In 2016 while hiking on a hillside in Morocco, geologist Rowan Martindale saw something that made her stop in her tracks: a slab of sedimentary rock covered in a wrinkly texture reminiscent of elephant skin.  “I looked at the wrinkles and I was like, ‘These aren’t supposed to be in rocks like this. What the heck is going on?’” said Martindale, an associate professor at The University of Texas at Austin’s Jackson School of Geosciences. Rock textures hold clues about the geological activity that shaped them. To Martindale, these wrinkles in time were a textbook example of microbial mat fossils. They captured a teeming ...

New research suggests that exposure to intense wildfire smoke during pregnancy may be associated with increased likelihood of autism in children. The study, by researchers at UC Davis Health and UCLA, was published in the journal Environment International. The study of more than 8.6 million births in California is the largest to date examining how wildfire-specific air pollution may impact early neurodevelopment. Scientists combined detailed wildfire smoke data with state birth records from 2001 to 2019. They matched these with autism diagnoses from California ...

NYU researchers have found a “microbial signature” of pediatric Crohn's disease that differs from the makeup of gut bacteria in children with other gastrointestinal conditions, with Crohn’s patients harboring more pro-inflammatory bacteria and less protective bacteria. The study of recently diagnosed children, published in the journal Physiological Reports, also reveals different bacteria in those with more severe Crohn’s disease symptoms and activity. Crohn's disease is a chronic inflammatory disorder of the gastrointestinal tract, and rates of pediatric diagnoses have markedly grown over the ...

For more than a century, the American chestnut, once a dominant tree across eastern North American forests, has been devastated by an invasive fungal disease that killed billions of trees in the early 1900s. A new study published in Science shows that modern genomic tools can dramatically accelerate restoration while preserving the species’ ecological identity. The research demonstrates that genomic selection, a method widely used in agriculture and animal breeding, can predict disease resistance in chestnut trees using DNA data alone. By allowing breeders to identify promising seedlings before years of field testing, the approach shortens breeding ...

Astronomers have watched a dying star fail to explode as a supernova, instead collapsing into a black hole. The remarkable sighting is the most complete observational record ever made of a star’s transformation into a black hole, allowing astronomers to construct a comprehensive physical picture of the process. Combining recent observations of the star with over a decade of archival data, the astronomers confirmed and refined theoretical models of how such massive stars turn into black holes. The team found that the star failed to explode as a supernova at the end of its life; instead, the star’s core ...

An elephant’s trunk looks rugged, but it is also one of the most sensitive touch organs in the animal kingdom. New research reveals that this sensitivity is partly powered by whiskers whose material structure changes from base to tip. This unique property amplifies sensory signals, allowing elephants to feel their surroundings through their trunks with remarkable precision through material design alone. In mammals, whiskers – elongated keratin rods akin to stiff hairs – are especially sophisticated sensory tools. Although the keratin from which they are made cannot detect touch itself, whiskers are embedded in follicles surrounded by densely packed sensory ...

Astronomers have caught a massive star in the Andromeda Galaxy quietly dying, collapsing into a black hole without producing a supernova, leaving behind little more than a fading trace. The findings provide some of the strongest evidence yet that so-called “failed supernovae” can produce stellar-mass black holes. Near the end of their lives, massive stars can become unstable and swell in size, producing noticeable changes in brightness over timescales humans can observe. In many cases, these stars die in brilliant supernovae, which are extremely luminous and easy to detect. However, ...

China’s Yangtze River – in ecological decline for decades – is showing early signs of recovery following the introduction of a sweeping 10-year commercial fishing ban, researchers report. According to the findings, fish biomass has more than doubled, endangered species are rebounding, and the world’s largest river system may be beginning a cautious ecological comeback. Rapid economic development in China since the 1950s has resulted in severe declines in freshwater biodiversity in the Yangtze River, the largest and ...

After more than a century of devastation from deadly blight, the iconic American chestnut tree could be brought back from the brink of extinction thanks to novel genomic tools and carefully bred hybrids, a new study finds. The study included experiments that suggest that breeding trees with an average of 70 to 85% American chestnut ancestry can result in trees with significant levels of blight and root rot resistance. The demise of the American chestnut tree is among the most striking examples of how ...

Scientists have identified a crucial mechanism that allows plants to shape their vascular systems, determining whether they grow soft edible storage organs or develop the rigid woody tissue characteristic of trees. Published today in Science, research led by the University of Cambridge and University of Helsinki, reveals the regulatory dynamics that guide xylem formation, offering new insights into how plants build both structural and storage tissues. Understanding how plants fine-tune their vascular development offers a promising path for future work aimed at optimising growth traits that ...

In 2014, a NASA telescope observed as the infrared light emitted by a massive star in the Andromeda galaxy gradually grew brighter. The star glowed more intensely with infrared light for around three years before fading dramatically and disappearing, leaving behind a shell of dust. Although a telescope captured the phenomenon at the time, it took years for scientists to notice it. Now, a research team led by Kishalay De, a Columbia astronomy professor, has an explanation of what they saw: It was a star collapsing and giving birth to a black hole—an event that ...

Some genetic mutations that are expected to completely stop a gene from working surprisingly cause only mild or even no symptoms. Researchers in previous studies have discovered one reason why: cells can ramp up the activity of other genes that perform similar functions to make up for the loss of an important gene’s function. A new study from the lab of Whitehead Institute Member Jonathan Weissman now reveals insights into how cells can coordinate this compensation response. Cells are constantly reading instructions stored in DNA. These instructions, called genes, tell them how to make the many proteins that carry out complex processes needed to sustain life. ...

