Extreme Ocean Pressure Is Leaking Nutrients From Sinking Marine Snow to Deep-Sea Life

Scientists discovered that deep-sea pressure squeezes carbon and nitrogen from sinking organic particles, providing an unexpected food source for microbes and potentially rewriting how the ocean's carbon cycle works.

Great Apes Use Hugs and Reassuring Touch to Keep the Peace, Study Finds

A study of 116 chimpanzees and bonobos found that physical affection before feeding conflicts led to more peaceful sharing, suggesting the evolutionary roots of human social touch stretch back at least six million years.

Three Bones from the 1990s Reveal a Lost Giant Salamander

Fossil vertebrae found in Japan more than two decades ago have been identified as a new genus and species of giant salamander that lived 3.5 million years ago.

Atomic Movie Shows DNA Unzipping by Releasing a Switch, Not Pulling a Strand

Scientists have filmed DNA unzipping at atomic resolution, revealing helicase uses ATP as an 'entropy switch'—a universal mechanism with direct implications for designing antiviral and anticancer drugs.

A Cell from Nothing: How Scientists Built a Synthetic Organism with a Complete Life Cycle

Researchers at the University of Minnesota have created the world's first synthetic cell built entirely from non-living chemicals, capable of feeding, growing, replicating its genome, and dividing into two new cells.