Science

Does the way information "sticks" to our brains differ depending on the medium? New research suggests it might, with readers engaging more with a story in a traditional book than one read on a digital device.Continue ReadingCategory: Learning & Memory, Brain Health, Body and MindTags: University of Tokyo, Reading, eBook, E-reader, Books, Japan

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Over the last decade, podcasts have become big business, with more than a fifth of UK adults listening to podcasts each week. The format particularly resonates with men, who are more likely than women to identify as podcast fans. Men are also overrepresented as podcast hosts.

Almost a quarter of all freshwater species are threatened with extinction. The removal of human-made barriers from rivers, such as dams and weirs, is a popular way to restore water flow and sediment transport to its natural state and allow fish and other aquatic wildlife to move more freely.

From the air, you see it only through the constant jolt, tilt, and shudder of the low-flying Cessna aircraft. The landscape of the Llanos de Moxos, northern Bolivia, appears as a disconnected patchwork of open grassland savannahs, forest islands, and lakes.

As nations prepare to compete on the global stage this summer, researchers at the University of Reading have created a different kind of scoreboard that shows where each country really stands on climate change. The Real Scoreline compares countries using six climate indicators—including emissions, fossil fuel dependence, heat stress, projected warming and net-zero commitments—producing a single score out of a possible 99 that reveals how nations compare beyond the traditional scoreboard.

Researchers from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore have developed a practical, comprehensive noise-modeling framework for a popular class of superconducting quantum processors. Their work, published in the journal PRX Quantum, offers a sevenfold improvement in predictive accuracy over existing approaches.

Apple rebuilt Siri from the ground up, cranked up the dial on AI integration, and added new parental control features for parents at its World Wide Developer's Conference keynote. The post Everything you need to know about Apple’s 2026 WWDC keynote announcements: A new Siri, iOS EQ controls, and more appeared first on Popular Science.

Plants are undeniably one of nature's most promising sources of new medicines, with monoterpenoid indole alkaloids (MIAs) being a great example. Some intricate compounds are built from multiple-linked chemical units that form highly complex three-dimensional structures. Because of their size and shape, scientists believe such oligomeric MIAs may be able to interfere with specific protein–protein interactions inside cells—a biological target that conventional small-molecule drugs often struggle to reach.

A collaboration of scientists from NASA and Brazilian research institutions has produced a detailed picture of groundwater change across Brazil. The images reveal significant declines in some of the aquifers that are critical to one of the world's largest agricultural producers.

Researchers from the University of Cambridge and GlitterinTech, a startup founded by the same research group, have unveiled a fundamentally new type of optical spectrometer that delivers laboratory-grade precision in a device small enough to be embedded in portable and wearable technologies. By rethinking how spectra are measured and processed, the team has demonstrated a spectrometer costing only around $10, operating at a centimeter scale, and capable of applications ranging from industrial quality control to real-time health care monitoring.

Sports in the United States look very different than they did when the nation was founded 250 years ago, according to Mark Dyreson, professor of kinesiology and history at Penn State. But one thing has remained constant—sport has played a vital role in shaping and reflecting the country's culture and values, he said.

A new study finds that ancient hominins nearly 800,000 years ago deliberately selected specific basalt sources for different stages of tool production rather than simply using whatever stone was available nearby. By tracing the geochemical "fingerprints" of stone tools to both exposed and now-buried basalt flows, the researchers demonstrated that these hominins possessed detailed environmental knowledge, advanced planning abilities, and long-term technological traditions that were maintained and repeated across generations.

A new El Niño index that provides a more climate-robust measure of the strength of El Niño signals has been released by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). With the World Meteorological Organization's recent update indicating an 80% likelihood of an El Niño event during June–August 2026 and a 90% probability of this continuing until at least November, it is more important than ever to have accurate, reliable data.

At least 15 people drowned in open water in the UK's recent heat wave, mostly children and teenagers. The public response is understandably urgent: warnings are issued, parents are told to talk to their children, and young people are reminded that rivers, lakes, reservoirs and canals can be dangerous.