ScienceDaily

NASA’s Roman Space Telescope has successfully activated its 300-megapixel infrared camera, which will capture enormous stretches of the cosmos with Hubble-like sharpness. Its planet-hunting coronagraph is also working as expected, putting Roman another major step closer to beginning science operations in 2027.

A new needle-thin brain implant can record neural activity, deliver drugs, and stimulate multiple brain regions using a single flexible fiber. Successful tests in mice suggest it could give scientists a more precise, less invasive way to study the brain and may eventually help treat neurological disorders such as epilepsy.

Scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed a surprisingly simple way to turn polyethylene, the common plastic used in shopping bags and cutting boards, into gasoline and diesel-like fuels. The process uses inexpensive aluminum-based molten salts to break long plastic molecules into smaller hydrocarbons, producing about 60% gasoline under relatively mild conditions.

Scientists have found evidence that black holes of vastly different sizes may launch powerful jets according to the same universal rule. Supermassive black holes can produce jets soon after tearing apart a star, then fire up again hundreds or thousands of days later when their feeding rate drops to about 2% of the Eddington limit. That same threshold is known to trigger jets from much smaller bla…

A large Amazon study suggests the most powerful conservation move may be protecting the forests that are already standing. Preventing damage from wildfires and logging delivered the greatest biodiversity benefits and nearly matched deforestation prevention for protecting carbon. Restoration remains important, particularly where forests have already been heavily cleared, but it was more expensive …

Chronic inflammation tied to stress, lifestyle, mental health, and socioeconomic conditions may silently change the heart for years before any symptoms appear. People with the highest inflammation levels faced a 43% greater risk of heart attack and stroke, raising hopes that earlier testing and anti-inflammatory treatments could help prevent serious heart disease.

Scientists have found that the human brain develops from two distinct cellular systems, suggesting that evolution fused together two ancient nervous systems with very different jobs. The discovery also allowed researchers to grow human hindbrain neurons in the lab, opening new possibilities for studying ALS, spinal muscular atrophy, and other brainstem diseases.

Physicists have put a decades-old idea about why the strange rules of quantum mechanics disappear in our everyday world to one of its toughest experimental tests yet. Deep beneath Italy’s Gran Sasso mountain, researchers searched for an extremely faint radiation signal predicted by a theory suggesting that tiny fluctuations in spacetime, caused by gravity, gradually destroy quantum superpositions…

A sweeping review of more than 153,000 adults found that calcium and vitamin D supplements, alone or together, do little to prevent fractures or falls in most older people. Researchers say the findings challenge routine supplementation for prevention and point instead toward strategies such as balance and resistance exercise.

A decade-long NIST experiment has produced a new measurement of the universal gravitational constant that differs unexpectedly from another leading result, deepening a 225-year-old physics puzzle. The discrepancy is tiny, but for one of nature’s most fundamental constants, it is large enough to keep scientists wondering whether hidden experimental errors or something more surprising is involved.

Common preservatives hiding in processed foods may carry unexpected heart risks, with heavy consumption linked to substantially higher rates of high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease. Researchers identified eight widely used preservatives associated with hypertension, although the observational study cannot prove they were directly responsible.

Researchers may have solved a long-running mystery surrounding the Dead Sea Scrolls by proposing that the Qumran sect really did use its distinctive 364-day calendar. Its perfectly ordered 52-week system kept holidays on the same weekdays, but it slowly drifted out of sync with the seasons because it was shorter than the true solar year.

Cats may identify one another through a surprisingly durable chemical “calling card” made from 13 unusual fatty acids in their urine. The compounds appear linked to mysterious fat droplets in the kidneys and may represent a scent-recognition system shared across the cat family.

Scientists have developed ultra-bright nanoparticles that can detect tiny amounts of chemicals and distinguish between molecules that look almost identical. The technology could one day provide a cheaper way to catch dangerous drug impurities or trace pollutants using simple low-cost lasers.

Ancient DNA reveals that plague repeatedly returned to Europe for more than 400 years after the Black Death, evolving into new lineages and spreading through trade, migration, and war. Researchers also developed a method to date ancient plague genomes more precisely, linking many of them to specific outbreaks recorded in historical sources.