Astronomers using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope have uncovered an unprecedented richness of small gas-phase hydrocarbons — such as benzene, triacetylene, diacetylene, acetylene, methane and methyl radical — in the deeply obscured nucleus of the ultra-luminous infrared galaxy IRAS 07251-0248, which is located in the constellation of Monoceros. Hydrocarbons play a key role...

Known non-biological sources, from meteorites to surface chemistry, fall short of accounting for organic compounds detected by NASA’s Curiosity rover, according to a new study published in the journal Astrobiology. This graphic shows the long-chain organic molecules decane, undecane, and dodecane, and NASA’s Curiosity rover. Image credit: NASA / Dan Gallagher. In 2025, planetary scientists reported...

Technological innovations in Africa and Western Europe in the later part of the Middle Pleistocene signal the behavioral complexity of hominin populations. Yet, at the same time, it has long been believed that hominin technologies in Eastern Asia lack signs of innovation and sophistication. Archaeologists have now uncovered evidence of technological innovations at the site of Xigou in China’s Henan...

The detection of chitin in an Olenellus trilobite from the Carrara Formation (514.5 to 506.5 million years ago) of California, the United States, not only demonstrates that this structural polymer might be able to survive in arthropod fossils longer than previously confirmed, but also hints that sedimentary rocks may play an unrecognized role in locking away organic carbon over geological time. A...

The consistent performance of Kanzi the bonobo in pretend play experiments suggests that the mental capacity to imagine nonexistent objects may trace back 6 to 9 million years, rewriting assumptions about the uniqueness of human imagination. Kanzi the bonobo. Image credit: Ape Initiative. “It really is game-changing that their mental lives go beyond the here and now,” said Dr. Christopher Krupenye,...

Physicists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst argue that an ultra-high-energy neutrino detected by the KM3NeT experiment could be the signature of an explosion of a ‘quasi-extremal primordial black hole,’ pointing toward new physics beyond the Standard Model. The KM3NeT experiment has recently observed a neutrino with an energy around 100 PeV, and IceCube has detected five neutrinos with...

Wild blueberries (Vaccinium angustifolium) are North American perennial plants rich in polyphenols, including flavonoids, beneficial to human health. A new paper published in the journal Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition provides a summary of the evidence and perspectives presented at an expert symposium that focused on wild blueberries and cardiometabolic health. Vaccinium angustifolium....

The woolly rhinoceros (Coelodonta antiquitatis) is a cold-adapted herbivore that went extinct around 14,000 years ago, but little is known about their population decline prior to extinction. In new research, scientists from the Centre for Palaeogenetics and Stockholm University generated a high-coverage genome from one of the last known woolly rhinoceros remains, which was recovered from the stomach...

Two immense, ultrahot rock structures located at the base of Earth’s mantle, around 2,900 km beneath Africa and the Pacific, have been shaping Earth’s magnetic field for millions of years, according to a new study led by University of Liverpool’s Professor Andy Biggin. Two enormous blobs of solid, superheated material located at the base of Earth’s mantle affect the underlying liquid outer...

The consistent performance of Kanzi the bonobo in pretend play experiments suggests that the mental capacity to imagine nonexistent objects may trace back 6 to 9 million years, rewriting assumptions about the uniqueness of human imagination. Kanzi the bonobo. Image credit: Ape Initiative. “It really is game-changing that their mental lives go beyond the here and now,” said Dr. Christopher Krupenye,...