Top Science News

October 17, 2025

Top Headlines

This Common Liver Supplement Could Boost Cancer Treatment Success

Oct. 17, 2025 — Salk Institute scientists discovered that bile acids in the liver can weaken immune cell function, making immunotherapy less effective against liver cancer. They pinpointed specific bile acids that suppress T cells and found that supplementing with ...

MIT Finds Traces of a Lost World Deep Within Planet Earth

Oct. 17, 2025 — Researchers have discovered chemical fingerprints of Earth's earliest incarnation, preserved in ancient mantle rocks. A unique imbalance in potassium isotopes points to remnants of “proto Earth” material that survived the planet’s violent ...

Cheaper Than Lithium, Just as Powerful — Sodium Batteries Are Finally Catching Up

Oct. 17, 2025 — Researchers discovered how to stabilize a high-performance sodium compound, giving sodium-based solid-state batteries the power and stability they’ve long lacked. The new material conducts ions far ...

Saturn's Moon Titan Just Broke One of Chemistry’s Oldest Rules

Oct. 17, 2025 — Scientists from NASA and Chalmers University have discovered that incompatible substances can mix on Titan’s icy surface, breaking the “like dissolves like” rule of chemistry. Under ultra-cold conditions, hydrogen cyanide can form stable ...

Rogue Black Hole Shocks Astronomers with Record Radio Blast

Oct. 16, 2025 — For the first time, scientists observed a black hole tearing apart a star far from its galaxy’s center, producing the fastest-changing radio signals ever recorded. The event, AT 2024tvd, revealed delayed bursts of energy months after the initial ...

They Found the Switch That Makes the Body Attack Cancer

Oct. 16, 2025 — Scientists have found a way to transform hard-to-treat tumors into targets for the immune system. Using two protein stimulators, they activated strong T-cell and B-cell responses and built immune structures inside tumors that improved survival and ...

From Poison to Power: How Lead Exposure Helped Shape Human Intelligence

Oct. 16, 2025 — Long before humans built cities or wrote words, our ancestors may have faced a hidden threat that shaped who we became. Scientists studying ancient teeth found that early humans, great apes, and even Neanderthals were exposed to lead millions of ...

Asteroid Ryugu’s Hidden Waters Could Explain How Earth Got Its Oceans

Oct. 16, 2025 — Ryugu’s samples reveal that water activity on asteroids lasted far longer than scientists thought, possibly reshaping theories of how Earth gained its oceans. A billion-year-old impact may have melted ancient ice, keeping asteroids wet and ...

A Giant Asteroid Hit Earth, but Its Crater Is Missing

Oct. 16, 2025 — Researchers discovered a new field of ancient tektites in South Australia, revealing a long-forgotten asteroid impact. These 11-million-year-old glass fragments differ chemically and geographically from other known tektites. Although the crater ...

Scientists Just Found Real Teeth Growing on a Fish’s Head

Oct. 16, 2025 — Scientists discovered true teeth growing on the head of the spotted ratfish, a distant shark relative. The toothed structure, called a tenaculum, helps males hold onto females during mating. Genetic evidence shows these head teeth share the same ...

Forged in Fire: The 900°C Heat That Built Earth’s Stable Continents

Oct. 16, 2025 — New research reveals that Earth’s continents owe their stability to searing heat deep in the planet’s crust. At more than 900°C, radioactive elements shifted upward, cooling and strengthening the landmasses that support life. This ancient heat ...

Quantum Crystals Could Spark the Next Tech Revolution

Oct. 16, 2025 — Auburn scientists have designed new materials that manipulate free electrons to unlock groundbreaking applications. These “Surface Immobilized Electrides” could power future quantum computers or transform chemical manufacturing. Stable, tunable, ...

Latest Headlines

updated 8:39am EDT

Tiny Brain Nanotubes Found by Johns Hopkins May Spread Alzheimer’s

Oct. 16, 2025 — Johns Hopkins scientists uncovered microscopic “nanotube” channels that neurons use to transfer toxic molecules. While this process clears waste, it can also spread harmful proteins like ...

