Planets are supposed to form alongside their stars, but new research suggests that planets may also be born later, from the debris of a dying star, and one such unique alien world may be sitting very close to HS 0209+0832, a hot, young white dwarf located 270 light-years away in the constellation of Cetus. An artist’s impression of the planet HS 0209+0832b. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Leah Hustak,...

A new analysis of orbital and lander data from Mars suggests the exposed north-polar water ice contains less than 3% dust, far below earlier estimates of up to 25%. Map of the six north polar locations analyzed by P. Mohan & A.R. Khuller, where water ice is exposed at the Martian surface. Image credit: P. Mohan & A.R. Khuller, doi: 10.1038/s44453-026-00054-9. Planetary scientists learn about...

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...

CT scans of a fossil found near Cairo show the animal was not a relative of the false gharial (Tomistoma schlegelii), as paleontologists long thought. The Sphinx was carved from the same rock formation that yielded the Herugavialis cairensis fossil, and both are missing the tip of the nose. Image credit: Karim Zanaty. “The gavialid crocodylian, Tomistoma is represented by one extant species, Tomistoma...

New research led by the University of Chicago found that nations with more domestic cats tended to report higher levels of happiness, while greater exposure to Toxoplasma gondii, a neuroparasite associated with cats, was linked to lower scores. The study authors caution that the findings show associations, not cause and effect. Borráz-León et al. found that national happiness was positively associated...

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...

A long-running British trial has found that people who drank diet beverages while trying to lose weight kept the pounds off about as well as those who drank only water. The SWITCH trial assessed the equivalence of NNS beverages — specifically those containing aspartame, acesulfame potassium (acesulfame‑K), and sucralose — and water in aiding weight loss and subsequent weight management...

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;...

A long-running British trial has found that people who drank diet beverages while trying to lose weight kept the pounds off about as well as those who drank only water. The SWITCH trial assessed the equivalence of NNS beverages — specifically those containing aspartame, acesulfame potassium (acesulfame‑K), and sucralose — and water in aiding weight loss and subsequent weight management...