Science

Scientists discovered that rice behaves in a highly unusual way: it weakens under rapid compression but stays stronger when pressure is applied slowly. Using this effect, they engineered a new material that reacts differently to gentle movements and sudden impacts. The material can adapt its stiffness automatically, opening the door to safer soft robots and protective equipment that responds instantly to collisions.

Scientists discovered that rice behaves in a highly unusual way: it weakens under rapid compression but stays stronger when pressure is applied slowly. Using this effect, they engineered a new material that reacts differently to gentle movements and sudden impacts. The material can adapt its stiffness automatically, opening the door to safer soft robots and protective equipment that responds instantly to collisions.

NASA has selected the Artemis III crew for a high-stakes 2027 mission designed to test the future of lunar exploration. Astronauts will launch aboard Orion and perform unprecedented docking operations with lunar landers being developed by both Blue Origin and SpaceX. The mission will require a remarkable sequence of heavy-lift rocket launches and complex in-space maneuvers, helping pave the way for future Moon landings and eventually crewed missions to Mars.

Student Gunnar Hartmann wins Nature’s 2026 Scientist at Work photography competition for this shot of migrating northern bald ibis in Spain

JWST has revealed dramatic differences between the dawn and dusk regions of the scorching exoplanet WASP-121 b. Fierce winds appear to carry heat from the planet’s permanent dayside, making the evening side hotter and more expanded. Scientists also found signs that water is being broken apart by extreme temperatures and that mysterious mineral clouds may be shaping the cooler side’s atmosphere.

With Steven Spielberg’s new extraterrestrial film Disclosure Day just out, it’s the ideal time to watch Close Encounter of the Third Kind – perhaps the perfect UFO film, says film columnist Bethan Ackerley

A study of 4.5 million people suggests that ex-smokers who take up vaping are more at risk of dying from lung cancer than people who quit without the use of e-cigarettes

A study of 4.5 million people suggests that ex-smokers who take up vaping are more at risk of dying from lung cancer than people who quit without the use of e-cigarettes

Scientists found that transfer learning can make the search for new physics in the universe much faster, slashing the need for expensive simulations. Yet the approach can backfire when AI relies too heavily on familiar patterns, potentially missing evidence of something truly new.

Scientists found that transfer learning can make the search for new physics in the universe much faster, slashing the need for expensive simulations. Yet the approach can backfire when AI relies too heavily on familiar patterns, potentially missing evidence of something truly new.

Scientists found that transfer learning can make the search for new physics in the universe much faster, slashing the need for expensive simulations. Yet the approach can backfire when AI relies too heavily on familiar patterns, potentially missing evidence of something truly new.

University of Florida researchers are exploring how lasers could help astronauts build structures on the moon using materials already available there, including lunar soil transformed into glass. The work, led by Victoria M. Miller, Ph.D., an associate professor in the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering and researcher with the UF Astraeus Space Institute, recently completed a research phase focused on laser forming, a manufacturing process that bends materials without physical contact.

After decades of searches, cosmologists are within reach of finding cosmic dawn. A longtime observational cosmologist explains.

DOI: 10.48550/arXiv.2606.04044

Astronomers may have found the missing link in the SMBH feeding process. New observations with the JWST show that a galaxy's circumnuclear disk, which feeds gas into its black hole, is connected to a much larger network of filaments. Cool gas flows through these filaments into the SMBH's sphere of influence.

A visit to Kew Gardens’ exhibit of the sculptor’s work is a fascinating insight into how he was inspired by nature

Researchers suggesting that the keto diet could treat mental health conditions find themselves uncomfortably aligned with people like vaccine-sceptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr, but that is not a reason to reject the idea

With its origins in a creepy image posted on 4chan, Backrooms is an unusually potent big-screen experiment in fear and perception, says Davide Abbatescianni

A photo essay from Tommy Trenchard explores efforts to protect the fragile ecosystems of oases in Chad

Palaeontologist Steve Brusatte's The Story of Birds offers an excellent and sometimes startling account of bird evolution, finds Michael Marshall