Science

Geology, paleontology, physics, space and the natural world

In Science, ECOnews reports on new discoveries in geology, paleontology, physics, space, health and the natural world. We explain the latest studies from universities and labs worldwide in plain language.

Sunlight filters through a lone tree and casts long shadows across a grassy hillside, illustrating ground-level light and shade in Switzerland.

Switzerland just scanned what’s under everyone’s feet, turning secret geology into a national GPS for planners

By ECONEWS

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June 29, 2026 at 7:30 PM

Illustration of a glowing ultrathin superconducting layer flowing over a sculpted nanoscale surface.

It all began with a material thousands of times thinner than a human hair; now scientists believe they have found an unexpected way to manufacture much more efficient superconductors

By ECONEWS

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June 29, 2026 at 1:51 PM

Illustration of a neutron star releasing radio emissions through intense magnetic field lines in deep space

Neutron stars may double as dark-matter detectors — because who wouldn’t use cosmic wrecking balls for science?

By Adrian Villellas

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June 27, 2026 at 5:00 PM

X-ray view of the Perseus galaxy cluster core showing hot gas around its central galaxy

XRISM is reading the Perseus cluster’s elemental gossip, one X-ray whisper at a time

By ECONEWS

—

June 27, 2026 at 3:00 PM

Astronaut working on NASA’s Cold Atom Lab hardware inside the International Space Station

The Space Station’s quantum lab just went colder, edging scientists closer to physics so weird it makes gravity blush

By ECONEWS

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June 27, 2026 at 12:30 PM

Illustration of Sagittarius A* at the center of the Milky Way, where astronomers believe the IRS 13 star cluster may have carved a mini-cavity in surrounding gas.

Forget about epic explosions: just 300 years ago, a swarm of hyper-powerful stars would have left a perfect crater next to the central black hole… and today, astronomers see it as a kind of space graffiti that’s still smoldering

By ECONEWS

—

June 27, 2026 at 10:15 AM

NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory orbits Earth as the agency prepares a robotic mission to raise the aging space telescope into a higher orbit.

NASA is launching its wildest plan since “Apollo 13”: launching a Pegasus rocket from the air, releasing the LINK spacecraft into the middle of the Pacific, and catching the veteran Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory before it crashes like a burning hunk of scrap metal onto your roof

By Adrian Villellas

—

June 27, 2026 at 8:45 AM

NASA’s Cold Atom Lab aboard the International Space Station, where ultracold atoms are used to study quantum physics in microgravity.

The microwave-sized mini-refrigerator floating 400 km above Earth has just put atoms into “ghost mode” at –273 °C, and NASA scientists believe this experiment could equip future rockets with a “galactic GPS” that not even errors in solar signals could throw off course

By ECONEWS

—

June 27, 2026 at 6:30 AM

Artist’s concept of the giant exoplanet HD 80606 b heating up as it swings close to its star

The Webb telescope captures a “roasting” exoplanet: 4,900°F, clouds of glass, and an atmosphere of vaporized metal on a world that is boiling just a hair’s breadth from its star

By ECONEWS

—

June 27, 2026 at 4:30 AM

X-ray image of the jet erupting from the supermassive black hole at the center of Messier 87

NASA’s X-ray eye caught a jet shooting from the first black hole we ever photographed—apparently fame hasn’t tamed the beast

By ECONEWS

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June 26, 2026 at 7:33 PM

Dense view of Terzan 5 showing tightly packed stars in the Milky Way bulge

NASA’s Webb and Hubble teamed up on Terzan 5, and the detail that matters is that they proved it isn’t a globular star cluster at all but a surviving relic from the Milky Way’s earliest formation

By ECONEWS

—

June 26, 2026 at 6:30 PM

Gravitational lens arcs reveal distant galaxy linked to high-energy neutrino detection

The fastest subatomic messenger in the universe lands on the ice of Antarctica and points toward an “invisible” galaxy 11,000 million light-years away

By ECONEWS

—

June 26, 2026 at 5:00 PM

Exceptionally preserved Ice Age cave lion remains recovered from Siberian permafrost for ancient DNA analysis.

A cub named Sparta, which remained frozen in the permafrost for 32,000 years, provides virtually intact DNA and confirms that cave lions constituted a distinct lineage, with brain, visual, and circulatory traits, that never set foot on the African savanna

By ECONEWS

—

June 26, 2026 at 6:30 AM

Interior view of a karst cave chamber in Romania with rocky walls and underground passage

Romania opens 31,000-year-old cave art to tourists, moving ancient bison doodles from torchlight to selfie sticks

By ECONEWS

—

June 25, 2026 at 12:30 PM

Close-up of horsetail stem segment showing joint structure where water evaporation alters isotope composition

Horsetail plants pull “space water” isotopes into their stems, baffling chemists who thought they’d seen it all

By Adrian Villellas

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June 24, 2026 at 6:30 PM

Close-up of hands shaping a stone tool from basalt using primitive knapping technique.

Stone-tool evidence shows hominins cherry-picked basalt 780,000 years ago, flexing DIY skills way ahead of schedule

By ECONEWS

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June 24, 2026 at 5:00 PM

Deer showing heat stress with tongue out in dry environment under high temperatures.

