Astronomers at the Center for Astrophysics, Harvard & Smithsonian have detected the first known atmosphere on a rocky planet orbiting within the habitable zone of another star. This is the strongest evidence yet for an Earth-like world that could potentially support life outside our solar system. The planet, slightly larger than Earth, orbits a red dwarf star and shows clear spectroscopic signs of an atmosphere, though its exact composition is still under study.
A joint investigation by Science and Retraction Watch revealed that a 6-year-old girl in China died in March 2025 after receiving an experimental gene therapy for a nonlethal condition. Her death was never made public by the scientists involved. The case raises serious questions about China's regulation of experimental therapies and the ethical oversight of clinical trials.
The NIH-funded 4D Nucleome Program published landmark studies in Science, revealing how the human genome folds in 3D over time and identifying over 140,000 looping interactions between genes and regulatory elements.
The White House announced more than $5 billion in federal commitments for the Genesis Mission, a national initiative to harness artificial intelligence for accelerating scientific breakthroughs across medicine, energy, and infrastructure.
ETH Zurich researchers used advanced 3D computer simulations to show that Venus's giant rift valleys may be geologically young and still expanding. Published in Nature Geoscience, the study challenges the long-held view of Venus as a dormant world and could guide future NASA and ESA missions to the planet.
Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have discovered and directly imaged a third planet in the Beta Pictoris system, a young planetary system located approximately 63 light-years from Earth. The newly identified exoplanet, designated Beta Pictoris d, joins two previously known gas giants orbiting the star. The direct imaging achievement — capturing actual light from the planet rather than inferring its presence through transit or radial velocity — provides scientists with an unprecedented opportunity to study the atmosphere and formation history of a young planetary system still in its early evolutionary stages.
Researchers have found a way to revive vancomycin, a powerful antibiotic that many dangerous bacteria had learned to resist. Instead of creating a new drug, scientists paired vancomycin with a small molecule called pghi-4 that blocks bacterial resistance mechanisms. The breakthrough offers a potential new weapon against drug-resistant infections, which the WHO has identified as one of the top global health threats.
Astronomers have detected erythrulose, a four-carbon sugar, in interstellar space for the first time, marking a major advance in understanding how life's building blocks form beyond Earth. The discovery, published in Nature Astronomy, was made by an international team led by the Center for Astrobiology in Spain using radio telescope observations. The finding suggests that millions of tons of sugars could have arrived on early Earth via comets and meteorites.
Astronomers have confirmed the first atmosphere around a rocky planet in another star's habitable zone. The discovery, made using the James Webb Space Telescope, marks a milestone in the search for potentially life-supporting worlds beyond our solar system. The planet, LHS 1140b, is a rocky world about 1.7 times Earth's size orbiting a red dwarf star 49 light-years away. Scientists detected helium escaping from its atmosphere, confirming the presence of a gaseous envelope.