Neuroscie
Brain’s Parenting Hub Redirects Care Toward Peers
Summary: Why do we feel compelled to help a stranger in distress? According to a new study, the answer lies in our ancient “parenting machinery.” Researchers discovered that the same…
Healing Without the Hallucinations: The Next Generation of Psilocybin Therapy
Summary: While psilocybin is hailed as a breakthrough for depression and anxiety, many patients remain wary of the intense “trips” associated with the drug. Now, researchers have engineered modified versions…
Teen Aggression Speeds Up Aging
Summary: Adolescence is often a time of social friction, but a new longitudinal study reveals that these early behavioral patterns have deep physical consequences. Following 121 individuals from age 13…
Cocaine Addiction is a Biological Rewiring, Not a Choice
Summary: Relapse isn’t a failure of willpower—it’s a biological “rewiring” of the brain. A new study reveals how chronic cocaine use hijacks the connection between the brain’s reward center and…
Life
Nature
Newfound bat skeletons are the oldest on record
Two fossilized bat skeletons unearthed in western Wyoming represent a new species and are the oldest set of bat bones yet discovered, researchers say. The incredibly complete fossils of Icaronycteris…
Astronomy
Asteroid 2024 YR4 was Earth’s first real-life defense test
Artist’s depiction of an asteroid floating in space. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, N. Bartmann (ESA/Webb), Martin Kornmesser (ESA), Serge Brunier (ESO), Nick Risinger (Photopic Sky Survey) At this point in…
How do you fire someone into the sun?
Firing our villain straight at the Sun results in a big miss. Credit: Michael Brown, CC BY To point a rocket directly at the sun and hit would require great…
Cosmic ray puzzle resolved as scientists link ‘knee’ formation to black holes
LHAASO experiment. Credit: LHAASO Collaboration Milestone results released by the Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory (LHAASO) on November 16 have solved a decades-old mystery about the cosmic ray energy…
If the supernova standard candle is wrong, it could solve the Hubble tension
An illustration showing how Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAOs) expand with the universe. Credit: Gabriela Secara, Perimeter Institute CC-BY-4.0 Last time I wrote about new data that overturns the standard cosmological…