Who or What Dug Mars’ Mysterious Gullies? The Answer Is Explosive

Oct. 16, 2025 — CO₂ ice blocks on Mars may dig gullies as they slide and sublimate in the thin atmosphere. In lab experiments, scientists recreated these eerie, worm-like movements under Martian conditions. The ...

Harvard Astrophysicist Suggests Mysterious Interstellar Object May Be an Alien Probe

Oct. 15, 2025 — 3I/ATLAS, a mysterious interstellar object racing toward the Sun, is baffling scientists with its speed and origin. Some researchers suggest it could ...

This Tiny Worm Uses Static Electricity to Hunt Flying Insects

Oct. 15, 2025 — A parasitic worm uses static electricity to launch itself onto flying insects, a mechanism uncovered by physicists and biologists at Emory and Berkeley. By generating opposite charges, the worm and ...

This Type of Meat Supercharges Muscle Growth After Workouts

Oct. 15, 2025 — Scientists discovered that lean pork builds muscle more effectively post-workout than high-fat pork, even with identical protein levels. Using advanced tracking techniques, they found that fat ...

This European Treatment for Joint Pain Just Passed a Major Scientific Test

Oct. 15, 2025 — Korean researchers found that low-dose radiation therapy eased knee pain and improved movement in people with mild to moderate osteoarthritis. The treatment, far weaker than cancer radiation, showed ...

Physicists Discover Mysterious New Type of Time Crystal

Oct. 15, 2025 — Scientists at TU Wien have uncovered that quantum correlations can stabilize time crystals—structures that oscillate in time without an external driver. Contrary to previous assumptions, quantum ...

It Actually Rains on the Sun. Here’s the Stunning Reason

Oct. 15, 2025 — Scientists at the University of Hawaiʻi have discovered why it rains on the Sun. Solar rain, made of cooling plasma, forms rapidly during solar flares, a mystery now solved by modeling time-varying ...

These Giant Planets Shouldn’t Exist. But They Do

Oct. 15, 2025 — Astronomers are investigating a strange class of exoplanets known as eccentric warm Jupiters — massive gas giants that orbit their stars in unexpected, elongated paths. Unlike their close-orbiting ...

Astronomers Detect a Cosmic “heartbeat” in Pulsar Signals

Oct. 15, 2025 — Researchers analyzing pulsar data have found tantalizing hints of ultra-slow gravitational waves. A team from Hirosaki University suggests these signals might carry “beats” — patterns formed by ...

Earlier Headlines

A 151-Million-Year-Old Fly Just Changed What We Know About Evolution

Oct. 15, 2025 — Scientists have uncovered a 151-million-year-old midge fossil in Australia that challenges long-held views about insect evolution. Named Telmatomyia talbragarica, the fossil shows freshwater ...

Your Brain’s Power Supply May Hold the Key to Mental Illness

Oct. 14, 2025 — Groundbreaking Harvard research is exposing hidden energy failures inside brain cells that may drive major psychiatric conditions. By studying reprogrammed neurons, scientists are revealing how ...

Your Skin Could Warn of Hidden Mental Health Trouble

Oct. 13, 2025 — People experiencing their first psychotic episode who also have skin conditions such as rashes or itching are at greater risk of depression and suicidal thoughts, according to new research presented ...

90% of Science Is Lost. This New AI Just Found It

Oct. 13, 2025 — Vast amounts of valuable research data remain unused, trapped in labs or lost to time. Frontiers aims to change that with FAIR² Data Management, a groundbreaking AI-driven system that makes datasets ...

New Research Reveals How ADHD Sparks Extraordinary Creativity

Oct. 13, 2025 — Researchers have discovered that ADHD’s hallmark mind wandering might actually boost creativity. People who deliberately let their thoughts drift scored higher on creative tests in two large ...

They’re Smaller Than Dust, but Crucial for Earth’s Climate

Oct. 10, 2025 — Coccolithophores, tiny planktonic architects of Earth’s climate, capture carbon, produce oxygen, and leave behind geological records that chronicle our planet’s history. European scientists are ...

