scientists suggests that part of the explanation may lie in a viral infection that struck chimpanzee ancestors millions of years ago and never reached ours. Gerdes et al. show that LINC00662, a human-specific transcript expressed...

Zircon crystals and impact-altered minerals show that a massive asteroid slammed into what is now the Pilbara region of Western Australia about 3 billion years ago. The North Pole Dome crater: (A) simplified map of the East Pilbara Terrane (EPT, Western Australia), showing Paleoarchean granite domes (pink) and greenstone belts (greens and blues); the North Pole Dome (NPD) lies near the terrane center;...

Few people enjoy their first sip of coffee, yet millions come to crave it. Scientists at the University of California, San Francisco, say they have identified part of the reason: a slow dopamine signal that runs from the gut to the brain and teaches us to like foods that make us feel good. Their findings appear today in the journal Nature. Grove et al. identify a dopamine pathway that enables learning...