New mothers and fathers tend to obsess over the smallest nuances of child-rearing, for the simple reason that they want to be good parents. So does every other animal, as it turns out, and over millions of years they’ve developed a surprising range of strategies for keeping their offspring safe and healthy.At some level they — and we — all have the same goal. Karen Bales, a professor at University of California Davis who studies social bonding, explains the two (hopefully obvious) fundamen ...read more

Most people picture icebergs like big floating boulders in the ocean. Maybe they might be as large as a house. The famous iceberg was big enough to sink the Titanic in 1912. However, most people don't really consider icebergs too deeply, beyond some memes about having more beneath the water than above it. Yet, icebergs, especially in the southern oceans, are becoming an increasing threat as the Antarctic ice sheets break apart thanks to climate change.The Biggest BergRight now, iceberg A23a is f ...read more

When talking about technology, pundits often use the word “disruptive” as a compliment. In the case of DeepSeek, a “large language model” that is now challenging ChatGPT for AI supremacy, the term carries a mixed message.Financial news about the Chinese LLM delivered a blow to tech stocks for a few reasons. First, the program appears to require less computer processing power than its competitors. Companies like Nvidia had seen their stock prices soar in recent months, because the convent ...read more

Having dark circles under your eyes could be a tell-tale sign of several things. They usually appear if you’re tired but can also be genetic, or a sign of stress, among others. Dark circles can happen to almost anyone of any age and gender, and there are several ways to lighten their appearance and help them fade. What Causes Dark Circles Under Eyes? Whether you’ve had a long and stressful week at work or pulled an all-nighter studying for an exam, you’ve likely experienced dark under yo ...read more

Researchers studying the science of sleep are building a growing body of evidence connecting both the quantity and quality of slumber to the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. Now a group shows that people who take longer to enter the dream phase of sleep known as rapid eye movement (REM) may be exhibiting an early symptom of the disease, according to work published in Alzheimer’s and Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer's Association. What are the Sleep ImplicationsThe results have i ...read more

There’s no limit to the number of health headlines that you’ll find as you scroll through the news, announcing new threats, novel treatments, and amazing tips and tricks that will surely help your diet, your digestion, and your overall wellbeing. If you’re lucky, you’ll find insights that could help you take control of your health. But if you aren’t, it’s possible you’ll find information that could lead you astray, pointing you in unproductive, damaging, or dangerous directions.If ...read more

Few natural sights are revered as much as the aurora borealis, and scientists at NASA are hoping that two new rocket missions will help illuminate the processes that lead to such a magnificent light display. The two missions, with launch windows that opened January 21, 2025, are aiming for the Alaskan night sky, where auroras shine regularly during the winter. Auroras are byproducts of the interaction between solar wind and the Earth’s magnetosphere, containing its magnetic field. Following a ...read more

How is music changing over time? On one scale, it’s easy to see how music evolved through the ages as baroque music was displaced by classical, romantic and then modern music. In the 20th century alone, jazz, country and western, rock’n’roll all emerged along with pop, rap, hip hop and so on. Much of this rapid rate of change was driven by new ways of composing, experiencing and sharing music via vinyl, cassettes, CDs and mp3s. The emergence of digital streaming platforms, social networks ...read more

Faraway from Earth in the Sunrise Arc galaxy lies a star so distant that it took 12.9 billion years for its light to reach our planet. Named Earendel, after a character from J.R.R Tolkien’s Silmarillion, this star is the most distant ever observed by scientists and is now a mind-boggling 28 billion light years from Earth.An Astonishing Star DiscoveryEarendel dates back to the first billion years after the big bang, offering researchers a glimpse of stars from this time in the Universe’s hist ...read more

Solitude is, simply enough, “the state or condition of being alone,” explains Thuy-vy Nguyen, a researcher at Durham University, U.K., who studies solitude. Time alone might be voluntary or involuntary; it might be pleasant or unpleasant. It all depends on the context. So, solitude is not necessarily bad, but is it beneficial? Nguyen is the principal investigator of Solitude Lab, where she and her team work to unravel these kinds of mysteries. They’ve found that solitude offers at least t ...read more