The European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) have signed a Memorandum of Cooperation to deepen collaboration in planetary defense, alongside a dedicated agreement for collaboration on the Rapid Apophis Mission for Space Safety (Ramses) to the near-Earth asteroid Apophis.

The agreements were signed on 7 May by ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher and JAXA President Hiroshi Yamakawa at the Embassy of Italy in Berlin, Germany, in the presence of European and Japanese institutional and industrial leadership. The event was hosted in collaboration with the Italian Space Agency (ASI), in light of ESA’s selection of OHB Italia as prime contractor for the Ramses mission.

The move builds on a joint statement from November ...

c Decaf even improved learning and memory, while caffeine boosted focus and reduced anxiety. Together, they show coffee works through multiple pathways beyond just caffeine.

Researchers at APC Microbiome Ireland, a leading research center at University College Cork, have taken a major step toward understanding how coffee benefits the body. For the first time, scientists have closely examined how coffee interacts with the gut-brain axis, the communication network that links the digestive system and the brain.

The findings, published in Nature Communications and supported by the Institute for Scientific Information on Coffee (ISIC), show that regularly drinking both caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee can shape the gut microbiome and influence mood and stress.

How Coffee Affec...

Scientists just spotted a mysterious quantum “dance” that could rewrite superconductivity—and reshape future tech. For the first time, researchers have directly visualized the quantum behavior that drives superconductivity, a state in which paired electrons allow electricity to flow with zero resistance at very low temperatures.

But what they observed came as a surprise.

In a study published April 15 in Physical Review Letters, the team captured images of individual atoms forming pairs inside a specially prepared gas cooled to nearly absolute zero — the unreachable limit to how cold anything can get...

Astronomers have spotted something surprising in the far outer Solar System—a faint, short-lived atmosphere clinging to a tiny icy world that shouldn’t be able to hold one at all. The object, called 2002XV93, is far smaller than Pluto, yet observations during a rare stellar alignment revealed its presence through a subtle dimming of starlight. Even more puzzling, calculations suggest this atmosphere should vanish within about 1,000 years unless it’s constantly being replenished.

A group of professional and amateur astronomers in Japan has uncovered evidence that a small, distant object in the outer Solar System is surrounded by a thin atmosp...