News
- Chemistry
Chemistry that works like Hermione’s magic handbag wins a 2025 chemistry Nobel
Richard Robson, Susumu Kitagawa and Omar Yaghi developed metal-organic frameworks, structures that can collect water from air, capture CO₂ and more.
- Artificial Intelligence
Biased online images train AI bots to see women as younger, less experienced
Age and gender bias in online images feeds into AI tools, revealing stereotypes shaping digital systems and hiring algorithms, researchers report.
- Climate
Antarctic krill eject more food when it’s contaminated with plastic
Antarctic krill don’t just sequester carbon in their poop; they also make carbon-rich pellets out of leftovers. But microplastics may throw a wrench in the works.
- Quantum Physics
Discoveries that enabled quantum computers win the Nobel Prize in physics
In the 1980s, John Clarke, Michel Devoret and John Martinis demonstrated quantum effects in an electric circuit, an advance that underlies today’s quantum computers.
- Animals
What the longest woolly rhino horn tells us about the beasts’ biology
A nearly 20,000-year-old woolly rhino horn reveals the extinct herbivores lived as long as modern-day rhinos, despite harsher Ice Age conditions.
- Health & Medicine
Finding immune cells that stop a body from attacking itself wins medicine Nobel
Shimon Sakaguchi discovered T-reg immune cells. Mary Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell identified the cells’ role in autoimmune disease.
- Health & Medicine
New oral GLP-1 drugs could offer more options for weight loss
GLP-1 injections use needles and require refrigeration. Pills that work in a similar way could be a cheaper, simpler solution.
- Microbes
To make a tasty yogurt, just add ants (and their microbes)
Spiking milk with live ants makes tangy traditional yogurt. Researchers have identified the ants' microbial pals and enzymes that help the process.
- Artificial Intelligence
AI-designed proteins test biosecurity safeguards
AI edits to the blueprints for known toxins can evade detection. Researchers are improving filters to catch these rare biosecurity threats.
- Plants
How dandelions rig the odds for catching upward gusts
New images reveal microstructures that, depending on how the wind blows, help give a dandelion seed lift-off or the grip needed to wait for a better breeze.
- Agriculture
A grapevine bacteria may help douse wildfire-tainted wine’s ashy aftertaste
Grape plant bacteria might help mitigate smoke taint in wine by breaking down chemicals that evoke an ashy taste.
- Physics
These parachutes unfurl thanks to the Japanese art of kirigami
Parachutes inspired by Japanese paper cutting unfurl automatically and fall more predictably than standard parachutes.
