Enrico Fermi’s signature on the wine bottle that celebrated the first nuclear chain reaction

The warming climate fosters hotter temperatures, more intense storms, larger wildfires, and longer droughts, among other extremes. But how much does human-caused climate change influence a specific event such as a heat wave or storm? Scientists in the field of extreme event attribution are increasingly able to answer that question, according to a new report…

Serotonin is usually associated with mood, sleep, and digestion. But research published in 2023 suggests this chemical messenger may also influence a small structure that performs a vital job during every heartbeat: the mitral valve. The multicenter investigation found evidence that reduced activity of the serotonin transporter may accelerate damaging changes in valves already affected…

Could eating lots of chili peppers affect your cancer risk? Scientists have been debating that question for years, and the answer remains far from simple. While chili peppers contain compounds that have shown anti inflammatory and even anticancer effects in laboratory experiments, some human studies have linked very high consumption to a greater risk of…

It’s easy to think of our home galaxy as a relatively stable place, a neatly ordered disk sailing serenely through space like a frisbee – but it may be a lot more turbulent than it looks. According to new simulation research, the entire disk of the Milky Way may have gradually tipped onto its side…

This past week, a child stood on the observation deck of Toronto’s CN Tower and looked out at a city skyline blurred by haze. Hundreds of miles away, National Guard troops patrolled a smoke-dimmed National Mall in Washington, and commuters pulled on masks. Smoke drifting south from Canada’s wildfires has become an almost annual visitor…

New research led by scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California has revealed the identity of a puzzling near-Earth object by precisely tracking its motion through space and using powerful observatories that image faint celestial objects. This object has a dual personality: Past images hadn’t revealed obvious cometlike activity, suggesting it might be…