A team of astronomers led by University of Warwick’s Dr. Mark Hollands has converted white dwarf spectra into the colors a human eye would perceive. The cool white dwarf WD J1330+6435 has accreted sodium-rich rocky material from its planetary system into its atmosphere; the immense atmospheric density causes the sodium to absorb light over broad range of yellow, orange, and red wavelengths, giving...

On October 11, 2026, NASA’s Perseverance rover reached 45.22 km (28.1 miles), edging past the 45.16 km (28.06 miles) logged by NASA’s Opportunity rover, which explored Mars from 2004 to 2018. Perseverance crossed the line on the 2,006th Martian day, or sol, of its mission, with a 91.31-m (299.6-foot) drive. It covered the distance in about five and a half years, while Opportunity needed nearly...

Roughly 18,000 years ago, in what is now northern Ukraine, artists carved small female figurines from mammoth ivory and covered them with zigzags and meanders. New research suggests those designs were not purely invented, they appear to echo the natural patterns inside the tusk. Mizyn figurines. Image credit: Radchenko et al., doi: 10.1038/s40494-026-02988-5. “The study of Upper Paleolithic figurines...

A tiny piece of amber from Myanmar has captured a defensive maneuver that lizards still use today: shedding part of their tail to escape a predator. The fossil provides direct evidence that this defensive mechanism was already in operation in mid-Cretaceous forest ecosystems. General view of the amber piece from Myanmar, arrows highlighting the debris stuck to the initial resin flow at the level...

In a new review paper, Dr. Hannes Bonhoff of Lund University and Dr. Heikki Helanterä from the University of Oulu argue that the departing swarm represents the parent colony leaving with its queen, while afterswarms may allow it to produce multiple offspring. They also propose that a honeybee colony is not immortal but a lineage of mortal superorganisms, each with its own distinct life cycle. Western...

In ferromagnets, like a refrigerator magnet, atomic spins line up in the same direction. In antiferromagnets, neighboring spins point in opposite directions and cancel each other out. Now physicists reports experimental evidence for a material that blends features of both: a cobalt-intercalated tantalum diselenide (Co1/4TaSe2) that appears to be an altermagnet. Establishment of altermagnetic crystal...

Fucoidans — compounds found in the cell walls of brown seaweed — could one day help treat diseases driven by oxidative stress, though the substances are far from the pharmacy shelf. Fucoidans are structurally diverse, fucose-rich, sulfated polysaccharides derived mainly from brown seaweeds. Image credit: Ronile. Fucoidans are sulfated sugar-like molecules that seaweeds such as kelp and...

Bats make up more than one fifth of all living mammal species, yet where and when they first took to the air has been debated for decades. An analysis of 103 bat genomes points to the European continent as the birthplace of the only mammals capable of powered flight, overturning earlier theories that favored Africa, Asia or North America. The findings come from the Bat1K consortium, an international...

Zircon crystals and impact-altered minerals show that a massive asteroid slammed into what is now the Pilbara region of Western Australia about 3 billion years ago. The North Pole Dome crater: (A) simplified map of the East Pilbara Terrane (EPT, Western Australia), showing Paleoarchean granite domes (pink) and greenstone belts (greens and blues); the North Pole Dome (NPD) lies near the terrane center;...

Fucoidans — compounds found in the cell walls of brown seaweed — could one day help treat diseases driven by oxidative stress, though the substances are far from the pharmacy shelf. Fucoidans are structurally diverse, fucose-rich, sulfated polysaccharides derived mainly from brown seaweeds. Image credit: Ronile. Fucoidans are sulfated sugar-like molecules that seaweeds such as kelp and...