Dec 26th, 2025 - By studying rare meteorites, scientists are uncovering which asteroids might someday fuel humanity's expansion into space. Scientists are assessing the makeup of carbon-rich asteroids to see whether they could one day fuel space exploration—or even be mined for valuable resources. For long duration missions to the Moon and Mars, using materials found in space could significantly reduce the need for supplies launched from Earth. However, improved identification and classification is required to track asteroids altered by water and rich in water bearing minerals. What are asteroids ... [Read More]

Dec 26th, 2025 - NSLLM bridges LLMs and neuroscience Large language models (LLMs) have become crucial tools in the pursuit of artificial general intelligence (AGI). However, as the user base expands and the frequency of usage increases, deploying these models incurs significant computational and memory costs, limiting their potential to serve as foundational infrastructure for human society. Moreover, current LLMs generally lack interpretability: their opaque decision-making and optimization processes make it challenging to ensure reliability and fairness in high-risk domains such as healthcare and finance. ... [Read More]

Dec 25th, 2025 - Lucy's position in the history of human evolution is currently being challenged. The Lucy fossil species, or Australopithecus afarensis, was long believed to be an ancestor species that humans directly descended from. Although there's been debate, there was never enough evidence to dismiss Lucy's significance until recently. New research published in the journal Nature last month has put forth a strong argument against Lucy. The scientists found evidence to support the claim that an older species, Australopithecus anamensis, was the direct human ancestor and not Lucy. This shift in human ... [Read More]

Dec 24th, 2025 - It's quick and easy to access Live Science Plus, simply enter your email below. We'll send you a confirmation and sign you up for our daily newsletter, keeping you up to date with the latest science news. Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Flipboard Join the conversation Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter A distant exoplanet appears to sport a sooty atmosphere that is confusing the scientists who recently spotted it. The Jupiter-size world, detected by the James Webb Space Telescope ( JWST ), doesn't have the familiar helium-hydrogen combination we are used ... [Read More]

Dec 24th, 2025 - A new theory of "dark photons" attempted to explain a centuries-old experiment in a new way this year, in an effort to change our understanding of the nature of light A core tenet of quantum theory was imperilled this year when a team of researchers put forward a radical new interpretation of an experiment about the nature of light. At the centre of the new work was the double-slit experiment, which was first conducted in 1801 by physicist Thomas Young, who used it to confirm that light acts like a wave. Classically, something that is a particle can never also be a wave, and vice versa, but ... [Read More]

Dec 24th, 2025 - How centuries of human pressure quietly reshaped a rare brown bear Bears are one of the big victims of deforestation. As more and more forests get cut down, bears keep retreating to remote corners, keeping their distance from people. In a small stretch of central Italy, however, bears have followed a different path. A new genetic study suggests that Apennine brown bears have gradually become less aggressive over thousands of years of living alongside people. Rather than retreating entirely from human activity, this isolated population appears to have adapted to it. The research, published in ... [Read More]

Dec 24th, 2025 - A star is born out of a giant cloud of gas and dust collapsing under its own gravity. As gravity pulls the gassy material inwards, some material is left swirling around the star. Over time, the momentum of the spinning material flattens it into the shape of a pizza-like disk, often called a protoplanetary disk. If all this makes it look like it's just a giant cookie of gassy debris, then you're incorrect. These celestial disks don't just offer a cradle for the star to be born, but also become material reservoirs for the future planetary births. Colder temperatures around the disk cause them ... [Read More]

Dec 24th, 2025 - Picture the cosmos as a grand fashion show and the celestial objects as models walking in their orbits. As moments pass, every model changes its costumes depending on its positioning and other factors. Earth's satellite, the Moon, is the finest example, since it is visible in the night sky of the planet. While circling in its egg-shaped orbit, the Moon appears to change shape, size, and even color, depending on its position relative to the Sun and Earth. Some days, it appears rusty ; other days, a faint yellow. And although every appearance it displays is a unique postcard moment for the ... [Read More]