Science News: Recent scientific discoveries and expert analysis

Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope report that a powerful gamma-ray burst detected in March may have been produced by the explosion of a massive star just 730 million years after the Big Bang.

A brain-scan study reveals key components of the brain's navigation system, which may help us better understand early symptoms of dementia.

LIVE Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025: Your daily feed of the biggest discoveries and breakthroughs making headlines.

The newly excavated 4,500-year-old valley temple from ancient Egypt holds a "public calendar" and a roof for astronomical observation.

Warming temperatures appear to be driving genetic mutations in some polar bears to help them survive the shifting climatic conditions.

The European Space Agency has released new images of a rare "butterfly" crater on the Red Planet. The bug-like structure sports a pair of smooth, rocky wings, which were likely "fluidized" by buried Martian ice.

The novel design for the new qubit uses the chemical element tantalum in tandem with a special silicon substrate, creating what researchers say are the most coherent superconducting qubits to date.

The Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) in Chile has released its final batch of data after 15 years — and it proves that the Hubble tension, a rift in our understanding of the universe, is very real.

Five millennia ago, ancient fishers buried a dog alongside a dagger in a lake bed. Archaeologists are trying to figure out why.

An ancient fingerprint and several chemical clues from a 2,400-year-old sea raiders' boat are revealing secrets about where some mysterious attackers came from during the Iron Age.

A study suggests psychiatric disorders can share the same genetic signatures and that they may stem from shared biological mechanisms.

Tracking comets accurately is hard. A new effort with the U.N. and NASA aims to better chart these visitors using 3I/ATLAS.

The genetic link between squids and octopuses may just be found in the vampire squid genome.

Archaeologists diving off the coast of Alexandria, Egypt, have discovered the remains of a 2,000-year-old "pleasure barge" from the time of the Ptolemaic period.

Extremely rare evidence of a lion attack on a teenage boy's remains suggests the teenager survived the initial trauma but became severely disabled, requiring support from his community.

Science news this week Dec. 13, 2025: Our weekly roundup of the latest science in the news, as well as a few fascinating articles to keep you entertained over the weekend.

New images taken with the Gemini North telescope in Hawaii confirm that the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS has gotten brighter and greener since its close flyby of the sun in October.

A California woman was scheduled to have a large cyst removed but, in the lead-up to the procedure, learned she had a rare ectopic pregnancy.

James Webb finds a hot planet that is tidally locked with its parent star, is coated with a thick atmosphere of volatile chemicals.

Archaeologists have identified a 16th-century gallows structure and nearly a dozen mass burial pits in Grenoble, France.