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1 day ago | 
sciencealert.com | Andy Tomaswick
Scientists have known for a while that Mars currently lacks a magnetic field, and many blame that for its paltry atmosphere – with no protective shield around the planet, the solar wind was able to strip away much of the gaseous atmosphere over the course of billions of years. But, evidence has been mounting that Mars once had a magnetic field.
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5 days ago | 
sciencealert.com | Tessa Koumoundouros
Life's many disruptions, from injury to festive events, may account for most people's yearly weight gain. In a new peer-reviewed perspective article, researchers argue this may be a key missing factor behind the persistent rise in global obesity.
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6 days ago | 
sciencealert.com | Tessa Koumoundouros
As the global population ages, more of us face frightening cognitive decline, personally or in our loved ones. There are over 10 million new cases of dementia globally each year. But a study published last year suggests up to 13 percent of people diagnosed with dementia in the US may have a misdiagnosis and are instead left struggling with a condition that can be treated.
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6 days ago | 
sciencealert.com | David Nield
Those in Generation Z, born between 1997 and 2012, are the first to grow up with smartphones everywhere – and they're also among those most likely to believe misinformation, according to a new study. Led by researchers from the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Canada and the University of Cambridge in the UK, the main aim of the study was to assess how misinformation is gaining traction across different populations in different countries.
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1 week ago | 
sciencealert.com | Michelle Starr
A new analysis of the sky has finally confirmed where the missing half of the Universe's visible matter has been hiding. In the space around galaxies, it lurks as huge, invisible clouds of ionized hydrogen. Normally, this would be impossible to see – but a large international team of astronomers and astrophysicists has developed a technique that reveals its hiding places, out there in the darkness amidst the stars.
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1 week ago | 
sciencealert.com | Michelle Starr
A surprise discovery in Gale Crater is the component that was missing in the puzzle of Mars's climate history. There, embedded in the bedrock, the Curiosity rover has identified a mineral called siderite that can only have formed from the precipitation of carbon from the Martian atmosphere. In other words, billions of years ago, Mars had an active carbon cycle.
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1 week ago | 
sciencealert.com | David Nield
A study published in 2022 revealed a tenuous but plausible link between picking your nose and increasing the risk of developing dementia. In cases where picking at your nose damages internal tissues, critical species of bacteria have a clearer path to the brain, which responds to their presence in ways that resemble signs of Alzheimer's disease.
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1 week ago | 
sciencealert.com | Michelle Starr
Back when the Universe was new, following the Big Bang some 13.8 billion years ago, galaxies took a bit of time to assemble themselves from the surrounding primordial soup. A new discovery right at the end of the Cosmic Dawn is challenging how long we thought that assembly took. JWST has spotted a huge, ultramassive galaxy as it appeared 12.8 billion years ago, so intricately structured that it can only belong to the most spectacular category of galaxies: the grand design spiral.
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1 week ago | 
sciencealert.com | David Nield
Given the seeming paucity of moisture in the leftover remains of Earth's building blocks, planetary scientists have long assumed our planet's water supply came after it formed in a rain of hydrogen-soaked rocks and comets. A new study by researchers from the University of Oxford and the UK's national synchrotron science facility challenges the theory that water arrived via special delivery. In fact, water may have been part of Earth's makeup all along.
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1 week ago | 
sciencealert.com | Evan Gough
NGC 1514 is a planetary nebula about 1500 light-years away. William Herschel discovered it in 1790, and its discovery made him rethink the nature of nebulae. It's been imaged many times by modern telescopes, and each time a more capable one revisits it, astronomers learn more about it. The JWST is the latest to observe the curious nebula, and its observations help explain the unusual object. In 1790, NGC 1514 looked different from other patches of nebulosity in the sky.