Using the upgraded GRAVITY+ instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI), astronomers have measured the ratio of carbon isotopes in the atmosphere of the young exoplanet Beta Pictoris b, offering new insights into how giant planets form. This artist’s impression shows how the gas giant exoplanet inside the disc of Beta Pictoris may look. Image credit: L. Calçada / ESO. Frist...

On July 5, 2026, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Hayabusa-2 spacecraft completed the first asteroid encounter of its extended mission, flying past the two-lobed near-Earth asteroid Torifune and returning its close-up visible and thermal images. This image of the near-Earth asteroid Torifune was captured with the ONC-T instrument aboard JAXA’s Hayabusa-2 spacecraft on July 5, 2026. Image...

Üçağızlı II Cave on Türkiye’s Mediterranean coast has yielded a rare and detailed record of two Homo species living the same way of life, one after the other, over more than 20,000 years, offering new evidence that the transition from Neanderthals to modern humans in the region was far more culturally seamless than previously understood. A group of Neanderthals in a cave. Image credit: Tyler...

Paleontologists in China have described a small, previously unknown Jurassic bird whose short tail offers new evidence for how the earliest birds traded their long, dinosaur-like tails for the compact tailbone that helps living birds fly. Life reconstruction of Zhengheornis buyu. Image credit: Chung-Tat Cheung. Modern birds are unique among vertebrates in having a short tail capped by a fused clump...

In an analysis of 390 traditionally cultivated cacao trees representing traditional Amazonian varieties, researchers identified four previously unknown genetic lineages, with two showing ancestry linked to exceptional flavor potential and offering new opportunities for growers and chocolate makers. Motilal et al. collected cacao samples from eight departments of Peru. Image credit: Fernando Graniel. Cacao...

Physicists with LHCb Collaboration at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have detected the elusive Ωcc⁺ baryon, a particle containing two charm quarks and one strange quark, completing a long-sought family of doubly charmed baryons first predicted over half a century ago. An artist’s impression of the doubly charmed Ωcc⁺ baryon. Image credit: Daniel Dominguez / CERN. “Quarks are basic...

People who naturally stay up late may be more prone to obesity and poorer metabolic health in part because they consume more of their daily calories late in the evening, according to a new study of women of European and Pacific ancestry in New Zealand. van der Merwe et al. assessed whether chronotype is associated with dietary intake (energy; nutrients), meal timing, body composition markers, and...

In an analysis of 390 traditionally cultivated cacao trees representing traditional Amazonian varieties, researchers identified four previously unknown genetic lineages, with two showing ancestry linked to exceptional flavor potential and offering new opportunities for growers and chocolate makers. Motilal et al. collected cacao samples from eight departments of Peru. Image credit: Fernando Graniel. Cacao...

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;...

Üçağızlı II Cave on Türkiye’s Mediterranean coast has yielded a rare and detailed record of two Homo species living the same way of life, one after the other, over more than 20,000 years, offering new evidence that the transition from Neanderthals to modern humans in the region was far more culturally seamless than previously understood. A group of Neanderthals in a cave. Image credit: Tyler...