A cubic meter of lunar soil might be one of our best bets for finding physical proof that another advanced civilization once existed somewhere in the Milky Way, according to a new paper to be published in the International Journal of Astrobiology. Pinault et al. propose searching the Moon for microscopic technosignatures — tiny engineered particles that may have traveled through interstellar...

After nearly eight years and billions of kilometers of travel, BepiColombo — a science mission led by ESA in close collaboration with JAXA — has begun its long-awaited arrival at the smallest and innermost planet in our Solar System. An artist’s impression of the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo spacecraft in cruise configuration, with Mercury in the background. On its 7.2 year journey to the innermost...

Long before Europeans arrived, cacao (Theobroma cacao) may have traveled far beyond its Central and South American homeland to reach Etowah, a major Mississippian-period city in what is now Georgia. An artist’s conception of Etowah, a Mississippian culture site located on the banks of the Etowah River in Bartow County, Georgia. Image credit: Herb Roe / Sci.News. “For decades archaeologists, historians,...

Scientists have identified the first dinosaur fossil from a remote western section of the Bayan Gobi Formation in China’s Inner Mongolia, extending the known geographic range of dinosaur fossils in this important Early Cretaceous rock unit. The 208GPV01 fossil from the Bayan Gobi Formation in the Yin’gen-Ejinaqi Basin, China. Image credit: Li et al., doi: 10.1016/j.hisbio.2026.100044. The new...

A horned owl living in a narrow strip of high-Andean grassland in northern Peru is a species new to science, according to a paper published in July 2026 in the journal Audiornis. The Jalca horned owl (Bubo jalca). Image credit: López-Lanús et al. The newly described owl species belongs to the genus Bubo, a group that includes over 10 species of American horned owls and Old World eagle-owls. Named...

When two black holes merge, the resulting object rings like a struck bell, radiating gravitational waves that fade in a distinctive pattern called ringdown. According to general relativity, this pattern should depend only on the merged black hole’s mass and spin. But if a black hole carries extra structure — often called ‘hair’ — from surrounding dark matter, exotic fields, or modified...

In a study of 2,266 workers in Finland, evening-type people, or night owls, were up to three times more likely to be treated for depression or anxiety than morning types, with poor work-life balance identified as a key contributing factor. Merikanto et al. showed that evening-types had more issues regarding work spillover to personal life and poor recovery from work and that these factors moderated...

For several decades, paleontologists have described Miracinonyx trumani — an extinct species of cheetah-like felid that roamed the North American prairies and steppe terrains more than 13,000 years ago — as North America’s answer to the African cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus). New research led by the University of California, Santa Cruz suggests the picture was largely wrong. Miracinonyx...

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;...

Biologists studying how bacteria break down a new generation of plant-based bioplastics — long-chain aliphatic polyesters — have discovered an enzyme that can dismantle both plastic and antibiotics. SEM images of LCAP films incubated undisturbed for more than a year in pristine forest soil. The arrow in panel (d) points at an object inside of such a cavity that might represent a (damaged)...