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Science news this week: James Webb telescope finds a never-before-seen substance, China's 'Great Green Wall' grows faster than natural trees, and a Medici murder mystery is solved
July 4, 2026: Our weekly roundup of the latest science in the news, as well as a few fascinating articles to keep you entertained over the weekend.
JWST finds unknown substance, China's 'Great Green Wall' grows faster than normal trees, a Medici murder mystery solved, and what the US can learn from Japan's 'silent pandemic'
(Image credit: Getty Images | The University of Pisa)
The space telescope detected a specific absorption line in the spectra of these worlds' atmospheres, revealing the characteristic trace of a unique and unknown molecule. It's unclear exactly what the molecule could be, and the mystery is made even more compelling by the fact that the environments of Pluto and Titan are very distinct.
China is no stranger to engineering projects designed to bring its environment to heel; we've recently covered the Asian powerhouse's attempts to tame nature through the creation of atmospheric rivers, the world's biggest dam and water transfers. But these are hardly China's only forays into sculpting its natural environment, with the country having planted more than 66 billion trees along its northern borders to halt the advance of the Gobi and Taklamakan deserts.
Now, new research has revealed a startling detail about the trees in this "Great Green Wall": they're growing significantly faster than natural forests. Exactly why remains a mystery, but, as Live Science contributor Brian Owens reveals, it could be due to a stronger response from the trees to rising atmospheric carbon dioxide.
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Are you a robot? It used to be a question that only humans could answer — by clicking on traffic lights or strings of warped and grainy characters, or Completely Automated Public Turing tests to tell Computers and Humans Apart (CAPTCHAs). But what happens now that autonomous artificial intelligence (AI) agents can ace some of these trials without detection? Have they made CAPTCHAs obsolete?
The Medici family ruled Renaissance Tuscany with an iron fist, fulfilling their ruthless ambitions with methods so underhand that the name of their most famous advisor, Niccolò Machiavelli, became a synonym for skulduggery.
So, when two brothers from the infamous family died under mysterious circumstances, it was believed for 500 years that they were murdered, possibly by arsenic poisoning. Now, science has revealed the true culprit behind the medieval cold case, and it's not what we expected.
Antibiotic resistance is a growing threat in the U.S., with more than 2.8 million Americans developing antimicrobial-resistant infections each year. The solutions to this worrying trend can be very complex— such as moving agricultural systems away from their overreliance on antibiotics, or preventing the rapid spread of superbugs through international travel.
But stopping doctors from overprescribing antibiotics is one of the easiest strategies in the battle against this "silent pandemic." And it turns out that Japan has already fought it with some success, driving down antibiotic overuse with an innovative new policy. To investigate further and ask what notes the U.S. should be taking, Live Science's health editor Nicoletta Lanese visited Japan and reported back on their investigation.
Something for the weekend
If you're looking for things to keep you busy over the weekend, here are a smattering of our best expert opinion pieces, alongside a crossword, an interview and a quiz, that we published this week.
If you ask me, it looks more like a rusty anchor, or a blurry deep-sea fish. But whichever way you see it, the newly discovered "bow and arrow" galaxy — or, more formally, the RAD-Bow-And-Arrow Radio Galaxy (RAD-BAARG) — is an oddball unlike any other recorded.
The galaxy's unique structure is likely the result of gravity, which is warping RAD-BAARG into a funhouse mirror version of its former self as it falls into a nearby galaxy cluster. A shock front from this plunge surrounds the galaxy as it moves through hot gas.
Ben Turner is a U.K. based writer and editor at Live Science. He covers physics and astronomy, tech and climate change. He graduated from University College London with a degree in particle physics before training as a journalist. When he's not writing, Ben enjoys reading literature, playing the guitar and embarrassing himself with chess.
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