News Desk

Advanced artificial intelligence is to revolutionise fundamental physics and could open a window on to the fate of the universe, according to Cern’s next director general.

A study on rats found that administering 2,5-dimethoxy-4-iodoamphetamine before giving them an opportunity to take heroin reduced their motivation to do so…The study also identified a specific type of receptor on neural cells that is crucial for this effect. The paper was published in Neuropharmacology.

Cephalopods may have the oldest sex chromosomes of any animal, according to a new discovery in the octopus genome. That’s a big deal, given that scientists didn’t know until now if these oddball creatures even had a form of sex determination written into their genes. The research is published in Current Biology.

Piecing together fragments of the world’s earliest known rune stone shows they fit together like a jigsaw puzzle and may have been separated intentionally, shedding light on the varied pragmatic and ritual aspects of early Germanic rune stones. See the research here.

Strange, flat patches on the teeth of ancient Europeans have puzzled archaeologists for centuries. But one researcher thinks he’s solved the mystery: Ice age people as young as 10 years old rocked cheek piercings. The study was published Jan. 23 in the Journal of Paleolithic Archaeology.

The idea of lightsails is something out of science fiction. As early as the 1950s and ‘60s, science fiction writers John Campbell, Arthur C. Clarke and others were toying with the idea of “solar sails” for spacecraft propulsion…Project researchers report in a paper published in Nature Photonics that they have developed a platform to test the materials that could one day form lightsails.

Sheep have been intertwined with human livelihoods for over 11,000 years. As well as meat, their domestication led to humans being nourished by their protein-rich milk and clothed by warm, water-resistant fabrics made from their wool. The findings are published in the journal Science.

Scientists have found all five nucelobases alongisde minerals essential for life as we know it on the potentially hazardous asteroid Bennu. The two teams of researchers who made the discoveries published their findings Jan. 29 in two papers in the journal Nature Astronomy.

The focus of the prospecting campaign was on an area that during the Pleistocene housed a large lake, now completely dried up, with ancient wadis or dry riverbeds crossing the landscape. Egberts collected over 850 artifacts, ranging from very old hand axes from the Early or Old Paleolithic to Levallois reduction flakes from the Middle Paleolithic, all surface material.

A review of the oldest known dinosaurs has revealed that fossil evidence for their origin probably has not yet been discovered. Most of the earliest dinosaur fossils have been found in South America and Africa.

A new study reveals that what lies beneath the lunar surface may be more dynamic than previously believed.

Researchers are investigating who — or what — cut ancient tunnels in sandstone in Brazil and nearby nations.

Footprints measuring 92cm in width found in Mongolia have raised the prospect of an as yet undiscovered skeleton of the largest bipedal dinosaur ever.

I’m a historian of fire, and my reply is that we have both a narrative and an analog. The narrative is the unbroken saga of humanity and fire, a companionship that extends through all our existence as a species. The analog is that humanity’s fire practices have become so vast, especially in recent centuries, that we are creating the fire equivalent of an ice age.

As described in a study published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, researchers have collected further evidence of 2024 PT5 being of local origin: It appears to be composed of rock broken off from the moon’s surface and ejected into space after a large impact.

When modern humans journeyed out of Africa, a rapid evolution in their red blood cells may have helped them survive — but it may have also led to the eventual disappearance of Neanderthals, a new study finds.