Plants & Animals

New species of mountain horned dragon identified in Thailand's high-altitude forests

Scientists have described a new species of lizard from the high mountain forests of western Thailand and have given it a name straight out of an American fantasy drama television series: Acanthosaura syrax, named after Syrax, ...

Astronomy

Slow spin could explain why planets become hellish

Hundreds of Venus-like planets could soon help determine why some worlds become sweltering greenhouse hellscapes while others remain capable of supporting life. But before answering that question, scientists first need to ...

AI and electrolyte engineering open new paths for better batteries

Cornell researchers are using artificial intelligence to speed the search for better battery materials while using a creative approach to chemistry to expand the design space for electrolytes, unlocking new possibilities ...

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Tech Xplore

Early snakes explored life underground, on land and at sea

Snakes are highly modified lizards, with more than 4,000 living species today. The origin of snakes has long been one of evolutionary biology's most debated questions. Their sparse fossil record has made it hard to pin down ...

Tiny particles defy action-reaction symmetry to stay in motion

From schools of fish and flocks of birds to microscopic synthetic particles, many systems in nature and the laboratory consist of individual units or agents that move by consuming energy. These systems are known as active ...

El Niño alters marine life in the Pacific

As of June 2026, El Niño has officially arrived. This naturally recurring phenomenon is characterized by warmer-than-normal water temperatures in parts of the equatorial Pacific, along with changes to atmospheric and oceanic ...

Helping students be better organized

Children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) often struggle with executive functions—tasks involving managing their time, completing their homework, turning in assignments and planning for upcoming projects. ...

What's the beef with plant-based meat?

Meat eaters view plant-based meat as riskier and offering less value than conventional meat, regardless of how it is marketed, according to new Adelaide University research.

Greenland glacier break creates new ice island

An international research team partly led by the University of Ottawa reports that Petermann Glacier in northwest Greenland calved a 76.4 km² (29.5 square miles) ice island on Aug. 4, 2026, marking the glacier's largest loss ...

The asteroid that may be three worlds

What shape is an asteroid? For (44) Nysa, the honest answer until now has been that nobody knew. It is one of the brightest and largest E-type asteroids in the main belt, a class with a surface rich in enstatite, and its ...

Brain activity reveals the melodies that people imagine

In a study led by Jii Kwon and Chun Kee Chung of Seoul National University, researchers explored whether they could recreate melodies from the brain activity of people who imagined how songs continue after listening to a ...

Could we send a spacecraft to a black hole?

Black holes represent some of the most extreme environments in the universe. They are the sources of the strongest gravitational fields, allowing us to test Einstein's theory of general relativity to an extent impossible ...

Are we missing alien lighthouses?

Searching for extraterrestrial intelligence has so far primarily meant focusing on one particular type of signal—and that signal has normally been based on our own current cutting-edge technology. But what if that's the wrong ...

Are aliens harvesting the spin of stars?

One of the challenges of searching for technosignatures (i.e., signs that intelligent life somewhere in the universe has created technology) is understanding what to look for. Technology is a very broad area, and different ...

French firefighters face 'pyrocumulonimbus' for first time

The gigantic wildfire ravaging southwestern France has created an extremely dangerous "pyrocumulonimbus"—a phenomenon never before seen in the country—the spokesman for the country's National Firefighters Federation of France ...