Apr 21st, 2026 - A record-breaking 3D cosmic map suggests dark energy is changing, challenging standard cosmological models. From a mountaintop in Arizona, an army of robotic eyes has spent the last five years staring into the universe's deep past. They captured ancient light that began its journey across the cosmos up to 11 billion years ago. On Tuesday, April 14, scientists completed the primary mission of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) ahead of schedule. The team successfully built the largest, highest-resolution 3D map of the cosmos ever constructed. The completed map charts over 47 ... [Read More]

Apr 21st, 2026 - You are not logged into your account. You have a registered email address and password on pressherald.com, but we are unable to locate a paid subscription attached to these credentials. Please Thank you for your support of local journalism! Orchids are finicky, demanding just the right conditions to thrive. Some people go to great lengths to provide them. Harry Pringle, a retired attorney who has grown orchids for more than 35 years, works in the greenhouse he built in the old coal bin in his basement. "Frankly I think the basement is the most important part of any house," he says. (Derek ... [Read More]

Apr 20th, 2026 - It's a view that only a handful of humans have ever witnessed: a distant Earth disappearing behind a huge moon. NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman, who commanded the Artemis II mission around the moon , posted a spectacular video on X of Earthset from the lunar far side, showing our home planet fading out of view. "Like watching sunset at the beach from the most foreign seat in the cosmos," Wiseman wrote about the video , which he filmed out the window of the Orion spacecraft. He described the experience as "only one chance in this lifetime." Wiseman and his crewmates, NASA astronauts Christina ... [Read More]

Apr 20th, 2026 - A plasma reactor transforms stubborn methane into methanol, bypassing extreme heat and pressure entirely. Inside a submerged glass tube, tiny bolts of plasma pulse through bubbling methane gas. It looks like miniature lightning, but this electrified reaction tackles a problem that has frustrated chemists for decades: breaking methane's notoriously stubborn bonds and instantly converting some of the gas into a commercially valuable liquid chemical. Converting methane to methanol usually demands blistering heat, crushing pressure, and multi-step processes that release millions of tons of ... [Read More]

Apr 20th, 2026 - Follow Earth on Google The human brain stops producing most new neurons before birth, even though other organs in the body continually renew themselves. Skin replaces itself within weeks, the liver can regenerate from a fraction of itself, and even the heart exchanges cells over the decades. The brain , by contrast, runs on the hardware it came with, and when those cells die, they are gone for good. What makes this fact stranger is that much of the animal kingdom does not share our limitation. Canaries, goldfish, lizards, and zebra finches all continue generating fresh neurons throughout ... [Read More]

Apr 20th, 2026 - Pushing against years of scepticism, an analysis suggests quantum computers may offer real advantages for running machine learning and similar algorithms in the near future Quantum computers might eventually be able to handle some AI applications that currently require huge amounts of conventional computing power. Such a development would be a major boost to machine learning and similar artificial intelligence algorithms. Quantum computers hold the promise of eventually being able to complete certain calculations that are impossible for conventional computers. For years, researchers have ... [Read More]

Apr 19th, 2026 - Quantum computing could lead to the discovery of new drugs and treatments (through advanced protein folding and analysis of reaction pathways), financial prediction models that could reshape Wall Street, or energy grid optimizations that may help alleviate the global energy crisis. Troublingly, they may also lead to the ability to crack some of the most popular existing encryption methods, which could lead to vulnerabilities in industries like banking and data security. The breakthrough at Caltech demonstrates that a practical quantum computer built around only 10,000 to 20,000 qubits may be ... [Read More]

Apr 19th, 2026 - Follow Earth on Google A new study has found that interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, a rare icy object that came from outside our Solar System, carried far less carbon dioxide relative to water after passing the Sun. Earlier observations had suggested a much higher CO2 content. The discovery recasts the comet as a layered object whose outer surface and deeper interior do not release the same material. The comet's shifting chemistry On January 7, 2026, the gas cloud around 3I/ATLAS showed a different oxygen-light balance than astronomers had seen before. Researchers tracked that post-Sun glow with ... [Read More]