This artist’s concept shows Kepler 452b, an exoplanet just 1,400 light years away. Known as Earth’s “cousin,� the terrestrial world falls within its host star’s habitable zone and receives enough UV light for RNA-forming chemical reactions to take place. (Credit: NASA Ames/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle) Want to know if a planet has what it takes to develop life? Look at its light. Research published August 1 ...read more

Zebra finches. (Credit: Natia Tsuleiskiri/Shutterstock) Is the blue I see the same as the blue you see? It’s an age-old stoner question, and while it might not ever be possible to find a conclusive answer, it does touch on a fundamental mystery for linguists and neuroscientists alike. Where do colors come from? Not the physical colors themselves, of course – that’s just different wavelengths of light. But where do the categories that we ...read more

A team of scientists made artificial lungs and then transplanted them into pigs (not this one). The pigs all survived. (Credit: HQuality/shutterstock) Ah, to live in a world where we can crank out custom-made organs to meet supply. No need for donors or years-long waiting lists. We’re still a ways off from that organ utopia, but we’re at least a little closer to bioengineered lungs becoming a reality. On Wednesday, researchers from the University of Texas ...read more

(Credit: Tero Vesalainen/shutterstock) In Finland, sauna bathing traditionally involves bathers not only immersing themselves in steam, but also slapping themselves with branches until their skin is red and tingling, then diving into cold water or rolling in the snow. Now researchers find that sauna bathing — even of the conventional kind, sans cold and slapping — may have a wide range of health benefits. Saunas bathe people in steam from water thrown on h ...read more

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A new statistical method could help solve which Beatles wrote which songs. (Credit: Nationaal Archief/Wikipedia Commons) In interviews, John Lennon and Paul McCartney have explained that, though they were listed as co-writers for Beatles tunes, one or the other usually wrote most of a song. McCartney wrote most or all of “Yesterday,� “Martha My Dear� and “Lady Madonna,� for exam ...read more

Cygnus X-1 is a black hole feeding off its nearby binary companion, a young blue supergiant star. (Credit: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss) Discovered in the early 1960s by rocket-borne X-ray detectors, Cygnus X-1 is a binary system containing a supergiant star and a stellar-mass black hole. That black hole is both accreting matter — pulling gas off its companion and funneling it into a swirling disk — and shooting out powerful jets. The processes of accretion and jet fo ...read more

In 1990s’ Total Recall, Arnold Schwarzenegger terraformed Mars atmosphere into breathable air in mere minutes thanks to a secret alien turbinium reactor. (Credit: TriStar Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection) On Monday, a study published in Nature Astronomy took an exhaustive look at what it would take to terraform the Red Planet and fulfill generations of sci-fi dreams. In it, leading Mars experts tallied the planet’s stores of carbon dioxide, a powerful g ...read more

A study of rhesus monkeys shows that anxious adults can lead to more anxious offspring. (Credit: Skynavin/Shutterstock) You have your mother’s eyes. You have your father’s nose. But might you also have Grandpa Joe’s high anxiety? That’s a possibility, according to a study of rhesus monkeys published July 30 in the Journal of Neuroscience. In recent years, researchers have explored the heritability of personality, inclu ...read more

Subway riders in Hong Kong. (Credit: Sean Pavone/Shutterstock) Microbes are all around us and in us and especially on us. Our skin can be both a barrier between our bodies and the microbes in our environment and a way in. Once microbes find their way onto our hands, they’re a step closer to getting inside us through our eyes, mouths, and noses. Don’t despair. A diverse ecosystem of bacteria calls our skin and bodies home without causing us any harm at all. ...read more