Dec 12th, 2025 - Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. . A verage temperatures are climbing around the globe, with particularly severe swings in the Arctic—this region has heated up nearly four times quicker than the rest of the world over the past few decades. Polar bears depend on the ice there to survive, and more than two-thirds of the species are estimated to become extinct by 2050. Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Now, scientists have noticed that surging temperatures might be changing polar bears' DNA—this may represent the first solid evidence tying climate change to ... [Read More]

Dec 12th, 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. Astronomers have spotted a supermassive black hole whipping up cosmic winds at record speeds. The black hole, located 135 million light-years from Earth in the center of the NGC 3783 spiral galaxy, caught researchers' attention after emitting a huge X-ray flare. As the burst died down, it left winds of more than 37,000 miles per second (60,000 kilometers per second) — one-fifth the ... [Read More]

Dec 11th, 2025 - Cutting off reproduction — from birth control to castration — consistently adds years to life across species, even humans. If you've ever joked that dating is killing you, science may have just backed you up. According to a massive new study, animals that skip sex — or at least stop reproducing — tend to live longer. I mean, way longer. Whether it's a lion, a lemur, or a lab rat, blocking reproduction through sterilization or birth control adds roughly 10 to 20 percent to their lifespan. Evolutionary biologist Shinichi Nakagawa, a co-author and professor at the ... [Read More]

Dec 11th, 2025 - Regular, alternating layers in Gale Crater may have been deposited as the result of tides raised by a moon at least 18 times the mass of Phobos, a study says. Thin layers of sedimentary rock in Mars's Gale Crater suggest that the planet once had a moon much larger than the two that orbit it today,  according to work  to be presented at AGU's Annual Meeting 2025 on 17 December. Unlike the current Martian moons  Phobos  and  Deimos , the gravitational pull of the hypothesized moon would have been strong enough to create tides in bodies of water on or below the planet's ... [Read More]

Dec 11th, 2025 - Follow Earth on Google Coral reefs are under relentless strain. Warming seas, polluted runoff, and heavy fishing are steadily chipping away at their resilience. Coral reefs are undeniably struggling, yet the ways they react and adapt as a connected community remain unexpectedly complex. A new study brings that complexity into view and hints at a strategy that could support their long-term resilience. Advantages for connected reefs Reefs aren't isolated. They exchange larvae , support nearby ecosystems, and move in step as conditions shift. That basic idea becomes striking once you realize ... [Read More]

Dec 11th, 2025 - Mars lacks the plate tectonics that drive Earth's river systems, yet it once hosted massive waterways. We've known for a while that Mars was once a wet world. But there's always been a geological puzzle regarding how and where that water moved. On Earth, rivers are largely driven by plate tectonics. The shifting of our planet's crust builds mountains and basins, creating the slopes necessary for water to flow. Mars, however, never had an active tectonic system like ours. Yet, even without it, the Red Planet managed to sustain impressive waterways. A new study reveals that ancient Martian ... [Read More]

Dec 11th, 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. Scientists say they've developed a breakthrough 3D wiring solution that allows a 100-fold increase in the number of quantum bits (qubits) a quantum computing chip can support. Typical quantum computing processors (QPUs) are built with two-dimensional, horizontal wiring, just like the central processing units (CPUs) in our classical devices. But this traditional wiring limits the number of ... [Read More]

Dec 11th, 2025 - Follow Earth on Google Across multiple sites in sub-Saharan Africa, researchers have identified a relationship between large herbivores and the amount of sodium available in local plants. According to the study, plant sodium availability spans a 1,000-fold range across sub-Saharan Africa for large herbivores such as elephants, giraffes, rhinos. The team compared plant sodium levels with animal counts and with results of fecal analyses. When plants run low, the largest herbivores face shortages that can influence habitat choice and risky travel routes. Salt shapes diet needs of animals Sodium ... [Read More]