Feb 5th, 2026 - Researchers offered a bonobo named Kanzi imaginary juice and grapes, presenting the tests as a kind of make-believe tea party. Kanzi could play along, they found. Can animals play pretend? It took a tea party with a bonobo to find out. In a set of experiments, a team of researchers offered a bonobo named Kanzi invisible juice and grapes, presenting the tests as something of a game, akin to a child's make-believe tea party. The results, published in the journal Science on Thursday , show that Kanzi could play along. The researchers concluded that the primate could imagine and track invisible ... [Read More]

Feb 4th, 2026 - A newly active area on the sun is responsible for dozens of eruptions known as solar flares, including back-to-back X-class flares earlier this week. Solar flares typically originate from active regions on the sun, which are marked by groups of sunspots -- such as Region 4366. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory was watching as Region 4366 unleashed multiple X-class flares, the strongest category on the space weather scale. X-class flares are the most intense type of solar flare, and the number that follows the "X" indicates the flare's relative strength. On Wednesday, Region 4366 blasted out ... [Read More]

Feb 4th, 2026 - An array of 15,000 qubits made from phosphorus and silicon offers an unprecedentedly large platform for simulating quantum materials such as perfect conductors of electricity An unprecedently large quantum simulator could shed light on how exotic, potentially useful quantum materials work and help us optimise them in the future. Quantum computers may eventually harness quantum phenomena to complete calculations that are intractable for the world's best conventional computers . Similarly, a simulator harnessing quantum phenomena could help researchers to accurately model poorly ... [Read More]

Feb 4th, 2026 - Quantum decryption may be a decade or more away, but healthcare organizations should take steps now to protect patient data. It could take a supercomputer 149 million years to decrypt data that has been encrypted with the RSA-2048 public-key encryption system. A quantum computer might be able to crack that data in eight hours. While quantum computers with this capability don't yet exist, experts predict they may become available roughly over the next decade. But the power of quantum computing represents an issue that healthcare organizations should start addressing now. "Cryptographers have ... [Read More]

Feb 4th, 2026 - Scientists have spent decades gazing into the dusty, glowing spaces between stars and analyzing fragments of cosmic dust. This abundant shimmering material carries stories of the universe strung in time, the story of life itself. There are several ways one can collect cosmic dust. One is by catching a falling star and tossing it in our pocket, as the Perry Como song suggests, or by collecting meteorites fallen in Antarctic ice . The other approach, taken by Linda Losurdo, relies on independence.  Losurdo, a doctoral student from the University of Sydney's School of Physics, ... [Read More]

Feb 4th, 2026 - Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... Last weekend's frigid bomb cyclone delivered not only record cold temperatures, it also dropped loads of cold-stunned green iguanas from South Florida's trees, allowing pest control companies to collect them by the thousands. Some Floridians revived the cold-stunned lizards, but professional pest control businesses rushed teams out to collect as many as they could from HOAs, farms and municipalities before the invasive lizards roused from their stupors. The numbers they collected were "amazing," said one contractor. Falling iguanas have become a ... [Read More]

Feb 4th, 2026 - It hasn't been a good year so far for quantum computing stock D-Wave Quantum But since the beginning of 2025, it's quite a different story for D-Wave: The stock is up more than 150% since then. The quantum systems D-Wave offers are a bit different from those offered by Rigetti Computing or IonQ D-Wave's systems, on the other hand, perform quantum annealing. Rather than precisely manipulating a single particle, quantum annealing analyzes the output from the entire system as a whole. This allows it to excel at different kinds of problems than a gate-model system. For example, quantum annealing ... [Read More]

Feb 4th, 2026 - 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 Pinterest Flipboard Join the conversation Add us as a preferred source on Google Get the Live Science Newsletter Get the world's most fascinating discoveries delivered straight to your inbox. By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. You are now subscribed Your newsletter sign-up was successful ... [Read More]