Researchers are starting to reveal the science of red sprites. No, not the supernatural spirits that flit through fairytales, but the bursts of rare red lightning that flicker and flash through the middle-upper atmosphere. Teasing out the timing of over 90 red sprites and tying over 60 of them to specific strokes of parent lightning, the research reveals that one of South Asia’s largest shows of sprite fireworks arose within a cluster of thunderstorms above the Himalayas in 2022. Its appearanc ...read more

The European Space Agency’s Euclid telescope has just magnified our view of the universe with the release of its first wave of survey data, capturing hundreds of thousands of galaxies in remarkable detail. The latest update shares a preview of three deep fields, areas chock-full of galaxies that Euclid will inspect as part of its mission to map one-third of the entire sky. With one scan of each deep field, Euclid has been able to spot 26 million galaxies, the farthest of which lie 10.5 billio ...read more

There’s some good news and bad news about treating back pain. The good news is research has identified what actually works. The bad news is, it’s not very much.Only about 10 percent of common, nonsurgical treatments for lower back pain appear effective, with many therapies working only slightly better than a placebo, according to research in BMJ Evidence Based Medicine.For acute or temporary lower back pain, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS) like ibuprofen, naproxen, and celecox ...read more

Imagine a lush and vibrant rainforest teeming with life, with various insects crawling and flying around, and abundant aquatic fauna. This is what the now cool, temperate Central Tablelands in southwestern Australia would have looked like around 15 million years ago.This was confirmed by a spectacular recent discovery at the McGrath Flat fossil site near Gulgong in New South Wales, Australia. The site is classified as a "Lagerstätte" — a location that contains fossils of exceptional quality w ...read more

It sounded like the plot of a disaster movie: a mysterious disease in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) appeared to jump from a bat to three children who ate it. They died within two days of developing symptoms. Those symptoms included diarrhea, vomiting, and internal bleeding. Within 21 days of the first reported case, 53 people had died and more than 400 developed symptoms. People were, to put it lightly, getting worried.Scientists had initially feared this spread could represent another ...read more

Climate change is affecting the environments in which we live more and more every year. Along with that, these drastic changes are starting to take a toll on our mental health, as well, especially for young adults. An international research team has taken an interest in what kind of effects climate change is having on adolescent mental health, and the results they have uncovered are concerning. A Mental Health CrisisIn a study published in the Journal of Climate Change and Health, researchers ...read more

Mount Spurr, just to the west of the city of Anchorage, is rumbling. The Alaska Volcano Observatory has been monitoring the earthquakes, gas emissions and visible changes at Spurr and think we might be headed towards a new eruption, the volcano's first since the early 1990s. They've placed it at Yellow Alert status thanks to all the unrest since the start of 2025.More potentially active volcanoes are located in Alaska than any other state in the US thanks to the long chain of the Aleutians that ...read more

Birds-of-paradise are among the most resplendent creatures on Earth, with long, elaborate feathers in eye-popping shades of yellow, blue, and red. Naturalists have admired them for centuries. Yet it turns out they didn’t know the half of it.As if those vibrant colors weren’t enough, a recent study found that the birds — native to Australia, Indonesia, and New Guinea — are also biofluorescent. Their skin and plumage absorb light at high-energy wavelengths, then re-emit it at low-energy wa ...read more

The evolutionary path leading to the rise of modern humans is full of twists and turns, and the latest surprise reveals that our species likely sprung forth from two ancient intermingling populations. A new study has confirmed that these groups first diverged from each other around 1.5 million years ago and later merged back together 300,000 years ago, initiating a genetic mixing event that culminated with the birth of modern humans. The study, published in Nature Genetics, completely rewrites ...read more

We give blood to save someone else’s life. It turns out that this altruistic act could also improve the donor’s health. But they might have to give a lot of blood over time for that effect.A study screened 217 male volunteer blood downers. The researchers divided the group into two. One cohort had given blood over a hundred times during their lifetimes. The other group had done so less than five times.Although the study was initiated in part to investigate whether long-term donation had any ...read more