Science News: Recent scientific discoveries and expert analysis

For the first time, astronomers have used a ground-based telescope to observe polarized microwave light from the universe's earliest epoch. Their observations could give them a better understanding of how the universe evolved.

Feeling less stigma — not losing weight — was linked to better mental health and eating behaviors after bariatric surgery.

NASA's Perseverance rover regularly images a Sherlock Holmes–themed maze to calibrate its chemical-hunting SHERLOC instrument.

Researchers have filmed a living Antarctic gonate squid in a world-first sighting deep in the ocean surrounding Antarctica.

A new image released by China's space agency offers the first glimpse at the Tianwen 2 spacecraft, which is en route to collect samples from one of Earth's "quasi-moons". The photo shows some surprising similarities with a current NASA probe.

Archaeologists in Israel have unearthed a Roman-era sarcophagus that depicts Dionysus beating Hercules in a drinking contest.

The quantum computer, called Starling, will use 200 logical qubits — and IBM plans to follow this up with a 2,000-logical-qubit machine in 2033

The recent discovery of copious amounts of iron trash on North Carolina's Hatteras Island may reveal the fate of a 16th-century "Lost Colony."

A new study by Apple has ignited controversy in the AI field by showing how reasoning models undergo 'complete accuracy collapse' when overloaded with complex problems.

Researchers used robotic diving vehicles to study gold coins on the seafloor by the wreck of the Spanish galleon San José.

A new machine learning model shows that star-shaped brain cells may be responsible for the brain's memory capacity, and someday, it could inspire advances in AI and Alzheimer's research.

New images of a young star, 2MASSJ1612, could have captured the birth of a giant gas planet larger than Jupiter.

An osprey flying over Myrtle Beach dropped the small shark from a tree after being harassed by crows.

A new analysis of the ancient DNA of 42 people from Papua New Guinea reveals that some cultures were remarkably isolated for centuries.

NASA's Parker Solar Probe has directly observed a powerful magnetic explosion in the sun's corona that could help us predict geomagnetic storms on Earth.

Turkey's minister of culture and tourism announced the discovery of a new tomb in an eighth-century-B.C. city that was the homeland of King Midas.

The famous black hole M87 keeps surprising us. New research calculates its spin speed to be at 80% of the theoretical limit, with matter falling into its maw even faster.

"Core season" for the Milky Way has arrived, with our galaxy visible all night as a band of light arching across the sky. Here's where, when, and how to get the best views in June.

A new study debates the complex ethical questions that must be considered if we're to terraform Mars and lays the blueprint for a potential path forward.

The largest map of the universe, created with data from the James Webb Space Telescope, shows almost 800,000 galaxies crammed into a tiny piece of sky and spanning almost all of time.