Top science news headlines for the week 20

Monday, May 11
Earth Sciences
247

Deep beneath Swiss Alps, researchers trigger 8,000 tiny quakes in controlled test

Evolution
50

When uncertainty spikes, chasing rewards backfires and a more informed strategy pulls ahead

Social Sciences
14

Anonymous school tip lines reveal patterns in threats, mental health concerns among youth, study finds

Environment
41

Where scientists watch the forest breathe, findings uproot how people think about forest-atmosphere interactions

Paleontology & Fossils
124

What it would have been like to experience the dinosaur‑killing asteroid armageddon: A blow‑by‑blow account

Archaeology
35

Scurvy's skeletal fingerprint found in California's Late Holocene archaeological sites

Plants & Animals
42

Can plants hear? Latest research offers new insights

Tuesday, May 12
Plants & Animals
1952

Why are some people mosquito magnets? Clues are emerging

Cell & Microbiology
124

Wine's leftovers could help wean chicken farms off antibiotics

General Physics
468

Largest-ever survey of physicists puts Standard Model of cosmology under scrutiny

General Physics
1008

80 years after the Trinity nuclear test, scientists identify new molecule-trapping crystal formed in the blast

Archaeology
61

Why was an Egyptian mummy stuffed with a fragment of Homer's Iliad?

Social Sciences
13

How we feel political emotions in our bodies—and why this matters for democracy

Plants & Animals
8

Roots reveal climate adaptation as 284 plant varieties reshape water barrier

Wednesday, May 13
Archaeology
359

Neanderthal dentists used stone drills to treat cavities nearly 60,000 years ago, ancient molar suggests

Earth Sciences
33

Geologists in films are the good guys... but they often die

Archaeology
288

The first domesticated horses: 6,000 years of a complex story

Biotechnology
279

Fungus-powered farming delivers higher yields and better-tasting crops, says study

Archaeology
86

A history of containers, an ancient technology hundreds of thousands of years in the making

Cell & Microbiology
11

A marine-inspired sunscreen ingredient made by E. coli

Earth Sciences
23

Why heavier rain can mean less usable water as global warming intensifies

Thursday, May 14
Plants & Animals
391

Hairy new fish species discovered in the Great Barrier Reef

Astronomy
584

Webb discovers one of the universe's first galaxies

General Physics
320

String theory is uniquely derived from basic assumptions about the universe, physicists show

Mathematics
624

Mathematical analysis reveals a hidden 'golden rule' in abstract art

Plants & Animals
119

Autonomous underwater robot discovers hidden coral reef 'hotspots'

Environment
13

Building density, not trees, was strongest predictor of home loss in Los Angeles firestorms

Social Sciences
39

A child's environment may shape how their brain solves problems

Friday, May 15
Plants & Animals
785

Colonial roots may explain why North and Latin America treat wildlife differently

Evolution
1502

Why is almost everyone right-handed? The answer may lie in how we learned to walk

Optics & Photonics
760

Physicists create hybrid light-matter particles that interact strongly enough to compute

Economics & Business
8

Attracting young women to careers in construction

Nanophysics
23

Honey-like heat flow: A new heat transport regime discovered in ultrathin semiconductors

Earth Sciences
94

When La Niña lingers: Researchers uncover two mechanisms behind multi-year events

Cell & Microbiology
43

RNA's first letter may shape antiviral alarms, with A outpacing G

Saturday, May 16
Plants & Animals
277

Plasma treatment keeps cut flowers fresher for two weeks without chemicals

Environment
15

Multi-actor collaboration in integrated landscape approaches

Molecular & Computational biology
35

Common cancer protein may be therapeutic target, study finds

Archaeology
71

Medieval teeth open a new perspective on leprosy care and toxic medicine

Astronomy
60

First outbursting hot subdwarf binary discovered

Ecology
24

Lobster embryo microbiomes remain resilient in future ocean conditions, sequencing reveals

Environment
37

How the world can avoid millions going hungry when supply chains collapse

Sunday, May 17
Biotechnology
53

Fluorescent RNA sensor gets 10 times more sensitive for water safety

Astronomy
56

eROSITA discovers a 'changing-look' Seyfert galaxy

Cell & Microbiology
34

Hidden cell networks emerge in 3D as new nanoscopy tracks living bridges

Space Exploration
39

Falling space debris poses an escalating risk as spacecraft get stronger and more heat resistant

Planetary Sciences
111

New spacecraft will watch Earth's shield take the hit as solar storms come roaring in

Social Sciences
199

People overestimate how confident AI systems are in their responses, experiments reveal

Astronomy
149

Surrounded by stardust: Antarctic ice cores confirm Earth is accumulating iron-60 from local interstellar cloud