MIT Scientists Find Metals Hold Secret Atomic Patterns

Oct. 14, 2025 — MIT researchers found that metals retain hidden atomic patterns once believed to vanish during manufacturing. These patterns arise from microscopic dislocations that guide atoms into preferred ...

This Experimental “super Vaccine” Stopped Cancer Cold in the Lab

Oct. 13, 2025 — UMass Amherst researchers have developed a groundbreaking nanoparticle-based cancer vaccine that prevented melanoma, pancreatic, and triple-negative breast cancers in mice—with up to 88% remaining ...

A Million-Sun-Mass Mystery Object Found Lurking in Deep Space

Oct. 11, 2025 — Scientists using a global array of radio telescopes have detected the universe’s lowest-mass dark object by observing how it warped light through gravitational lensing. The invisible mass, about a ...

Ancient Humans in Italy Butchered Elephants and Made Tools from Their Bones

Oct. 12, 2025 — Researchers in Italy discovered 400,000-year-old evidence that ancient humans butchered elephants for food and tools. At the Casal Lumbroso site near Rome, they found hundreds of bones and stone ...

The Moon’s South Pole Hides a 4-Billion-Year-Old Secret

Oct. 12, 2025 — A colossal northern asteroid impact billions of years ago likely shaped the Moon’s south polar region and explains its uneven terrain. Researchers found that the South Pole-Aitken Basin formed from ...

Quantum Simulations That Once Needed Supercomputers Now Run on Laptops

Oct. 12, 2025 — A team at the University at Buffalo has made it possible to simulate complex quantum systems without needing a supercomputer. By expanding the truncated Wigner approximation, they’ve created an ...

Breakthrough Compounds May Reverse Nerve Damage Caused by Multiple Sclerosis

Oct. 11, 2025 — Researchers have identified two compounds, K102 and K110, that could repair the nerve damage from multiple sclerosis. These drugs help regenerate the protective myelin sheath and balance immune ...

JWST Spots a Hidden Red Supergiant Just Before It Exploded

Oct. 9, 2025 — The James Webb Space Telescope has uncovered a massive red supergiant star just before it exploded, finally solving a cosmic mystery. Hidden beneath layers of dust, the doomed star revealed itself ...

Scientists Stunned by Wild Martian Dust Devils Racing at Hurricane Speeds

Oct. 9, 2025 — Mars may look calm, but new research reveals it’s a world of fierce winds and swirling dust devils racing at hurricane-like speeds. Using deep learning on thousands of satellite images from ...

Scientists Unlock Nature’s Secret to a Cancer-Fighting Molecule

Oct. 9, 2025 — Researchers have cracked the code behind how plants make mitraphylline, a rare cancer-fighting molecule. Their discovery of two critical enzymes explains how nature builds complex spiro-shaped ...

Scientists Discover Brain Circuit That Can Switch Off Chronic Pain

Oct. 10, 2025 — Scientists have pinpointed Y1 receptor neurons in the brain that can override chronic pain signals when survival instincts like hunger or fear take precedence. Acting like a neural switchboard, these ...

An Interstellar Visitor Lights Up the Red Planet’s Sky

Oct. 12, 2025 — ESA’s Mars orbiters have observed comet 3I/ATLAS, only the third interstellar comet ever discovered. The faint, distant object revealed a glowing coma as it was heated by the Sun. Researchers are ...

Scientists Just Proved the Moai Could Walk, Solving a 500-Year Mystery

Oct. 8, 2025 — Researchers confirmed that Rapa Nui’s moai statues could “walk” upright using a rocking motion, aided by rope and just a few people. Experiments with replicas and 3D models revealed design ...

USC Engineers Just Made Light Smarter With “optical Thermodynamics”

Oct. 10, 2025 — USC engineers have developed an optical system that routes light autonomously using thermodynamic principles. Rather than relying on switches, light organizes itself much like particles in a gas ...