Jan 9th, 2026 - As avian flu continues to circulate among wild birds in Massachusetts, a flock of backyard chickens in Dukes County got infected and was euthanized , state health officials said. The chickens "exhibited clinical signs" of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza, or HPAI, also known as bird flu, and tested positive for the disease, the state Department of Agricultural Resources said in Jan. 6 a statement. Health officials "safely depopulated and disposed" of the flock, the agency said in a statement. The department did not specify where the birds were located, or if they were a domestic or ... [Read More]

Jan 9th, 2026 - Natu re reinforces the idea that Homo sapiens originated in Africa. This is based on a set of fossils unearthed in a Moroccan cave that date to 773,000 years ago, just around the time when our evolutionary family tree split into what would become Homo sapiens, Neanderthals, and Denisovans. The cave itself, known as Grotte à Hominidés, is located in Casablanca. It looks like it was more of a hangout for predators than a place where early Homo sapiens ever lived. Originally excavated in 1969, it's been an on-again, off-again hub of archaeological digging. CNN reports, Scientists ... [Read More]

Jan 9th, 2026 - Sky This Week is brought to you in part by Celestron. Friday, January 9 Mars is in conjunction with the Sun at 7 A.M. EST, invisible in our sky until mid-March.   The bright moon Titan lies near its parent world, Saturn, in the evening sky tonight. The largest of the ringed planet's moons, Titan is the only other solar system world known to host liquid on its surface, though its lakes and seas consist of hydrocarbons (like ethane and methane), not water.  The second-largest moon in the solar system after Ganymede, Titan is bigger than the planet Mercury and shines around magnitude ... [Read More]

Jan 8th, 2026 - By From the ones with tap dancing feet to those that like to go off on adventures, penguins have a special place in popular culture. Though, we don't only love seeing them in animated flicks. We're just as fascinated seeing photos and videos of them in real life, or catching a glance of them at the zoo. Recently, people are amazed at a video of a penguin who looks like they belong in a movie. The @bbcearth TikTok gave audiences a glimpse at a penguin with a rare genetic mutation. It causes this penguin to be a stark white color, and as @bbcearth mentioned in the post caption, this is "one of ... [Read More]

Jan 8th, 2026 - Researchers working on China's 'artificial sun' have reported breaking a long-accepted threshold that has limited the operation of nuclear-fusion reactors for decades. China's Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) is a nuclear-fusion research reactor in Hefei. Researchers hope that it will one day produce clean, nearly limitless energy by replicating the fusion processes that power the Sun. In fusion reactors, light-weight atoms are compressed under extreme pressure and heat to form heavier atoms. This process releases energy, but it must be optimized carefully so that the ... [Read More]

Jan 8th, 2026 - A bipartisan group of United States senators introduced a bill Thursday (Jan. 8) that would extend the National Quantum Initiative (NQI) by five years and expand its activities. The NQI was enacted in 2018 and has supported the U.S. quantum ecosystem, the emergence of dozens of venture-backed quantum startups and the growth of a broader national industry that spans quantum computing, networking and sensing, according to a press release issued Thursday by the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation . Quantum computing harnesses the properties of quantum mechanics to perform ... [Read More]

Jan 8th, 2026 - When a baby smiles at you, it's almost impossible not to smile back. This spontaneous reaction to a facial expression is part of the back-and-forth that allows us to understand each other's emotions and mental states. Faces are so important to social communication that we've evolved specialized brain cells just to recognize them, as Rockefeller University's Winrich Freiwald has discovered. It's just one of a suite of groundbreaking findings the scientist has made in the past decade that have greatly advanced the neuroscience of face perception. Now he and his team in the Laboratory of Neural ... [Read More]

Jan 8th, 2026 - The updated bill text adds multiple federal hubs to fund workforce growth and quantum technology research and development, as industry leaders hope for swift passage. On Thursday, Sens. Todd Young, R-Ind., and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., introduced the National Quantum Initiative Reauthorization Act to praise from industry leaders. The National Quantum Initiative Act was initially signed into law by President Donald Trump during his first term in office in 2018. It expired in 2023, and efforts to reauthorize the program have since fallen short of passage. The new legislation would extend the ... [Read More]