Science

A journal retroactively retracted two 1940s Max Planck papers, not for fraud, but for duplicate publication German physicist Max Planck, the founder of quantum theory, 1918 Nobel laureate and one of the most unimpeachable figures in the history of science, has joined an unusual list: Nobel Prize winners with retracted papers. The list is usually […]

Wild tomato genomes reveal how structural variants and retrotransposon explosions block crossbreeding Wild tomato species carry valuable genetic traits, drought tolerance, disease resistance, salt tolerance, that breeders would love to introduce into cultivated tomatoes. There is one persistent obstacle: when you cross a wild tomato with a domestic one, the chromosomes refuse to swap genetic […]

Iran conflict disrupts platinum supply, leaving Indian doctors rationing chemotherapy Hospitals across India face a critical shortage of cisplatin and carboplatin, two of the most widely used chemotherapy drugs in the country, forcing oncologists to ration treatment in ways that would have been unthinkable months ago. The Lancet, in a World Report published June 27, […]

Only HIIT preserved muscle while burning fat in older adults, 6-month study finds A six-month randomized trial from the University of the Sunshine Coast (UniSC) and the University of Queensland has found that high-intensity interval training (HIIT) was the only exercise mode that helped older adults lose body fat while preserving lean muscle mass. Moderate-intensity […]

A study of 463,396 adolescents , the largest of its kind to examine the link between teenage cannabis use and clinically diagnosed mental illness , has found that any past-year cannabis use at ages 13 to 17 is associated with roughly double the risk of developing psychotic disorders and bipolar disorder by age 26. The […]

The United Kingdom has experienced two record-shattering heatwaves in the space of two months, the first time such a pair of extreme events has occurred before August since 1911. A red extreme heat warning, only the second of its kind since the system was introduced in 2021, was issued for the June heatwave, and forecasters […]

In April 2026, the New England Journal of Medicine, one of the most prestigious medical journals in the world, retracted a case study. The article, in the journal’s “Images in Clinical Medicine” section, described an 87-year-old man who coughed up bronchial casts after exposure to a forest fire. The image showed black, branching airway casts […]

It is one of the most universal frustrations of growing older: no matter how carefully you eat or how consistently you exercise, the belly fat seems to appear anyway. Even people whose weight remains stable in middle age often watch their waistlines expand as muscle mass declines. New research published in Science now explains why, […]

At 6:04 p.m. local time on June 24, as millions of Venezuelans watched Scotland play Brazil in a World Cup match, the ground began to shake. In Yumare, a town 90 kilometers (56 miles) west of Caracas, a magnitude 7.2 earthquake ruptured at a depth of 20 kilometers. Thirty-nine seconds later, a second, more powerful […]

For years, cell-free systems have been a powerful but limited tool in synthetic biology. They allow researchers to carry out transcription and translation outside a living cell, making them ideal for prototyping genetic circuits, producing difficult proteins, and building biosensors. But there has been a trade-off: the yield of messenger RNA (mRNA) from these systems […]