The Yangtze River Basin, a global biodiversity hotspot, has endured severe ecological degradation over several decades due to intense human activity, leading to a marked decline in aquatic biodiversity. In order to halt this 70-year trend, the Chinese government instituted a comprehensive 10-year fishing ban on the Yangtze River in 2021. The initial effects of the ban have now been evaluated. In a recent study, researchers led by Prof. CHEN Yushun from the Institute of Hydrobiology (IHB) of the Chinese ...

Amsterdam, 12 February 2026 – An international research team of Amsterdam UMC, VU LaserLab, the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience and the University of Edinburgh have gained new insights into the dynamics of myelin swellings in the brain. Myelin swellings are considered as the precursor of lesions in the brain of people with multiple sclerosis (MS). The results have been recently published in the leading magazine Science. MS is characterised by lesions in the brain and the spinal cord. Aside from these inflammations, damage can also be visible in the myelin; the protective layer surrounding nerve ...

Many Vile Earthlings Munch Jam Sandwiches Under Newspapers and My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nachos. What sounds like gibberish half-sentences are memory aids taught to children to help remember the order of the planets in our Solar System: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. The eight familiar planets can be sorted into two different types: rocky and gaseous. The inner planets that are closest to the Sun – Mercury to Mars – are rocky, and the outer planets – Jupiter to Neptune – are gaseous. This general pattern, ...

New research has found that we are more likely to back policies aimed at tackling climate change when we feel fearful – but feelings of dread make us less likely to support such policies. Published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, the study is the first to investigate if incidental state emotions, referring to how people are feeling in that moment, can predict people’s belief in climate change, their willingness to behave pro-environmentally and to support policies to address climate change. Led by a team of researchers from Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) in Cambridge, England, the study involved 418 ...

Researchers at Oxford University and the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute) are proposing a new way to observe tightly bound supermassive black hole binaries. Formed naturally when galaxies merge, only widely separated systems have confidently been observed to date. In a paper published today in Physical Review Letters, the researchers suggest hunting down the hidden systems by searching for repeating flashes of light from individual stars lying behind the black holes as they are temporarily magnified by gravitational lensing as the binary ...

Embargoed until 8:30 AM PST, February 12, 2026        Novel AI Model Accurately Detects Placenta Accreta in Pregnancy Before Delivery, New Research Shows  Las Vegas, NV – A novel artificial intelligence (AI) model accurately detected the presence of placenta accreta spectrum (PAS), a dangerous pregnancy condition that often goes undetected with current screening methods, according to new research presented today at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine (SMFM) 2026 Pregnancy Meeting™.  PAS is a leading cause of maternal mortality and morbidity, but only half of all ...

The Interactions Collaboration has announced the winning images of the 2025 Global Physics Photowalk. These photographs transform the invisible frontier of particle physics — from a detector hunting for dark matter a few thousandths of a degree above absolute zero, to a deep-sea neutrino telescope studying violent astrophysical phenomena — into visual testaments that capture the beauty, precision and nature of humankind’s search to understand the universe.  Selected from hundreds of images submitted by more than 100 amateur and professional photographers across the U.S., Europe and Asia, the Global ...

Exercise does more than strengthen muscles; it also rewires the brain. In a study publishing February 12 in the Cell Press journal Neuron, researchers reveal that the lasting gain in endurance from repeated exercise—such as the ability to run farther and faster over time—involves changes in brain activity that help muscles and hearts to become stronger.   “A lot of people say they feel sharper and their minds are clearer after exercise,” says corresponding ...

About The Study: In this nationwide cohort of U.S. veterans with type 2 diabetes, semaglutide initiators had a 2-fold nonarteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (NAION) risk than sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitor initiators, while the absolute risk was low. Clinicians and patients should be counseled on the rare but evident increased risk of NAION after semaglutide initiation.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Jennifer S. Lee, MD, PhD, email jennifer.lee23@va.gov. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamaophthalmol.2025.6262) Editor’s ...

About The Study: The findings of this cohort study suggest that access to higher-level neonatal care is limited at rural birth hospitals, as less than 20% offered this care in 2022 vs 74% of urban hospitals. While rural hospitals are losing childbirth care capacity, urban birth hospitals are expanding higher-level neonatal care, accentuating geographic discrepancies in access to care for high-risk infants.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Katy B. Kozhimannil, PhD, MPA, email kbk@umn.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link ...

Our past experiences shape how much we eat and where and what we choose to eat. Using preclinical models, researchers from Mass General Brigham and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard have identified brain cells that translate contextual information into appetite control. The findings suggest that dysfunction in this brain circuit could be a factor in disordered eating and obesity, meaning that these neurons could be a new target for treatment. Results are published in Neuron. “We identified a neural circuit that is responsible for linking our prior experiences with ...

When the time is right, a good love song can make all the difference.  A study from the University of California, Davis, found that temperature affects the sound and quality of male frogs’ mating calls. In the colder, early weeks of spring, their songs start off sluggishly. In warmer weather, their songs pick up the pace, and female frogs take note.  Better songs not only make the males more attractive mates, but they also suggest to females that environmental conditions are suitable for reproduction.  “The song of frogs really depends on the temperature of the environment,” said lead ...

A new study has used ancient DNA to reveal that hunter-gatherers in Belgium, the Netherlands and nearby parts of Germany adapted to farming thousands of years later than elsewhere in Europe. It has also uncovered the pivotal role of women in the process.   The research, published in Nature, involved scientists from Bournemouth University (BU) and the University of Huddersfield and was led by David Reich ...