The Latest Breaking News from the US National Science Foundation

Our prehistoric human ancestors relied on deliberately modified and sharpened stone tools as early as 3.3 million years ago. The selection of rock type depended on how easily the material could be flaked to the desired shape and form.

Worldwide, an estimated 440 million people were exposed to a wildfire encroaching on their home at some point between 2002 and 2021, new research shows. That’s roughly equivalent to the entire population of the European Union, and the number has been steadily rising – up 40% over those two decades.

Automating food is unlike automating anything else. Food is fundamental to life – nourishing body and soul – so how it’s accessed, prepared and consumed can change societies fundamentally.

As we focused our microscope on the soil sample for the first time, bits of organic material came into view: a tiny poppy seed, the compound eye of an insect, broken willow twigs and spikemoss spores. Dark-colored spheres produced by soil fungi dominated our view.

Black holes are remarkable astronomical objects with gravity so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape them. The most gigantic ones, known as “supermassive” black holes, can weigh millions to billions times the mass of the Sun.

Wind-farm owners in Europe are holding off on scrapping their old turbines to maximise the power they can generate from them. That’s the latest news from a meeting we recently attended on the industry’s future. Wind turbines are designed to last 25 years, but the calculus for owners appears to…

About 400,000 years ago, large parts of Greenland were ice-free. Scrubby tundra basked in the Sun’s rays on the island’s northwest highlands. Evidence suggests that a forest of spruce trees, buzzing with insects, covered the southern part of Greenland. Global sea level was much higher then, between 20 and 40…