Science

The reliable internet connections provided by Starlink offer a huge advantage on the battlefield. But as access is dependent on the whims of controversial billionaire Elon Musk, militaries are looking to build their own version

I often get e-mail suggesting topics to cover on SBM or elsewhere in my social media content. I like getting these e-mails when they are organic, coming from readers here with genuine questions about some questionable claim or practice. But often they are press contacts, by a professional promoter pushing a new study or shopping around an author or someone they represent. […]

The post An Unimpressive Reiki Study first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

The "world smells different" for people with Parkinson's disease, a discovery that could help doctors spot the condition sooner

Traditional chemical rockets, though they are the most commonly used propulsion method for space exploration today, are beholden to the tyranny of the rocket equation. Every ounce of thrust they use must also start out as fuel, which means the rocket itself will have to weigh more, and weight is one of the limiting factors in how fast a propulsion system can go. So, scientists have been searching for, and actively testing, alternatives for decades. One of the most promising is the solar sail - a huge reflective sheet that uses sunlight, or in some cases a “pushing laser” to maneuver about the solar system without any onboard propellant necessary. A recent paper published in the Journal of Nanophotonics by Dimitar Dimitrov and Elijah Taylor Harris of Tuskegee University describes a new type of light sail that solves some of the major problems of existing designs.

China has just laid out one of its most ambitious spaceflight schedules yet and the details reveal a programme that is accelerating. Two crewed missions, a cargo resupply flight, a year long solo endurance experiment, and the first ever space station flight by astronauts from Hong Kong or Macao are all on the cards for 2026. Beyond Earth orbit, the countdown to a Chinese crewed Moon landing is ticking louder than ever. Here's what's coming up and why it matters.

A NASA spacecraft that spent seven years mapping Earth's invisible radiation shields has made its final journey home and it came back years ahead of schedule. Van Allen Probe A, launched in 2012 to study the powerful belts of charged particles that wrap around our planet, re-entered Earth's atmosphere in March 2026, most of it burning up in a blaze of friction and heat. What brought it down early wasn't a malfunction or a mission decision. It was the Sun and that twist in the story tells us something important.

When a powerful solar storm erupts, the warning system we currently rely on gives us just hours to respond, barely enough time to protect the satellites, power grids, and communication networks that modern life depends on. But a new tool developed by scientists at the Southwest Research Institute and the National Science Foundation could change that entirely, pushing advance warnings of dangerous space weather from hours to weeks. The secret lies not at the Sun's surface, but deep in its hidden interior and unlocking it has required a remarkable fusion of physics and artificial intelligence.

More than a century before quantum mechanics was born, Irish mathematician William Rowan Hamilton stumbled onto an idea that would quietly foreshadow one of the deepest truths in physics. While studying the paths of light rays and moving objects, Hamilton noticed a striking mathematical similarity between them and used it to develop a powerful new framework for mechanics. At the time, it seemed like a clever analogy—but decades later, as scientists uncovered the strange wave-particle nature of light and matter, Hamilton’s insight took on new meaning.

A new movie called "Project Hail Mary" tells the story of an unlikely astronaut who teams up with an alien to deal with a common cosmic threat. In the latest Fiction Science podcast, SETI astronomer Seth Shostak provides a status report on the real-world quest for alien contact.

Scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory have created a new aluminum alloy called RidgeAlloy that can turn contaminated car-body scrap into strong structural vehicle parts. Normally, impurities introduced during recycling make this scrap unsuitable for high-performance applications. RidgeAlloy overcomes that challenge, enabling recycled aluminum to meet the strength and durability standards required for modern vehicles. The technology could slash energy use, reduce imports, and unlock a huge new supply of domestic aluminum.

Two mass strandings involving hundreds of dolphins in Argentina probably happened because the pods were being hunted by orcas, highlighting the role of predators in these mysterious events

For forty years, a network of telescopes has been listening to the Sun hum and scientists have finally decoded what those sounds reveal about our star's hidden interior. A new study from the University of Birmingham and Yale University has found that the Sun's internal structure quietly shifts between solar cycles, leaving measurable fingerprints deep beneath its surface. It's a discovery that could transform how we forecast space weather and its impact here on Earth.

Multiple mobile phones, dashcams, and dedicated meteor cameras capture a fireball over part of Europe on Sunday night. Thousands of people witnessed it, and the ESA's Planetary Defence Team is analyzing it. So far, it looks like it was a few meters in diameter. It lit up the sky, and some debris even struck some buildings in Koblenz, Germany.

This law, which is mine, is derived solely from watching the NBC Evening News, which is interrupted by a lot of ads for drugs aimed at older people (for COPD, cancer, dry eyes, heart problems, etc.). That alone tells you who the target demographic is, and also that young people don’t watch the t.v. news (they get it, of course, from social media).  Here’s my rule:

It’s coming now.  . . .

Here it is:

At least half of new medicines advertised on t.v. have the letters “x”, “y”, or “z” in them. 

Here’s a table from Cornell University of the frequency of letters in the English language, based on a sample of 40,000 words. The total frequency with which x, y, or z appear among letters is 1.35%.  Calculating the frequency of, say, random six-letter names that don’t contain such a letter would be about (0.987) to the sixth power, or about 0.95, or 95%.  But of course that is an underestimate, as a drug name is unlikely to have two or more of those three letters, and it has to have a vowel. I don’t know how to do the proper math, which is impossible given that the names are made up, but I have to conclude that drug manufacturers think their wares will sell better if they have one of the Three Letters.

(There may be some miscalculations here, or other sites may give slightly different )

One of the Vera Rubin Observatory's objectives is to detect incoming objects. It's decade-long Legacy Survey of Space and Time will detect one-meter class objects about to impact Earth and allow more detailed observations of them. That will help determine their impact sites with greater accuracy, allowing for more recovery.

Just a few days in simulated microgravity can subtly change the way women’s blood clots, sparking bigger questions about health monitoring protocols for astronauts who can spend six months or more in orbit, say Simon Fraser University researchers.

When New Scientist reporter James Woodford was assigned to a story about a virus designed to kill rabbits, he never expected to be accused of spreading it

Most of us don’t worry about our health in old age until we get there, but research is increasingly showing that how you live in your mid-50s can have a real impact in your 90s

Imagine you live in a small town. Maybe it’s easy for you to imagine because you actually do. You’ve spent your whole life there. You know all the people, and all the people know you. Years go by. Decades. The same faces at the same corner store, the same routes to the same places, the same sky overhead. It’s comfortable. Predictable. You could walk the whole thing blindfolded and never trip.

Statistics that quantify a person’s predisposition to diseases such as diabetes and cancer can be reverse-engineered to reveal the underlying genetic data, prompting privacy concerns