Scientists analyzed more than 30,000 measurements of bacteria, plants, and animals and discovered a pattern that repeats throughout life: heat helps for a while, but then pushes living organisms toward biological collapse much faster than expected

By Adrian Villellas

—

June 24, 2026 at 12:30 PM

A transparent glacial glass squid swimming in the deep, dark waters of the Bellingshausen Sea after an iceberg breakaway.

An iceberg snap in Antarctica let cameras catch a glass squid – so clear it is basically a swimming ghost

By Adrian Villellas

—

June 24, 2026 at 6:30 AM

Illustration of a massive wave triggered by a landslide inside a narrow fjord, representing the Greenland megatsunami event

Satellites clocked a 650-foot Greenland megatsunami that rattled seismometers long after the splash

By ECONEWS

—

June 23, 2026 at 5:00 PM

Color-coded map of Antarctica’s subglacial bedrock showing elevation and deep basin structures beneath the ice

Buried under 2 miles of Antarctic ice, a giant fan-shaped structure may finally reveal how a supercontinent shattered

By Adrian Villellas

—

June 23, 2026 at 12:30 PM

Previous Next

Science

Switzerland just scanned what’s under everyone’s feet, turning secret geology into a national GPS for planners

It all began with a material thousands of times thinner than a human hair; now scientists believe they have found an unexpected way to manufacture much more efficient superconductors

Neutron stars may double as dark-matter detectors — because who wouldn’t use cosmic wrecking balls for science?

XRISM is reading the Perseus cluster’s elemental gossip, one X-ray whisper at a time

The Space Station’s quantum lab just went colder, edging scientists closer to physics so weird it makes gravity blush

Forget about epic explosions: just 300 years ago, a swarm of hyper-powerful stars would have left a perfect crater next to the central black hole… and today, astronomers see it as a kind of space graffiti that’s still smoldering

NASA is launching its wildest plan since “Apollo 13”: launching a Pegasus rocket from the air, releasing the LINK spacecraft into the middle of the Pacific, and catching the veteran Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory before it crashes like a burning hunk of scrap metal onto your roof

The microwave-sized mini-refrigerator floating 400 km above Earth has just put atoms into “ghost mode” at –273 °C, and NASA scientists believe this experiment could equip future rockets with a “galactic GPS” that not even errors in solar signals could throw off course

The Webb telescope captures a “roasting” exoplanet: 4,900°F, clouds of glass, and an atmosphere of vaporized metal on a world that is boiling just a hair’s breadth from its star

NASA’s X-ray eye caught a jet shooting from the first black hole we ever photographed—apparently fame hasn’t tamed the beast

NASA’s Webb and Hubble teamed up on Terzan 5, and the detail that matters is that they proved it isn’t a globular star cluster at all but a surviving relic from the Milky Way’s earliest formation

The fastest subatomic messenger in the universe lands on the ice of Antarctica and points toward an “invisible” galaxy 11,000 million light-years away

A cub named Sparta, which remained frozen in the permafrost for 32,000 years, provides virtually intact DNA and confirms that cave lions constituted a distinct lineage, with brain, visual, and circulatory traits, that never set foot on the African savanna

Romania opens 31,000-year-old cave art to tourists, moving ancient bison doodles from torchlight to selfie sticks

Horsetail plants pull “space water” isotopes into their stems, baffling chemists who thought they’d seen it all

Stone-tool evidence shows hominins cherry-picked basalt 780,000 years ago, flexing DIY skills way ahead of schedule

Scientists analyzed more than 30,000 measurements of bacteria, plants, and animals and discovered a pattern that repeats throughout life: heat helps for a while, but then pushes living organisms toward biological collapse much faster than expected

An iceberg snap in Antarctica let cameras catch a glass squid – so clear it is basically a swimming ghost

Satellites clocked a 650-foot Greenland megatsunami that rattled seismometers long after the splash

Buried under 2 miles of Antarctic ice, a giant fan-shaped structure may finally reveal how a supercontinent shattered

In Romania’s Brașov County, brown bears number about 1,329 by a national genetic estimate, the highest density of any county, and one bear relocated from Poiana Brașov was back within 3 days

More than 40 Magellanic penguins born in captivity arrived by court order from Mar del Plata at a river island in Argentina’s Río Negro province, and at first they had not explored even a third of their new home

In Japan, researchers led by Tohoku University used an inexpensive blue pigment to turn carbon dioxide into methane with 79.5% Faradaic efficiency, and methane selectivity stayed above 60% for about 80 hours

At 8.2 feet on Oct. 13, the Lake Constance water level in Konstanz, Germany, fell below a 1947 record for the date, and it now sits 10 inches under last winter’s low

A simulated AMOC collapse in an unreviewed preprint cut wheat, corn and rice harvests in Germany and Ukraine by roughly 16 to 19 percent, and cereal prices could climb up to 40 percent in the worst case

A landslide in Alaska’s Tracy Arm fjord sent a tsunami 1,578 feet up the opposite wall, and a Science study found small tremors striking every 30 to 60 seconds in the hours before the collapse

A company won a mining license for a magnesium deposit it estimates at more than 50 million metric tons near Rășinari, in Romania’s Sibiu County, and the EU gets 97 percent of its magnesium from China

Leap seconds will end on May 20, 2027, under a rule the General Conference on Weights and Measures adopted in Versailles, France, and a new study finds Earth’s solid surface turning slightly rounder as polar ground rises

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